5 days work from office is the Best

Where do you prefer working from

I know a lot of people love working from home. But small rant here. Honestly, straight out of college I thought I would do too. But no, I absolutely do not. Why? 1. No personality development. It's honestly like an online college all over again (1/2 of my college "life" was online). I talk to a screen, waste a lot of time otherwise. 2. I don't have a room to call my own. I know this is going to make me sound like a privileged brat but I need my privacy to feel my full confident self. My family members are always on top of my head and spy on me during work. No they really do. 3. I hate, absolutely LOATHE approaching people on teams. I'm more social, confident and comfortable working in an offline setting be it presenting something or talking to senior folks in general. 4. I have NO life outside of the computer/home. My hobbies, interests everything are inside the tiny room I share with my parents. I still have 2 different desks (which are literally next to each other) for work and personal stuff respectively. When I had offline semesters, it was really awesome as I had balance. I graduated in 2023 and of course I have a lot to learn, but I'm seriously thinking about searching for another job that's not WFH. I'm still early career and I think I should not be working remote. Am I stupid?

I've had the fortune of having worked in 3 countries so far. India is by far the most exciting place to be in 2024. But there's something about our work ethic that just concerns me. In both white and blue collar. In most other countries, I've observed people strictly sticking to the 9 to 5, working diligently in those hours - not wasting too much time on chai sutta breaks, instagram browsing, gupshup etc. They work for 8 hours, then leave. And think about work directly the next day. In India, most of us spend more hours - but very obviously very few of those hours are productive. In fact, I lately feel that too many people around me are doing even 2-3 hours of work on a good day. We end up just staying around, passing time, and then go back home. When we could have achieved so much more. Work ethic has fallen. Work hours have gone up. We need to be more mindful of our actions, we need to work well at work, and then do well at home. I think it's a function of being over populated. There are 1.5-2 people doing what 1 person should be doing, hence this effect. Needs to be fixed, it's the sign of a major problem in the workforce. Thoughts?

We all have heard about the toxic culture of Edtech. Unacademy is now in the top spot when it comes to companies with toxic culture. Any company cannot be more cruel than this: 1. Abusive language by leaders - COO, CBOs, SVP, VP and other leaders treat employees as slaves. They themselves have made huge lossess and are burning investors money but when any employee voice out their opinion/asks for leaves, the leaders abuse employees badly even in front of other stakeholders. 2. Forceful long working hours - Even if you complete your work in 8-9 hours, you are forced to sit for 11-12 hours just to show the founders. People hardly work after certain hours but they just have to sit and waste their time. This is tiring and there is no work life balance. No time to spend with family. I hardly get chance to spen time with child. 3. Late night reviews - So the company has started this new way of conducting monthly reviews late in the night. People are asked to sit till 2-3 AM for reviews. And this review is nothing but a setup where COO abuses the employees. 4. Forced paycuts - We have seen a forced paycut for the leaders (VP, SVP, Directors etc). 'No appraisal' was still somehow digestable but how can a company justify the degrowth in the earnings of their employees. Company has money to sponsor TVF web series (Sandeep Bhaiya), invite Standup comedians (Biswa and Prashasti), distribute pizzas to all the employees but when someone voices out for paycuts, they don't have money. 5. No Flexibility In Working The company witnessed its highest growth and revenue when 100% of the employees were working from home but now the founders think that people do not work from home so they have called everyone to work from office for 6 days a week. If someone asks for a work from home, the leaders denies or ask to apply leave to work from home. Be it rains, election, etc - we are asked to work from office. Even during the day of election in Karnataka we were called in the office.

I know this is not what majority of people like to listen, but for people coming from other cities with no friends and poor social skills, working remote or hybrid starts taking a toll on your mental health. The isolation it brings is so overwhelming. You feel trapped and frustrated, when there's no one to talk to. Sometimes, I feel the quality of life of our kind of lower than street vendors at least they have people they can talk to. I just hate the way we are wired to be social animals yet find it overly difficult to connect with people.

What's the WFH / WFO policy for tech teams at Uber? Is it different for different teams?

Am I the only one who likes working from office (Bengaluru)? I go to office every day, and it helps me to be more productive. - There will be no distractions - Team mates will be around, and if there is any queries, I can straight away ask them rather than typing a message or setting up a call - Occasional chit chats - Having lunch together - being a part of all the conversations happening - Managers works from office - a good rapport with him as well - Free food - Free Transport (can mates - another plus point) - Good work set-up - Meet new people almost every day - Build/deepen real connections every day - Interact with folks starting from entey level to senior directors or VPs regularly (L1 - L9 is the range mentioned here) FYI: I moved to Bengaluru for work, although I've the option to work completely remote. One of my team member even mentioned that he has not yet been able to connect with the team member who has joined before me, like how he could connect with me. I understand that once people have family, it will be difficult to manage everything. One of my team mate actually mentioned that, he used to do/manage everything properly before Covid, but it's kind of not easy/lazy since Covid. I also realise that not everyone has the above perks, but still. Commute can be an issue. I travel 50+ KMs every day to and fro. I start by 7 am in the morning to morning traffic, and take around 75 minutes in the evening (I can survive the traffic without having to use my mobile 😂) I do miss my family frequently, but I do have the flexibility to go home and stay a few days when I want. Staying alone in a service apartment is the only disadvantage as of now.

Hey folks. Happy Friday! What this post is: a place to hang around and chat just about anything - without having a specific topic to discuss. Think of it like the watercooler at your office. Look forward to hearing from you all!