I work very long hours, and it would be nice if, one or two days a month (or even just a few times per year), I were allowed to work from home and maybe, you know, hang out with my family a little bit between Monday and Friday. The way a law firm works, if I bill hours, it makes no difference to the firm's bottom line where I actually am when those hours are billed. We have Citrix and can work remotely just fine. Yet, with really no rationale other than "just because," my firm does not and apparently will never permit people to do a full days' work from home, even a few days a year. Either haul your ass in, or take a personal or vacation day.
I speak to people in other industries (and even some other law firms), and they are in disbelief at our inflexible policy, which seems to be a pre-internet and pre-Citrix relic.
What are your employers' work from home policies? Does anyone have a formerly inflexible employer who liberalized in this regard?
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Pretty hard to burn huts from home, unless you have a couple of drones. Then, I could see it being the best of all worlds.
Who said I don't have access to drones? You underestimate me, sir.
I have a drone mission request. Could you oblige me by sending one by with a couple of bottles of Scotch?
Yeah...that would be a negative. We have important mission. There are a lot of huts that need burning.
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I have a drone mission request. Could you oblige me by sending one by with a couple of bottles of Scotch?
Yeah...that would be a negative. We have important mission. There are a lot of huts that need burning.
Fucker! I knew I shouldn't have trusted you to follow through! Well, OK, how about burning down Greg's hut for me?
It is great to WFH. Especially with young kids. I get to participate in alot more kids activities then if I was commuting everyday. Plus if the kids sick (or school is closed) I can watch them and work.
It really depends on the company though. The company has to be remote friendly. Otherwise working remotely full time you wind up getting sidelined. Fortunately my company is very remote friendly. We use google hangouts multiple times a day and use Slack for company communications. It also helped that another person on my team is fully remote and he started the same time I did.
I'm found acceptance of working from home has to do with management having trust in employees. While on conference calls, I cringe when I hear a baby or little kid crying in the background or someone forgets to go a mute and has a conversation with their spouse. I've even been on calls when the talker excuses themselves for a few minutes to answer their door !!! Its these types of behavior that feed management's concerns abt working from home.
I'm trying to come up with a nice way to do just that.
Is it possible for you to look elsewhere for your next job?
I'm found acceptance of working from home has to do with management having trust in employees. While on conference calls, I cringe when I hear a baby or little kid crying in the background or someone forgets to go a mute and has a conversation with their spouse. I've even been on calls when the talker excuses themselves for a few minutes to answer their door !!! Its these types of behavior that feed management's concerns abt working from home.
Haha, I have 2 dogs and if I don't take them for a walk right before a call/hangout, I almost always regret it.
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I'm trying to come up with a nice way to do just that.
Is it possible for you to look elsewhere for your next job?
Not really looking to leave. Management just needs a knock upside the head.
I'm an employer and the work-at-home model has not/does not work for us. Definitely not a one size fits all "improvement". Depends on the industry, the job, & the employee.
What industry are you in, out of curiosity?
Treated like adults? What a concept!
In a perfect world, I could probably work from home one day a week, but it's not worth making an issue out of it.
Don't let anyone fool you, it's the greatest thing ever.
In a perfect world, I could probably work from home one day a week, but it's not worth making an issue out of it.
It wouldn't kill him if, one day a month, he would have to call you at home instead of strolling into your office.
It would never happen at the company I work for but I'm of the opinion that about 50-80% of the support staff and other functions (engineers, auditors, accountants, etc...) at the company I work for could work from home too.
If you cant do the work from home you should be fired or not paid well. Its that simple. Companies underestimate how much it helps parents if they can have an easier commute or can work from home once in awhile. Makes the job more desirable and makes people WANT to work there.
Yea if you abuse it, the option should be taken away. We live in a different world, most non sales jobs can be done remotely.
As an aside, I was a tech ops leader for a large law firm and the partners at my firm were definitely against the wfh idea. No colaboration or pulling people in as they're walking down the hall, that kind of thing. But I always thought that the real objection was that all the partners worked their fuckng asses off to make partner and once they made partner they still worked their fucking asses off. These weren't the work life balance crowd and the associates they esteemed were the workaholic types. Always. If you're looking for work life balance, being a lawyer in a big firm probably isn't the place to find it.
That said, I'm older than a lot of you and did the workaholic thing for decades before getting to this point ....
I was a supervisor in my previous job and we struggled with the working from home thing. Precisely because some people just used it as an excuse to take a day off. But I think if there is a way to see what a person is doing and that they are online and reachable, it should be allowed.
And if you are expected to work at off hours or like today when my office is closed but I need to do a few things through email, why can't you work from home?
I used to work as an off-site graphic artist - 100% from home. Not a bad gig!
Gov't job also allows for true flex, where you can do 4 10-hour days and doesn't expect you to make up sick time. Fuck private sector!
As an aside, I was a tech ops leader for a large law firm and the partners at my firm were definitely against the wfh idea. No colaboration or pulling people in as they're walking down the hall, that kind of thing. But I always thought that the real objection was that all the partners worked their fuckng asses off to make partner and once they made partner they still worked their fucking asses off. These weren't the work life balance crowd and the associates they esteemed were the workaholic types. Always. If you're looking for work life balance, being a lawyer in a big firm probably isn't the place to find it.
I just read an article about how one big law firm is now allowing associates and of counsel to work from home 2 days per month. I get the impromptu collaboration part, but people can impromptu call you on the telephone during business hours as well.
Seriously.
That said, I'm older than a lot of you and did the workaholic thing for decades before getting to this point ....
I do the same over the summer, except substitute beach house for upstate. Nothing beats killing the last conference call of the day, grabbing a beer from the fridge and hitting the beach.
