20 Bullsh*t Excuses Bosses Make To Get You Back in the Office
“The office separates work and home life”
Hey Part Timers,
Well, I’m writing this to you early on a Sunday morning in mid-September, and that can only mean one thing: it’s almost time for Sunday morning football!!
I even got an email from Mind Cafe explaining how football was a guilty pleasure of theirs. I think it serves as an important reminder not to punish yourself for wanting to relax. You may not be exactly where you want to be, but as long as you’re making steps in the right direction, you’ll get there.
It takes patience. So, while you wait, why not watch a little football on Sundays? Or, better yet, read this post I handcrafted just for you. I kinda spilled the tea on this one.
20 Bullsh*t Excuses Bosses Make To Get You Back in the Office
If the office had legs, it wouldn’t be able to stand on its own two feet.
We saw what happened during the pandemic: WeWork almost went out of business, offices big and small shut down, and previously established remote workers had the last laugh. Regular ‘ol employees also realized they could do their jobs from the comfort of their own homes.
On top of that, they were 13% more productive than they were in classic office settings. So why does your boss want to stuff you into an open floor plan that slows productivity or a cubicle that sucks out your soul?
These are their reasons, and frankly speaking, they’re pretty, pretty lame.
1. Healthy work-life balance
If you look on your left, you’ll see fallacy number one. The idea that spending hours in traffic every week, packing a lunch, and sitting in a half-exposed cubicle improves your work-life balance is just jaw-dropping.
A healthy balance starts with you, not your job. The fact is, it’s easier to maintain healthy energy levels, eat whole foods that make you feel good, and get a good night of sleep when you work from home. When you physically feel like a king, or queen, the quality of your mental health skyrockets. As a result, you perform better knowing that everything in your life is taken care of.
2. Assured workspace quality
My old job made me work at an outdoor desk during the pandemic. I couldn’t complain about the 90-degree weather, winds that constantly blew papers away, or the continuous ash I breathed in from the California wildfires in 2020. Then, when it got dark, the portable lamps weren't reliable and often short-circuited.
I could’ve worked from home and used Zoom to meet face-to-face with my clients. Instead, we went back “to the office” so our bosses could watch over us. They can’t assure anything because only the devil deals in absolutes.
The power might go out at your house, but if you like having a clean desk and plenty of space to work, you’ll make sure you have everything you need, just like you would if you were at the office (an indoor one).
3. Office culture is important
~The culture~
4. Networking
Networking is vital for the budding entrepreneur. Do you think your boss wants you to network with other companies that are ready to sweep you off your feet?
Besides, the best networking events don’t happen at the office. I don’t work at home to avoid people at all costs; I do it becasue it makes my life better. You can work from home and still go out and mingle in real life.
5. It’s essential to build relationships with team members
I agree, but do you want to see a magic trick?
Me after the Zoom meeting: Hey, is anyone up for drinks this Friday after work?
Mostly everyone in the meeting: Hell yeah, let’s go.
We meet for drinks to bond and build our relationships. It’s easier to get to know people when you tear off the work shackles.
6. Offices improve employee wellbeing
I’m not too sure about that one, but I know I'm happier sleeping an extra 30 minutes, saving gas money, and not having to blowdry my hair every day.
I never forget to pack a lunch either becasue, well, my fridge is right around the corner.
7. Offices give a physical sense of the brand
Brand perception is essential, but you don’t need a dingy office space to see the product or understand what your company stands for.
That’s why brand bibles exist. Wait, your company doesn’t have one? Then how are your bosses supposed to have a sense of the brand either?
8. “Our office is 100% green”
Businesses love to tout they’re saving the planet when their whole goal is to create products or provide services. Imagine saying your office uses renewable sources of energy, but your employees show up in gas-powered cars.
Unless your company’s number one mission is to save the planet, chances are you’re doing more harm than good.
9. The office separates work and home life
Don’t work near your husband, wife, kids, grandmas, grandpas, or crazy chihuahuas. Okay, from personal experience, your chihuahua will knock over bedroom doors to get your attention, but here’s the point: you can keep your work separate from your family.
The space in which you work is just a physical boundary. And besides, everything that happens at work is taken home anyway.
“How was your day, honey?”
“Oh, man, let me tell you what Becky did today.”
Keeping work and home life separate is a myth.
