Landmark Klaxon!

[Tredman]

I sat on a planning discussion panel at Birmingham university about it (exciting life I lead) and there was a lot of talk around how it had been successful around Europe and some parts of the UK. Main issue though was people being lazy first and not keeping the communal areas in good condition.

 

[Law's Bus]

Yeah, that's a really good idea. Hard to see anyone taking that on for office space in the current climate (and the current standing of Wolves as a city).

The problem with office space in the city centre (which most people moaning about i9 on Facebook and the Guess and Stir can't see) is that the vast majority of it isn't really fit for purpose any more - this building included. They're 60s and 70s buildings, built for a time where the power requirements of an office ran to a few lights, where there was no computing, so no networking, nowhere to put servers, poor insulation, and generally all the things that modern businesses want.

It's the commercial equivalent of saying "we don't need new houses, look, there's all these empty slums over there".

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I sat on a planning discussion panel at Birmingham university about it (exciting life I lead) and there was a lot of talk around how it had been successful around Europe and some parts of the UK. Main issue though was people being lazy first and not keeping the communal areas in good condition.

True, loads of us have lived with a nightmare housemate at some point, imagine multiples of them. You have to trust people not to be cunts I suppose, which isn't easy.

The problem with office space in the city centre (which most people moaning about i9 on Facebook and the Guess and Stir can't see) is that the vast majority of it isn't really fit for purpose any more - this building included. They're 60s and 70s buildings, built for a time where the power requirements of an office ran to a few lights, where there was no computing, so no networking, nowhere to put servers, poor insulation, and generally all the things that modern businesses want.

It's the commercial equivalent of saying "we don't need new houses, look, there's all these empty slums over there".

Spot on. Office life should be dying out to a massive extent anyway over the next decade. So many jobs don't need to be done in one location, the amount of time wasted on commuting (as well as the continual damage it causes to the environment) is criminal.

There would be absolutely zero benefit to anyone if I had to travel to an office even just in the centre of town (one single 6 minute train ride away).

 

[Tredman]

Yeah, they are seeing that in Dublin already. City is growing, but actual people travelling and working in centre is stagnant.

 

[Lupo]

I work in the ultimate 1970s building in town - the Civic Centre!

 

[Law's Bus]

Office life should be dying out to a massive extent anyway over the next decade. So many jobs don't need to be done in one location, the amount of time wasted on commuting (as well as the continual damage it causes to the environment) is criminal.

Yep. I can literally do my job from anywhere - we have Skype for Business on every meeting, full access to everything I do, the works. Up until a couple of months ago, I got to work from home two days a week, which brought the average commute time over the week to something sensible, given I work near the NEC and it can take a couple of hours via bus and train; plus a day a week in London. However, management can't deal with seeing empty desks, so it's back to visual management and one day a week.

I find on WFH days I work solidly from 0700 until about 1800 when I notice the time. If I'm in the office, I'm out of the door at 1500...

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Again that mindset *should* die out when people who started working in the 70s/80s/early-mid 90s retire and the next generation take over.

People don't react well to the culture they grew up with changing. I still can't get my head around paying for a drink at a bar with my card, because when I started going to pubs, that was the mark of a dick as the barman would have to get the machine out, mess around with the till etc. Clearly now it actually is miles more convenient with contactless, it's a 0.05 second transaction. But my tiny mind can't comprehend that so I carry cash everywhere. And wake up on a Sunday morning with about 23 pound coins in my jeans.

 

[Tredman]

It's odd, i have free reign to work from anywhere i want (10 offices in UK, loads abroad or my home). When i have nothing on i still go to our office in Birmingham at least twice a week - even when all my direct colleagues are here in Holland.

Having worked from home full time, I think I appreciate a modicum of human contact. Still going home by 4 latest though.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

It's odd, i have free reign to work from anywhere i want (10 offices in UK, loads abroad or my home). When i have nothing on i still go to our office in Birmingham at least twice a week - even when all my direct colleagues are here in Holland.

Having worked from home full time, I think I appreciate a modicum of human contact. Still going home by 4 latest though.

You should try being a borderline sociopath mate, it saves so much time per week. Trust me.

 

[Tredman]

You should try being a borderline sociopath mate, it saves so much time per week. Trust me.

Oh I think I'm there, it's probably only by going to an office full of weirdos I can fully get my dose of feeling superior.

 

[sycophantia]

I still find it odd that people can work from home, choose their hours or work in different places....all power to you guys. Suppose lots of jobs are in tech or your work is accessible via tech these days. As someone who has worked in industry/manufacturing for 45 years its seems a perfect work balance, in my world if one person isn't at work due to holidays or sickness the whole process goes to shit and everybody runs around stressing. Having said all that I'm not sure I'm disciplined enough to work from home.....I'm easily distracted

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

It takes quite a while to get it right, I've been doing it on and off for a decade now.

Ultimately I don't have a supply chain as such. Someone asks me to do a job - I do it. If it's shit, or late, or I don't bother doing it - I don't get paid. Really simple.

I probably couldn't have done my HBOS job from home (maybe a day or two a week at a push), my other two main office jobs, yes I could if the equipment were there.