I'm pretty sure that if I lived in FL or CA I'd have died from sun exposure by now, sunscreen be damned.
I just read an article about how one big law firm is now allowing associates and of counsel to work from home 2 days per month. I get the impromptu collaboration part, but people can impromptu call you on the telephone during business hours as well.
Maybe, but I still think for the foreseeable future Big Law culture is going to reward those that dedicate their life to the firm. Those that don't will be marginalized on alternative tracks or spun off to work in house at the firm's clients.
Something else, if your work really can be done from anywhere, then a Big Law firm is already thinking about how to move you out of the action. A lot of firms are opening up alternative tracks for lawyers that don't want to be partners and allowing those associates or counsel to work in lower cost of living areas and flexible hours with quality of life in mind. Further, a lot of firms are automating tasks that used to be ground out by 1st and 2nd years. A lot of firms are outsourcing tasks to service providers and offshore units. Big Law's business model is under assault from any number of forces.
But, even with all that change, unless you fit a special interest demo, if you want to be a Partner at a Big Law firm, you better just resign yourself to the fact that you're going to be at work all the time.
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I just read an article about how one big law firm is now allowing associates and of counsel to work from home 2 days per month. I get the impromptu collaboration part, but people can impromptu call you on the telephone during business hours as well.
Maybe, but I still think for the foreseeable future Big Law culture is going to reward those that dedicate their life to the firm. Those that don't will be marginalized on alternative tracks or spun off to work in house at the firm's clients.
Something else, if your work really can be done from anywhere, then a Big Law firm is already thinking about how to move you out of the action. A lot of firms are opening up alternative tracks for lawyers that don't want to be partners and allowing those associates or counsel to work in lower cost of living areas and flexible hours with quality of life in mind. Further, a lot of firms are automating tasks that used to be ground out by 1st and 2nd years. A lot of firms are outsourcing tasks to service providers and offshore units. Big Law's business model is under assault from any number of forces.
But, even with all that change, unless you fit a special interest demo, if you want to be a Partner at a Big Law firm, you better just resign yourself to the fact that you're going to be at work all the time.
I'm already a partner, but at a mid-sized firm. I think maybe one or two days of WFH a month would be a nice recognition that maybe I have a clue what I'm doing and know a thing or two about efficiency and work prioritization. But apparently I'm asking too much.
My home has been my office for over 20 years. I go to the corp office on occasion for meetings.
What do they do if an employee has a sick kid at home, or the plumber is coming ? Do they honestly prefer that employee take the entire day off rather than getting work done from home ?
I see from your profile that you live in Wantagh. My nephew lives in Wantagh and works in the City. His hours are probably not as bad as yours, but he works from home one or two days a week.
I'm wondering what the attraction is of working in a place that treats its people like this.
What do they do if an employee has a sick kid at home, or the plumber is coming ? Do they honestly prefer that employee take the entire day off rather than getting work done from home ?
I see from your profile that you live in Wantagh. My nephew lives in Wantagh and works in the City. His hours are probably not as bad as yours, but he works from home one or two days a week.
I'm wondering what the attraction is of working in a place that treats its people like this.
The theory is that if you are an attorney and have a sick kid at home, you either (1) have a nanny or non-working spouse that will take care of the kid, or (2) you will take a personal day and yet still work at home.
Supposedly, when attorneys (even senior attorneys) have sought to work here and have tried to negotiate the ability to work from home, say, one day a week or month, they've said no and they've let the attorney walk. There is no rationale - it's the rule because it's the rule.
Mind you, after years of complaints by female attorneys in the firm, only recently did they actually institute a partially paid maternity leave policy (it used to be totally unpaid) and start a program where attorneys can work 4 days a week. But if you work 4 days you are not on partnership track, and my understanding is that the 4-day attorneys typically do some level of work from home on the fifth day anyway.
There are good things about the firm, but family-friendly policies are not among them.
Beautiful.
But I'm way happier in my new job. A few annoying ones aside, I like my coworkers. As I'm still relatively new I like the ability to organically, spontaneously strike up a face to face conversation with them. And I get exercise riding my bike.
That's how I see it. I prefer the separation of the two, and feeling as though I'm arriving at and leaving from my job.
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I get that some companies such as yours are hostile to the idea of working at home but the inflexibility your company is showing is surprising and indicative of other problems. Do more senior people work from home in spite of their policy ? Are you being shit on because you are low on the totem pole ?
What do they do if an employee has a sick kid at home, or the plumber is coming ? Do they honestly prefer that employee take the entire day off rather than getting work done from home ?
I see from your profile that you live in Wantagh. My nephew lives in Wantagh and works in the City. His hours are probably not as bad as yours, but he works from home one or two days a week.
I'm wondering what the attraction is of working in a place that treats its people like this.
The theory is that if you are an attorney and have a sick kid at home, you either (1) have a nanny or non-working spouse that will take care of the kid, or (2) you will take a personal day and yet still work at home.
Supposedly, when attorneys (even senior attorneys) have sought to work here and have tried to negotiate the ability to work from home, say, one day a week or month, they've said no and they've let the attorney walk. There is no rationale - it's the rule because it's the rule.
Mind you, after years of complaints by female attorneys in the firm, only recently did they actually institute a partially paid maternity leave policy (it used to be totally unpaid) and start a program where attorneys can work 4 days a week. But if you work 4 days you are not on partnership track, and my understanding is that the 4-day attorneys typically do some level of work from home on the fifth day anyway.
There are good things about the firm, but family-friendly policies are not among them.
Isn't it sad that we're essentially the only first world nation that allows a company to pull that shit?