10. Incentivized collaboration
There’s a reason email is so popular: you don’t have to respond right away. Emails aren’t real-time. After every little letter that falls in your inbox, you get minutes, even hours, to muster up a detailed response.
I also use Slack religiously. All the employees I work with are instantly accessible. I don’t need to get off my hiney to play a game of hide-and-go-seek with the person I need to talk to. It’s easier to collaborate online than it is in person.
11. The office is better for time management
Excuse me while I LOL. The fact is, if you have a deadline, you’ll make darn sure the job gets done no matter where you’re working.
When you’re at the office, I can agree that you’re more committed to working on work-type tasks. That's one side of the coin. Flip it over, and the other side wants you to get the hell out of the office and back home.
12. Boosted creativity
WFM gives me the freedom to go to the park, beach, coffee shop, or simply a different room in my house. I’m no more creative in a mountainside cabin than at home or traditional office spaces.
Ideas aren’t our own, anyway. Our interpretation of creativity is just our ability to snatch visions when they come our way, write them down, so we don’t forget, and finish what we started. You don’t need an office for that.
13. Easier to speak to other employees
Do you want to talk face to face? Here’s my Zoom code. Easy Peasy.
14. “You get your own cubicle”
This is an actual quote I read in this post. The day I meet somebody who says they love their cubicle is the day I’ll commit to a barefoot, five-mile beach run.
I have my own desk in a closed-off room of my house. I’m more productive when working with a screaming chihuahua in the other room than an open floor plan with a small wall separating the guy and me eating a Subway meatball marinara next to me.
15. Speaking of open-floor plans
Here’s what the experts have to say about those:
Open office spaces have been shown to lead to:
Decreased privacy: 31% of workers say open-floor plans cause them to hold back ideas when communicating because they don’t want colleagues to hear.
Decreased productivity: 33% of workers are distracted by noise and sensory overload, which slows down their work.
Job dissatisfaction: 13% of workers cite their open office as a reason they left their job.
16. Work time is fixed
I think everyone has heard the term “overtime.” Boundaries and expectations are often broken down when the big boss needs you to stay at work an extra couple of hours. I know it’s easy to get sucked into your work beyond your working hours at home, but there’s a simple fix.
Set boundaries for yourself by using free tools like Clockify to track your time. Often, wrapping up work for the day is a mental game.
17. It’s easier for management to monitor employees in an office
This I understand, within reason.
A good boss, however, doesn’t micromanage schedules. They check in with you instead of silently watching you through the crack in the doorway.
They take a human approach. They treat you as an equal. Read that again.
18. Remote work becomes uncertain as time passes
I remember when office work became uncertain, too. My boss sent me home early in March of 2020, but then I was asked me return in person to work at that outdoor desk.
Nothing is certain. Only the devil deals in abso…did I already say that?
19. Personal hygiene and an ergonomic workspace are often neglected when working from home
If you’re messy at home, you’re probably messy at the office, respectably. If you use your chair to hang clothes instead as a surface to sit on, your work desk is perhaps a little cluttered.
That’s okay! Everyone is different. Some of the most intelligent people I know are a little scattered. Others are just as successful, but they are so organized I sometimes feel like checking them into an insane asylum. There isn’t a barrier between the office and home when 40-hour workweeks take up the majority of your life.
20. Employees have already learned and adjusted well to habits and practices in an office setup.
The cool thing about being human is that we have a natural tendency to adapt to our environment. It might take some time, but we make things work for us no matter what.
I’ve adapted to my home environment, and I like it quite a lot. It’s comfy, I’m more confident in my home desktop setup than my work laptop, my dog sleeps quietly by my side (usually), and I can go to the kitchen for snacks at any time.
Also, a very slept-on benefit is being able to use your own restroom.
Final thought
Where you want to work is ultimately up to you.
Your boss thinks they call the shots, but you’re the driver here, baby. You can get up, leave, and do the same job for someone else who’s willing to pay you to work from home.
If you want to work around more people, do it! Nothing’s stopping you. It all depends on what you value in life. For me, that’s a little more sleep every day and access to homecooked meals. My work ethic is the same no matter where I’m at. Try both settings to calibrate your brain.
Take care of yourself first. There’s more to life than dreary cubicles.
Let me know what you think about this piece in the comments, and if you love me, like this post and/or share this newsletter with your friends! You guys play a huge role in the growth of Part Time, and I’d be nothing without you!
Until next time,
Ryan