TLDR: some employees get their own offices and can work remote, while others do not. Not having my own office prevents me from doing the best at my job. Is that normal?
I work on a team where two of us have the same position and everyone else has different positions but we all work on the same clients/files.
We work in an office together, except for one person who has the exact same job as me and she works remotely in a different state, and comes into town once per quarter.
There are two people who used to be in my position and now are in different roles. One of these two people works remote from home every Wednesday. The other person works from home about 3 days per week.
I have been told by my manager that I will never be allowed to work remote. Is that normal that some people have different flexibility like that? When I was hired it was clear that for my training period (which is over) I will be working in the office, with the possibility of remote work after. Note that the person who was training me on the new systems is the person who lives out of state. She is also the person I interact with most on the team, so it doesn’t matter where I am because she is always remote. Trying to see if I’m weird for thinking I should also be able to work remote some of the time. ???
Other question: my workplace has many offices. Some are empty. Some people sit in cubicles despite these empty offices. My primary job is to be on the phone with clients. I am in a cubicle that is in the very middle of the office, which is a very loud place to be when I’m on the phone. I often use one of the empty offices to make calls, but if we disconnect our computers from the docks we have to restart them, so I don’t often have my computer with me if I have to move from my cubicle into an office for my phone call, which is bad when I am talking to a client and need info from my computer.
One of the empty offices was just given to someone who comes in the office for 2 hours per week on Wednesday’s and works remote the rest of the time and often travels for their position.
The two people mentioned above who used to be in my position have their own private offices. When the person who currently has my same job visits once per quarter she sits in one of the empty offices, which makes sense since we are both in the phone all day with clients. We have empty cubicles as well and one is further away from the center of the office and would even be quieter for making calls but they won’t let me move to that cubicle.
Is it normal or reasonable that I am sitting in a cubicle when my job would be easier and more professional in an office since I’m talking to clients all day and then there wouldn’t be extensive background noise? During training they temporarily put me at a tiny desk sharing an office with my manager, which was extremely difficult because she is also always on the phone, so it made it very difficult to do my job because we couldn’t both be on the phone at the same time in this tiny office. I have not asked for an office because my manager has stated that I will not have my own office, and in fact they told me yesterday that I should go back to sharing an office with my manager and I do not understand why. (My manager is a boomer and often decides things that make no sense)
I think they want me in a cubicle or in my managers office 24/7 because my manager likes to micromanage everyone and wants to always see what I’m doing, even though nothing I’m doing in my step of the process overlaps with what she is doing. I have not done anything to earn any distrust in this position.
For clarification I have been in this industry for over 3 years and I do not need training on what I am doing in my job day to day. The training I needed when I started this job was on the new (to me) system this company uses that is their own software.
I don’t feel entitled to working remote to having an office instead of a cubicle. I genuinely feel confused about the setups for remote working and my desk arrangement and how the desk setup (cubicle for me) specifically is detrimental to me doing my job properly.
Side note: I was told when interviewing/hired that I would be ‘eligible’ for bonus after 3 months but business has slowed down a ton so they have moved that timeline a few times and it’s not happening in the near future. I asked for clarification recently and my manager said it will be up to the other person in my position to decide which files I will get bonuses on. This other person currently benefits from me doing part of her job and she gets paid bonus on those files, so she is benefitting from my work or giving me files that are terrible and no one will ever get a bonus on.
My bonus is supposed to be about 1/4 of my income but that bonus does not exist. TBD when I will start getting that bonus. This is a very abnormal structure for my industry/position.
This job has a lot of red flags and that’s more clear to me after typing all of this out. Any advice or prior experience on how to handle this stuff is appreciated. Right now I’m riding the wave, playing the game, and dealing with this all while looking for a new job.