Working From Home

working at home = dud for me. 6 mos. of freelancing for aol and i was ready to comit hara kiri with a letter opener.

Always got stuff done though - often at 9pm on the Sunday night when server traffic was quiet and my conscience was playing up.

working from home: classic
working from home when your flatmate has been made redundant and is mooching around the flat with his annoying boyfriend all day: DUD DUD DUD oh god just go awayyyyyyyyy

I twisted my knee playing football last night (that's why I'd stopped playing!), and couldn't walk properly today as a result, so I emailed in sick to work, and told them I had various things I'd do online and that I'd be available via email and my work mobile. As result I've actually been marked down as "home working" today rather than on sick leave.

This is the first time I've done this (although I do, if off sick or on leave, generally check work emails reasonably regularly - especially when I was off after my hernia operation for instance), and it's been surprisingly productive; I've organised as many if not more things as I would have done had I been in the office, sent a gazillion emails chasing various things, edited a load of copy, drafted some new web pages, AND had a nap and stroked the cats. And all while wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that are full of holes and not fit to be seen in public.

i'm working from home today and it is fucking amazing.

-shouting abuse at co-workers who can't hear you in response to their emails
-singing along to records
-cooking your own lunch
-not bothering to pretend to work if there's a lull or you're done by 1600
-no commute obviously

I have been working from home for almost four years. I can only see advantages. If you're office based and you have Skype, Webex and so forth I really don't see any reason *not* to. The people who still insist on buying or renting huge energy consuming, Earth destroying office space (space which could be used so much more constructively, be it for housing, parkland or given back to nature) are truly behind the curve.

What I'm interested in -- and I'm interested to know if there has been research in these areas:

(a) Has anyone done serious calculations of how much energy we could save (inter)nationally if everyone who *could* work from home did so and secondly,

(b) from a sociological point of view, the focus has been on the negative ("you can't get to know/work properly with people who don't see and physically interract with, ergo groups of home working people are doomed to failure") but shouldn't we also consider the flipside, that home working allows for people to be judged on their true merits, rather than the ad hominem nasty stuff that comes to the fore when people have to share a space?

Heh, my wife just started doing this full-time and has liked it so far.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a couple people at my office must have asked about the possibility because the partners sent out this really passive-aggressive email at the start of the year about how it will never be a possibility here because, basically, "it is impossible to believe that anyone could work productively out of their home". It was just laughably obnoxious and reductive about any possible benefits. (Of course, several months later one of the partners' favorites moved to Texas with her husband and was suddenly approved to work "remotely")

I don't ever want to do it

with my immunocompromised status and the virus terror, I may have to

BUT

the plantation I contract for, at a pitiful wage, uses a "VPN" that requires use of your

PHONE

which I do not have and do not want

fuck apps, fuck texts

is that app PingID?

no

Full time wfh since Oct 2012. Best thing ever. Makes work not suck. Def still look forward to the weekends but I no longer dread Monday. Limits my "advancement" options but I don't care; if I could maintain current position now thru retirement I'd be thrilled.

makes personal traveling mid-week possible. it's harder now that I changed roles, but when I was working in implementations, all they cared about is that I worked, not where I worked from, so sometimes I'd head out of town mid week and bring my laptop.

did manage to go to Vegas midweek last year because i had no classes that week

I’m starting to wonder whether spending £4500 a year on train tickets so I can commute to London, sit in an office and have web conferences with my colleagues and customers around the world is the most productive use of my time and money. The big problem with working from home ime is that it is much harder to put a cap on the day. I’m more likely to agree to 7pm meetings or answer emails at 10pm than I am if I have physically left my place of work.

Full time WFH since May 2015. It is definitely harder to put a cap on the day, though I don't really have meetings or emails to answer (I'm a web dev)

Its the job content itself as much as the WFH but I've changed around my perspective to not see work in terms of hours or blocks of time like this, but blocks of stuff that I need to have built by the end of the week or month. This means the delineation between own time and work time is more entwined. Mentally I'm kind of always at work but also never at work, I don't know if its better or not but I don't miss my 90 minute each way commute!

I feel a lot of the risk could have been mitigated if more organisations were better at actually allowing people to work staggered or different hours - fewer people on public transport at peak times, less crowding on train/tube platforms (can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a crush of a few hundred people waiting to get on a tube train) and management doesn’t have to pretend it cares about having a coherent wfh policy. My parents have never worked more than ten minutes from where they live and I envy them.