 

[MARKakaJIM]

I like the separation of going somewhere else to work, not that I think I'd be focused enough to properly work from home, when you've had a shit day and you can just leave everything behind at the office, go home and forget about it until tomorrow. I suppose you could setup yourself a proper office at home that you only use for work and nothing else to try to replicate that divide but I wouldn't want to be giving up a room of my house for work when it could be used for something else.

I could do pretty much by entire job from home but it'd take some doing to replicate the resources I have available at work in my home and without those resources it would always been slower progress at home without those resources to rely on, whether that be working on a poxy laptop screen opposed to the big desktop monitor, lack of printing facilities or just the ability to saunter down to someone's office to ask a question.

I think it's one of those that sounds good to me in principle but unless I went back to having a big commute then I don't think the practicalities of it would ever make it something I'd choose to do.

 

[Tredman]

I have a separate room at home i work from, works well. Pretty much always get more done at home than work. Helps that we are fully invested in office 365 and online apps etc.

If i feel the need to get out I go for a walk at lunchtime.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Swings and roundabouts isn't it. You don't fancy home being "work", I don't fancy spending say, two hours on a train or in a train station every day (which would be more or less the case if I worked in Birmingham), invariably standing up all the time I'm on said train as capacity is shite, just wasting away my own time, an entire 21 days of my life every single year where I might as well be zapped with morphine as nothing is happening.

I finish work at say, 5.30, and yay, I'm home at 5.30.

 

[sycophantia]

Yeah I'm a bit envious, but is it possible you could work yourself into the ground? i.e. if you're working from home end up up wprking 24/7. I often go in early and work late so might work from 7am -8pm but as the place closes down at 8 at least I know thats the latest I will finish

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

It balances out, I'll have some crazy days where I'm constantly on the go for 12+ hours and then other days where not a great deal needs doing and it's just housekeeping and background work more than anything.

It isn't for everyone. I've been out of the office game for so long now (2010, although quite a bit of that was because I was too ill to work at all rather than by choice) that it would take a silly offer for me to ever go back, and even then I don't know. I don't care about money as such, so long as I can feed myself, keep myself in decent nick, go to the football, see my mates then I don't want much else. I like what I do now and for the first time in about 15 years I'm actually enjoying my life, by and large.

 

[sycophantia]

It balances out, I'll have some crazy days where I'm constantly on the go for 12+ hours and then other days where not a great deal needs doing and it's just housekeeping and background work more than anything.

It isn't for everyone. I've been out of the office game for so long now (2010, although quite a bit of that was because I was too ill to work at all rather than by choice) that it would take a silly offer for me to ever go back, and even then I don't know. I don't care about money as such, so long as I can feed myself, keep myself in decent nick, go to the football, see my mates then I don't want much else. I like what I do now and for the first time in about 15 years I'm actually enjoying my life, by and large.

Thats the way to live your life imo, I dont really care about money, long as I can pay my bills, do stuff with my family and friends,have a few pints on a friday, go to the Wolves occasionally and run my bike, I'm happy as a pig in shit.....none of it costs much

 

[MARKakaJIM]

Swings and roundabouts isn't it. You don't fancy home being "work", I don't fancy spending say, two hours on a train or in a train station every day (which would be more or less the case if I worked in Birmingham), invariably standing up all the time I'm on said train as capacity is shite, just wasting away my own time, an entire 21 days of my life every single year where I might as well be zapped with morphine as nothing is happening.

I finish work at say, 5.30, and yay, I'm home at 5.30.

It's all relative though isn't it.

Until last summer I'd spent three years doing 2.5 hours driving a day for my 100 mile round trip to work, it was a bit of a slog at times but I never considered it a waste of time at any point because it was on opportunity to work for a good company and get experience of big interesting jobs that I couldn't necessarily get on my doorstep. Now that I've moved up here it's more like 30 minutes a day in the car on average so it's 10 hours a week or so I've got back, though most of that probably gets lost doing stuff around the house that I never had to bother doing back at my parents.

Today I had to go down to a site in Croydon and that's certainly a commute I wouldn't fancy every day, or even once a week, up at 5.30am to get a train at 6.30am (which ended up late) another hour connecting trains across London and a small walk to site means it's 10am by the time I actually get to site. Come 3pm or so and I'm packing my shit up to make the return trip so I get back at something like a reasonable hour, out the house for about 13 hours for 5 hours actually on site, though not all the travelling time wasn't completely wasted because I'd booked a table to seat and could work away on my laptop, output somewhat stunted by even bigger issues than what I'd face working from home. Again though, I don't see it as a complete waste because I do like a day out on site, somethings just need to be done in person, chance to put faces to names you've only seen on email and it breaks up the routine a bit.

I'd not be in any rush to get back to an hour plus commute anytime soon but considering most other big main contractor's round this way are based in Nottingham then if I ever was looking to move then my commute would be heading in that direction pretty quickly and if the opportunity seemed worth it then it's a sacrifice worth making, might just need to get some more work done about the house before that's viable.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Personal preference, ain't it Mark (and it depends what industry you're in).

No one I work for should ever really give a shit where I'm tapping my keyboard.

I do still see people in person as required, I'm not a hermit. I'm very much alive, enough people will vouch for that.