Bailey Ashida on LinkedIn: It’s easy to say “it’s just a job”, but we spend more of our lives at work… (2024)

I sat on my office floor in a ball as tears streamed down my face. My access to everything had been cut. I stared at the purple welcome screen for Slack because I had been kicked out of the workspace without notice. I had just hung up with two people that I had worked inseparably close with over the last few years. I quit. I think? In hindsight, I’m still not sure. It was mutual? Kind of? Honestly, I don’t know. To this day, I don’t know. It feels better to say that I quit, but it happened so quickly and felt so bad that I just don’t know what. In any other situation, if I had quit, I would have gotten to serve out my two weeks. I would have gotten to transition my team to other leadership. I would have gotten to say goodbye, exchange email addresses and tell people how much I enjoyed working with them. I would have done what was right as a transition out of a company that I had worked at for so long and run so much of. And yet, mere hours after a conversation where I said I didn’t think I could do this anymore because it was crushing me, I was the one staring at a purple screen and getting “cannot fetch email” errors on my computer. They acted like I quit, so I must have. Everything I signed said I did. So why was I feeling two feet tall rather than empowered by this strong decision I made to make my life better?How did we get here? It was the slow toppling of a house of cards that seemed to have crumbled in a second. But it wasn’t a second. It was many, many, split seconds sprinkled with a few hours and days of stress, toxicity, poor communication, and corporate abuse that I didn’t fully recognize until I was out for good. I made excuses for it for years. They took a chance on me just like I am them. Who else would hire me? I didn’t go to school for this. The flexibility is rare. It’s okay to be consumable as long as I get something out of it too. And on and on and on. Except, I still sat there, staring at a purple screen as if none of the years of service had mattered to anyone or done anything to pull the company through some of the hardest and leanest times. The end result was the same regardless of the effort that I put it. It was just a job. It was not my identity. It did not determine my value no matter how inextricable I felt the two were. And when they were done, they were done. They didn’t have to heal. I did. Your value is not determined by anything that you can find on your career highlight reel. You are worthy of happiness and life free of abuse regardless of your output. **This ain’t your father’s professionalism. We’re redefining it at elletwo dot com. #elletwo #teamdifficult #OutputIsNotValue #WomenInTech #WomenInEverything

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I sat on my office floor in a ball as tears streamed down my face.My access to everything had been cut.I stared at the purple welcome screen for Slack because I had been kicked out of the workspace without notice.I had just hung up with two people that I had worked inseparably close with over the last few years.I quit. I think? In hindsight, I’m still not sure. It was mutual? Kind of?Honestly, I don’t know. To this day, I don’t know. It feels better to say that I quit, but it happened so quickly and felt so bad that I just don’t know what.In any other situation, if I had quit, I would have gotten to serve out my two weeks. I would have gotten to transition my team to other leadership. I would have gotten to say goodbye, exchange email addresses and tell people how much I enjoyed working with them.I would have done what was right as a transition out of a company that I had worked at for so long and run so much of.And yet, mere hours after a conversation where I said I didn’t think I could do this anymore because it was crushing me, I was the one staring at a purple screen and getting “cannot fetch email” errors on my computer.They acted like I quit, so I must have. Everything I signed said I did.So why was I feeling two feet tall rather than empowered by this strong decision I made to make my life better?How did we get here?It was the slow toppling of a house of cards that seemed to have crumbled in a second.But it wasn’t a second. It was many, many, split seconds sprinkled with a few hours and days of stress, toxicity, poor communication, and corporate abuse that I didn’t fully recognize until I was out for good.I made excuses for it for years.They took a chance on me just like I am them.Who else would hire me? I didn’t go to school for this.The flexibility is rare. It’s okay to be consumable as long as I get something out of it too.And on and on and on.Except, I still sat there, staring at a purple screen as if none of the years of service had mattered to anyone or done anything to pull the company through some of the hardest and leanest times.The end result was the same regardless of the effort that I put it.It was just a job. It was not my identity. It did not determine my value no matter how inextricable I felt the two were.And when they were done, they were done. They didn’t have to heal. I did.Your value is not determined by anything that you can find on your career highlight reel.You are worthy of happiness and life free of abuse regardless of your output.