I feel a lot of the risk could have been mitigated if more organisations were better at actually allowing people to work staggered or different hours - fewer people on public transport at peak times, less crowding on train/tube platforms (can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a crush of a few hundred people waiting to get on a tube train) and management doesn’t have to pretend it cares about having a coherent wfh policy. My parents have never worked more than ten minutes from where they live and I envy them.

WFH today. Probably one of many. Technically I am a 'remote worker' anyway, having been made one about a year ago, but I still come into the office as it's about 10 mins cycle away. Frankly I've nowhere to work at home - I have a small desk in my room that's uncomfortable to sit at, and my sofa and kitchen table are no better.

been asked to supply emergency contact info at work in case of

lol

"adverse weather closing the office"

politics is the art of what cannot be said etc

The big problem with working from home ime is that it is much harder to put a cap on the day. I’m more likely to agree to 7pm meetings or answer emails at 10pm than I am if I have physically left my place of work.

We have a pretty flexible working culture with a lot of working from home and honestly it's great, but it only works if you're prepared to treat people like grown-ups. TBH I'd retain the same boundaries as you do in the office. I don't especially mind working a bit later if I'm not going to be commuting home, but if you do have a 7pm meeting what's to stop you taking a longer lunch break or similar. As long as you get the work done when you're supposed to, who cares?

International meetings make things harder, but one way psychologically to put a cap on the day is just to make a clean break by immediately doing something that absolutely says to yourself I Am Not At Work Any More. Cooking, opening a beer, playing a video game, whatever. If you just start tapering off it becomes very easy to get dragged back into it.

I'm a freelancer, about 80% of my work is on-site at various places, just had my first conversation this morning about an office shutdown, guessing that most everywhere else will follow, shit is going to get tight.

no wonder u ppl are on ilx all fucking day

Been WFH since 2017. Love it. Possibly starting a 9-5 office job on Monday, though, and not sure how I feel about that (besides “thanks for the money”)...

The lifeblood of ILX the entire internet is bored office workers, moreso without the office.

its a turning point in history

in a bad way

let's run all the megapolls we've been fantasising about

i hope office buildings empty out like suburban malls and are repurposed into affordable housing.

Does anyone do this with kids in the house? Seems kind of impossible without turning child into tv zombie

Looks like this will be me from next week, or even maybe tomorrow. My plan is to move to the conservatory and stock up on educational software / film downloads for them.

I cannot work with kids disturbing me, this is going to be hard.

turn child into book and board game zombie imo

my carrom board is finally gonna get some use, v excited to get good

i hope office buildings empty out like suburban malls and are repurposed into affordable housing.

― Yerac, Thursday, 12 March 2020 12:56 (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

I wish I could find that faux-pamphlet from a few years back about an office building gradually turning into an overgrown post-apocalyptic ecosystem

I've worked from home for almost 19 years. I expect it to all come crashing down around my ears any day now.

i don't maintain much of a social circle outside of work (mostly just my wife, my parents, and my cat) so I do think I benefit from the social aspects of coming into an office every day and interacting with people. i'm lucky in my position that I typically don't HAVE to do much interacting in any given day if I don't feel like it, but if I do then there are always people around who want to shoot the shit.

Does anyone do this with kids in the house? Seems kind of impossible without turning child into tv zombie

i do but there's always another carer around. she (child not carer) occasionally comes up to spin around on my chair but generally respects the sanctity of the office space.

that sanctity in full:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKxqy9SJ-0I

Spare a thought for us poor sods who can't work from home, we're dead.

My first day of working at home. Not without its downsides, but I did watch an episode of Kojak during my lunch hour, and so without coronavirus I would possibly never known about this meeting of the titans

https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/190/1346970079_6.jpg

I'm less likely to brush my teeth on time WFH

I thought you’d been running this drill for years?

I had no use for it but bring it on!

xpost I have. but bad habits never change.

the only real prob i had working from home was a) animals, who would bark in the background during meetings/training, or b) roommates. right now, "b" isn't a prob cos he's never home and even when he is, he's quiet.

my brother used to walk in the door and intentionally try to get me to laugh while I was in a meeting by yelling non-sequiturs (a man in his mid-30s, going on 12). one day he came out the bathroom singing Billy Joel at the top of his lungs, forgetting I was working, so all of my colleagues were treated to that.

animals, otoh, usually the people on the phone go "aww how cute, what breed are they?"

One blessing of my job is that I have not been expected to read and respond to emails outside of work hours. Based on the rules for our WFH, my management seems to be respecting this.

Recommendation of uncertain usefulness to other ILXors, based on my previous WFH experiences: Get dressed, including putting on a bra. (In my specific case, bralessness soon becomes uncomfortable, sweaty, and otherwise not conducive to work.)

