G4 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, APRIL 10 , 2022
wishes technology made transi-
tioning from a conference room
to his office desk to his home
setup easier.
“Even with all the latest gad-
gets, I have to keep carrying
around my adapters,” he said,
adding that he’s often left his
adapters in the wrong place. “It
never was such a big of a problem
because I could just borrow
someone’s charger ... but now,
there’s no one next to me.”
Faulk, the nonprofit manager
in Los Angeles, said he often uses
paper files and handwritten to-
do lists on top of tech tools like
his laptop and charging cables.
But remembering what he needs
to truck back and forth for the
following days’ work quickly be-
came a challenge, he said.
“I’ve left my laptop charger at
work before and had to use my
phone’s charger,” he said. “I was
able to get through the first half
of the day, but it was dicey.”
Faulk said hybrid work is also
affecting his finances. Now that
he’s switched to microwaveable
meals and buying more lunches
from restaurants, many of which
have increased their prices, com-
bined with astronomical gas
prices, he’s taking much less pay
home than when he worked fully
remote.
“My dollar is not stretching as
far,” he said. “Being able to work
from home felt like a small raise.”
Getting used to the office
technology can be especially
challenging after two years, dur-
ing which time much of the
conferencing tools were upgrad-
ed. Karen Budell, vice president
of brand marketing at Momen-
tive, maker of SurveyMonkey,
said her first week back in hybrid
mode last month was full of
technical blips and awkward so-
cial cues.
Budell, who voluntarily chose
to work in a hybrid model, said
when she used Zoom from a
conference room screen, she’d
often miss out on links people
shared in the chat box. She also
had to get used to being fully
present when physically on cam-
era in the conference room,
which prevents her from multi-
tasking during Zoom meetings.
“I had to bring my full self to
the meeting, which means I’m
now behind on Slack messages
and definitely behind on email,”
she said. “So I’d be in a meeting
at which people are referencing
an email that I hadn’t seen yet.”
Meeting RSVPs have also be-
come confusing, she said. Mo-
mentive allows employees to
work remotely, hybrid or in the
office, and to change their plans
or days at any time. That means
when someone RSVPs to a meet-
ing, she never knows when she
should book a conference room
or host it entirely via Zoom. At
the same time, if she sees some-
one on Zoom in a conference
room she intends to enter, she
doesn’t know whether that’s her
meeting or a prior meeting. And
she says it’s hard to tell if some-
one is videoconferencing from
their desk or just listening to
music.
“It feels like a game of cha-
rades,” she said.
The most awkward adjust-
ment Budell has had to make?
Finding the right shoes that are
office-appropriate but also won’t
hurt her feet. She has been
cozied up in slippers for two
years.
As for Scott, to ensure she is
successful in the new hybrid
environment, she’s shelled out a
little cash to ensure she has two
functional work setups; she
bought duplicate lighting and
keyboard wrist rests so that she
could be comfortable at work
and at home.
But echoing many workers’
current sentiment, Scott said she
wants to choose when and how
often she goes into the office.
“Personally, I don’t love it,” she
said, adding that her preference
is mostly remote. “Hybrid for me
is ... not preferable.”covering new frustrations with
hybrid work as they adapt to
both virtual and in-person work.
From keeping track of their be-
longings to having two function-
al workspaces and ensuring that
their visits to the office coordi-
nate with those of their col-
leagues, this model is rife with
unexpected hurdles, they say. To
be sure, workers say they prefer
hybrid work over being in the
office full time.
“I didn’t realize all the fringe
benefits [of remote work] until
we had it,” said Ryan Faulk, a
manager with a Los Angeles-
based faith-based nonprofit, who
declined to name his employer.
“Going to hybrid, now there’s all
these growing pains.”
At Google, which employs
more than 156,000 workers and
had its official return to the
office l ast Monday, workers are
worried about covid risks in a
hybrid work environment, said a
member of the Alphabet Work-
ers Union who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because
of fear of retribution. The com-
pany is requiring that employ-
ees be vaccinated to return to
the office but does not plan to
test vaccinated employees.
Workers also don’t understand
what led the company to choose
a three-days-a-week in-office
workweek and why only some
employees are eligible for full
remote work, which could come
with a pay cut, the union mem-
ber said.
“Google workers have proven
they can deliver when working
from home as is evident by the
record-breaking profits Alpha-
bet has enjoyed [during the pan-
demic],” said Parul Koul, a soft-
ware engineer at Google and
executive chair of the Alphabet
Workers Union. “If Google will
not even choose to keep workers
informed or involved in decision-
making ... how can we trust that
the policies they are putting in
place will effectively protect all
workers?”
Google says its decisions were
inspired by worker feedback. It
also said it is offering employees
weeks where they can work from
anywhere as well as the ability to
apply for work-from-home ex-
tensions. For those considering
fully remote work, the company
debuted a work location tool to
help employees determine
whether their pay will change if
they moved away from campus.
In other workplaces, a hybrid
schedule sometimes means go-
ing to the office and discovering
you’re the only one there. Work-
ers who can choose their in-office
days say they often have to
coordinate with other colleagues
to ensure they’re all in at the
same time. (Mondays are not
popular, according to one work-
er.) But for those with assigned
in-office days or whose job
doesn’t require collaboration,
the requirement to go to work
can feel forced and unnecessary.
Jeremiah Dylan Cook, an ana-
lyst for a financial aid agency on
the East Coast, said his job is
somewhat siloed. In a week, he
might have only one team meet-
ing. When he’s in the office
working alone, he wonders why
he’s not at home with his wife
and cat instead.
“It was like why am I here
specifically?” he said about going
back to the office. “There are
managers that might need to be
on-site and collaborate more, but
I’m not one of those people.”
Hybrid work is also a night-
mare for those trying to keep
track of the different tools and
files workers need to have with
them when they do their jobs.
For Mario Dcunha, a senior
product designer at financial
software company Intuit, keep-
ing track of the numerous adapt-
ers and chargers he needs for
various screens has been some-
what irritating. Dcunha, who can
choose how often he goes to the
office, said he likes his hybrid
working arrangement. He justWhile she’s enjoyed reconnect-
ing with colleagues in the office,
by Friday she says she’s less
productive.
“I’m just wiped out,” says the
37-year-old Scott. “I don’t know
how I used to do it.”
Scott is among a growing
group of workers who have been
called back to the office in a
hybrid environment, a catchall
phrase for working part time in
the office. Market research firm
Forrester predicts that this year,
60 percent of offices will adopt a
hybrid work policy, but it also
expects that one-third will fail at
successfully executing as compa-
nies continue to design the work-
place around face-to-face inter-
action.
And workers say they are dis-HYBRID FROM G1A new headache: Juggling
both o∞ce and remote w ork
SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
Employees are welcomed back to in-person work last week with
breakfast in the cafeteria at the Google offices in Chicago.DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWSA worker signs in at an office building in San Francisco last month. Many people say hybrid work has
its own challenges, such as keeping track of belongings and balancing two functional workspaces.
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