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Dropbox has found that "a handful of two- or three-day offsites per quarter—10% of the year—works best for their people"; with the remaining 90% of work conducted remotely. "Crucially, it provides that oft-referenced cultural connect and brainstorming time that pro-office zealots insist upon, without exhausting workers with a commute grind or needless hours in drab conference rooms. When they’re in person, employees know they’re personally deciding to opt in.""The company also encourages flexible work hours. All meetings must narrow in on the “three D’s” of discussion, debate, or decision-making, and they can be held only between noon and 4 p.m. EST. 'Any future-of-work strategy we chose, we wanted to ensure that employees had control over not only how they work, but where they work,'https://lnkd.in/g_kk4NWp

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A brutally honest account of finding white-hot PMF, then having the market shift under you.Thank you Rajiv Ayyangar for sharing Tandem's story.This hits hard. The similarities with Remotion's virtual office journey are unreal. Some lines from the post that could just as well be about Remotion:> We felt like the worldneeded(Tandem/Remotion). But churn was high. We weren't delivering on the core promise of unlocking spontaneous calls. After the initial spike, churn took over and we started declining.> But a few months later, we flattened. The top-of-funnel had dried up. Over the next year, we tried everything [...]. We could influence most stages of the funnel, but it didn't translate to getting full teams onboard. It felt like people just didn't want (Tandem/Remotion) anymore.> On the surface, there were several reasons for this market shift:> - Slack Huddles fulfilled part of our use case> - Video fatigue (globally, video calls fell by 2/3 after the initial pandemic spike—video burnout was real).> - Many (Remotion/Tandem) teams returned to the office.Although we at Remotion were (trying to) compete with Rajiv, I only have the nicest things to say.He set the model for Charley and me as to how to be friendly and swap notes with others in our space.Rajiv, wishing you the best at Dropbox. It's an amazing team & culture.https://lnkd.in/eXpPkEFN

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Do you send packages to clients and prospects?I send out a lot of “stuff,” and I talk to a lot of people.One of the challenges I’ve had over the past couple of years is knowing what address I should be sending “stuff” to.This leads to more communication with people, ultimately leading to more conversations.Over the past several months, I’ve noticed a change in a lot of people I engage with. More and more people are now giving their office address as their best mailing address vs. their home address.As I’m talking to people, I’m noticing that people seem to be proud or reenergized to say their going back to the office more.I’m all about work from home, or whatever works for you and your organization, but this shift has become glaringly obvious to me in recent months.Have you seen a shift in WFH vs. WFO policies in recent months?Enjoy your day, wherever you are!

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Interrupt me, please! That’s the spirit I’m taking into 2024. The evidence is mounting that the explosion of digital communication sparked by the pandemic leaves us more stressed and less engaged, per the attached article. At co:collective, we’re kicking off the year with an extra day of in-person time every week. In some ways it was a tough call, something I especially grapple with as a dad who values flexibility. But we’re feeling it’s a time for more serendipitous moments in our teams, and more personal connections with our colleagues and clients. So if you see me at the office, tap me on the shoulder. Ask for advice, share an idea. If you’re in NYC, let’s get a coffee. And for all of us, here’s to more of the good kinds of interruptions in 2024 - those ad hoc, in-person moments of creativity and connection that make every day at work a better day.https://lnkd.in/eD_SPkHY