I draw the line at pants (US definition) tho

got access

the daily requirement to reoort back on the detail of my work have made me rather kindly disposed to coming in

one of the first days I worked from home in 2012, I was given a new laptop, and we headed into a web meeting (Skype, Sametime, WebEx, I can't even remember rn). then, like now, I just woke up and turned on my computer in my current state of dress, so I had underwear and pants on, but no shirt. so I log into the meeting, and the webcam comes on by default, and for two seconds, I see myself on camera, face to just slightly below the shoulders. then I realized this was sharing and my project manager said "uhh I can see you", so I ducked below the desk, put a shirt on, and disabled the webcam for-eva

Daily seven-way meeting this morning. Everyone hears a voice: "How much is the toilet roll?" Everyone denies it was them (or a TV they're surreptitiously watching). Everyone then mutes their microphone.

access revoked.

they didnt realise so many people would actually use it

guys I wish i was making any of it up, i really do

It's why I like WebEx because if you dial in through the computer it says who is speaking and there is no denial!

Xxpost

That's fucked, deems, I'm sorry. FWIW, feel like we might not have made it a week into WFH if we hadn't had a confirmed Cov Case in our actual office. MF-ers gonna need a winch to haul me back into that plague den at this point.

I've adjusted surprisingly quickly to working on one tiny laptop screen as opposed to the two big monitors I'm used to. Just involves constant shifting and sliding of all the programs I have open at a given moment. I was relying on this being my busiest time of year to keep me occupied and focused but, ehh, I'm noticing a marked decline in the amount of work product coming in.

All other pros and cons aside, the ability to chair dance and deliver emotive + passionate lip sync performances while listening to music is perhaps the greatest WFH perk of them all.

One uncomplicatedly good thing my work did - let everyone take home their work monitors.

oh dear, dmac

11am, day 2, wfh: announced "dootly-doo" to nobody at all, as there is nobody else here except the cat
1pm, day 2, wfh: singing nonsense songs at the cat, who is maowing back (she started it, miss)

Fear I may be turning into the boss from A thread for Steve n.'s list of songs that his boss sings

The big boss did say we could take monitors and even a chair but I was walking 1.5 miles home so that was not entirely feasible. the chair was tempting as my back is going to be fairly knackered if I sit in this sofa, or even at the dining table in one of our dining chairs, hunched over this laptop for months

(I am sure there are people here who could carry a large Dell monitor and an office chair 1.5 miles through once-busy streets and a v muddy field, as well as my rucksack and carrier bag full of random stuff I found in my desk drawer that I thought I might need, or at least be embarrassed at still being in my desk drawer if I died - not even work paperwork, mostly chocolate and hoarded sachets and pots of instant pasta/noodle/couscous snacks)

the o/h has still been in work so far but he gets to wfh from tomorrow/Mon so then we'll be fighting over the one good chair and the big monitor

actually I don't want the big monitor, it is massive and was bought for gaming and I tried to do some work on it yesterday and it felt like I was squinting at some Excel cells in one small corner of the screen while who knows what was going on in the other 90% of the screen

supplementing my laptop with a good wireless mouse and keyboard has made getting actual work done much easier. logitech mx keys and mx master 3 mouse, official endorsement

I've adjusted surprisingly quickly to working on one tiny laptop screen as opposed to the two big monitors I'm used to. Just involves constant shifting and sliding of all the programs I have open at a given moment. I was relying on this being my busiest time of year to keep me occupied and focused but, ehh, I'm noticing a marked decline in the amount of work product coming in.

Acrobat version finally downloaded

received no work assignments yet this morning

absence of annoying coworkers is best thing so far

Yes. As opposed to trying to work with a frat rager taking place behind me every day, the only distraction atm is my gf's WFH sitch, which is just an ongoing video conference of her preschool's teachers singing songs to the stuck-at-home kids. It's kinda soothing my otherwise frayed nerves, tbh.

good thing about wfh is I can grouse in private after that annual review meeting.

So far the biggest upside is that I can take breaks to practice drum rudiments on the practice pad, can't do that in the office. Quarantine is great for the chops, too bad I can't put them to use.

