I live in Scandinavia and we still have snow. Even the tiniest amount of snowdrizzle is enough to unleash madness on the roads and close it down for many hours because of collisions and such.
Today was utter chaos with the only road to work being closed by bus crashes and mass collisions. Guess who has to take the bus 40+ minutes to work? You guessed it, me. I looked at the news in the morning and I knew instantly that that I’ll probably be stuck in a commute for 1+ hour. But I gave it a try, because my boss absolutely hates WFH and says it destroy’s the ”office culture”, which I can’t give a flying rat shit about to be honest. I work as a dev and can perfectly work from on top of a crane as I can in the comfort of my own home. Actually I can probably be more dedicated to my tasks when I’m home as I don’t have the annoying open spaces and cubicles for me to be micromanaged while endless chatter from my coworkers about their kids or shit. But I digress.
I went to the bus stop and saw in utter disbelief the amount of frustrated people who have been waiting for 30+ minutes just for their bus. I was already a bit late for work but I knew that if I took the next bus back home I could perfectly make it for standup instead of wasting time commuting and being stuck frustrated in traffic.
So I emailed my boss on the way home that I waited for the bus but it bore no fruit and that I’ll WFH. All the way while being a bit scared, as I’ve been told numerous times that WFH is strictly not allowed because of company social culture bullshit (WFH is only allowed on extreme situations like if you lose your legs in a terrible accident but even then you’re expected to roll yourself on the freeway in your wheelchair just to appease the boss and make use of the fake and superficial toxic positive company culture).
So I got home, booted up my laptop and behold: I made just in time for standup. Had I waited for the bus I would have been 1-2 hours late. Meanwhile, my other coworkers were stuck in traffic (one was even stuck for TWO whole hours) because she had been so brainwashed that WFH was not allowed.
A while after the roads were slowly opening up again, but nowhere near fully functional.
Later on my boss responded to the email I sent:
”Yes, horrible conditions on the roads today!! Would be nice if you can come in now :)”
I was flabbergasted. Company culture & micromanagement means so much that you’re willing to sacrifice my time (and ironically the time I’m being paid) just so I can sit in my cubicle and do the exact same job but even worse because of all the distractions. I didn’t even respond and went on with my work instead of running to the bus.
Thank God I’ve resigned and I’m on my last month. Never again this hellhole of micromanagemnt and unreasonable demands. Nope, nope, nope. If you want to keep devs, you better check your sanity because all the competitors are doing WFH.