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update: my “hybrid” team is using me as their way to not go to the office at all - https://lnkd.in/gTz7y8XJ - ( New Post Shared by www.shipwr3ck.com ) - This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.Remember the letter-writer whose “hybrid” team was using him as their way to not go to the office at all? Here’s the update.Thank you for your input. The situation did have an interesting resolution: someone got fired over this but (maybe surprisingly) it wasn’t me.My boss was the only other member of my team to show up the day after my angry message, having told the other team members to let her know what they wanted to have me do. Most of the tasks she asks me to do for her when I go to the office maybe take 10 – 15 minutes; hers are the most reasonable and I totally get why she doesn’t want to make a special trip to them. She discovered that she was incorrectly assuming that the tasks my teammates were requesting were the same. The fastest request from my teammates took about 45 minutes, making it click with her that I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that I was spending half the day doing other people’s work.Like you, my boss didn’t like how I phrased the message, but she agreed that things had to change. She was also under the impression that I like going to the office. It was kind of nice during the first year of the pandemic when gas was cheap and the drive took under 20 minutes no matter what time of the day it was. However, now that I have to deal with normal traffic patterns, my preference would be to get in, do my office tasks, and leave before rush hour to finish the day at home.My boss informed the team that we were expected to come into the office when it was needed to do any tasks that cannot be done from home. She suggested everyone model what I do, which let tasks without an urgent deadline “stack up” and/or go in when we do a particular presentation (which is made to people who work in the field without the ability to work from home, so I do it in the office to keep credibility and not look like I am rubbing in the privilege of being able to work from home).This led to the discovery that one of my teammates moved about to a home that is about two hours away from the office. Naturally, he did not want to four hours of commuting every couple of weeks. This actually violates our Hybrid Work Arrangement which requires approval if someone relocates more than 60 miles from the office (while it doesn’t apply to my team, about 50% of the company does functions that require at least one person be on duty 24/7/365, so they decided to apply the rule to everyone to always assure that critical needs are met) and/or to another state (for tax compliance). Since there was no issue with working from a different state, my boss would have probably approved this had he asked before understanding how much was

Why do companies want people back in the office? Study after study shows that working from home can lead to more efficiency and higher quality work. Here are 3 possible reasons#worthareadTo downsizeTo collaborateParanoia Who "collaborates" by email? No one. We text and chat on tools designed to do just that. Email is for low priority work. Even in the cubicle farm world of the office no one wastes the time walking to another floor or department when a quick chat will suffice ... which is most of the time. old school thinking in a #digitalbusinesstransformation worldLet's not forget too the "but I'm paying for this building and no one is in it concerns which owners then work financially to show a loss that decreases productivity. And those businesses that worked deals with a city or town to "bring people" to area for big tax write offs ... and now there are no people and cities and towns no longer want to extend discounts or actually want their money back. Again ... calculated as a decrease in productivity. #leadershiplessons #modernleadership #changeleadership https://lnkd.in/gdvW23_A

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Ops heroes are known for their ability to adapt and make things work regardless of the situation.But relying on quick fixes and makeshift solutions can take a toll on our well-being in the long run.I was reminded of this when I faced the daunting task of clearing out my office closet this week.For context, this closet has been on my back-burner ‘to-do’ list for five years. It was stacked and stuffed full of a/v equipment, extra pillows, boxes of files, photos, college books, notebooks, old love letters, extinct computer equipment, and so much arbitrary flotsam in various sizes of boxes and crates in, on, and around my daughter’s old changing table.(She’s 14 now, to give you a sense of how long this has been going on!)With the support of one of my best business buddies, good music, and ample trash bags, it’s empty and freshly painted.Do you have something you’ve been ‘making do’ with that actually weighs you down and sucks your energy? Maybe:-a team member not performing to par-a project that’s stretched way out of scope-friction between you and the org leader or-your over-sized workload.Taking care of those lingering issues is just as important as solving the louder, squeaky problems at hand. Talk to a coach and lighten your load.You're allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work-in-progress simultaneously! P.S. Fresh paint smells fantastic.

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Many people struggle with a lack of confidence. Research shows that confidence declines in the workplace with experience. If you're struggling with a lack of confidence these simple tips can help you. To learn about how the team at Macs have been encouraging our employees over lockdown, visit our website. https://lnkd.in/erwBREXN