Had a webex meeting at 11 and the host signed off by saying "we'll do this again in a month" so at least I have a rough idea of how long I'm expecting to be WFH. Probably gonna be longer, though; where I work (a med school in NJ) all events have been cancelled through end of May.

moved from dining table into back room with office chair & more ergo friendly setup
dining room chair was hell to sit on for extended periods

mr veg ordered an adapter for me to link my current monitor as second bigger screen, yay

I need more plugs

Hair plugs? Don't worry, Joe Biden will hook you up

corner desk setup, herman miller chair (bcz I knew this day would come, I decided to splurge a long time ago)

I have three computer screens, one big tablet and two phones to stare at throughout my day

the problem is the phones and tablet keep running low on juice

So far the biggest upside is that I can take breaks to practice drum rudiments on the practice pad, can't do that in the office. Quarantine is great for the chops, too bad I can't put them to use.

lol yes i've had the buchla music easel VST open on my 2nd monitor all day ready for between-email jams

i almost bought a dirty old aeron off craigslist yesterday, this repurposed dining room chair w/ $4 ikea pad isn't really working for me

This old office chair is the hardest part, no matter what pillow configuration i try.

My music computer is next to my current work computer, and yesterday I did chip away at writing this long midi track (which is meant to sound kinda randomly generated or through-composed in the end), but overall I've been surprised by how much work I've been doing and how little slacking off. More than when I'm actually in the office, I'd say.

I spent some time yesterday rather ruthlessly organizing what was on the screen and where, learning how to use more control keys and such to change focus instead of the mouse and learning how to use Mission Control.

crucial

(for windows 10 users, check out the built-in virtual desktop feature)

the o/h has still been in work so far but he gets to wfh from tomorrow/Mon so then we'll be fighting over the one good chair and the big monitor

hey this is now! who knew the desktop computer keyboard was so louuuud. might need to sit in separate rooms. the only other room is the bedroom and my back will disintegrate if I sit on the bed all day...

I still can't concentrate, don't know if lazy or anxious or just bored, but the same is usually true in the office except that I had less excuse to be anxious tbh. (I don't know how anyone else is getting anything done rather than constantly checking the news/twitter/ilx but apparently they are?)

i still haven't heard from the editor of my current project. no reply since wed morn when i told him i was likely to hit deadline today and asked some small questions abt style in the final version: i may actually still hit this deadline if i get off whatsapp w.my pals lol. but the last actual communication was over a week ago :(

the main reason to get this off my desk now is to get the whole thing out of my head and move on the the next project (= freelance life during plague)

i dearly hope the editor is ok tho :( :( and just busying himself with last-minute prep for living thru it all :( :( :(

just finally heard from him -- as well as this book he is wrangling a broken arm and elderly parents in geneva's version of the shutdown. glad he is ok, he's been good to work with. this project could hardly be less urgent but spending hours on end thinking abt music and technology and composition in the mid-60s is actually p soothing

And suddenly I can't access the workplace VPN (my home Wi-Fi seems to be fine). Just texted my manager to see if anyone else has reported this. I can keep working, but I won't be visible on Official Skype.

I have found I'm doing more work at home than I did at the office, as I have to demonstrate in some way to the boss that I'm not bunking off every day. Escaping into 1923 (editing) and 1933 (listening) is good too of course.

In line with experiences related above, I'm pretty sure this sitch is gonna lead to permanent back/neck injuries if I can't figure out an ergonomically-sound work setup. I'm getting some nasty twinges.

Girlfriend's 1930s bureau just buckled under the weight of her office-supplied monitor (managed to fix the hinge with a hammer), so I'm ok to work small for the time being. I've been WFH 1-2 days/week for nearly three years and I do often think, particularly late afternoon, "ah, I'll deal with *that* when I'm back in the office with the big screen". Well, this is it for the foreseeable. I did plan to make the 35-mile round trip to collect peripherals today but I can't get a ride now. As long as we're not on lockdown, I can try again next week.

just reaching the time in a writing day when all i can think of is biscuits and crisps

i guess when i complete this particular job i can actually trying baking some biscuits, probably not gnna try making crisps tho

I saw France have banned cycling, which has me baffled as surely it's the best no-contact exercise activity? Where am I going to get the chance to spread germs on a cycle ride in the countryside?

I've been 2-3 days wfh for 3+ years and actually there is no need at all for me to go into an office beyond the odd face to face meeting so this has been great. Obviously I'd much rather it didn't happen this way, but managers love control (it's their job really).

xp Cycling was banned so that hospitals don't have to deal with the x-odd number of broken limbs/collar bones right now.

ok, that makes a little sense, though not a great deal tbh, how many cycling injuries do they see?

I've no idea! And it does only make a little sense, I agree. Googling now I'm reading mixed reports re: the ban tbf.

"One watchword matters: "Save lives! Stay at home!'.'

The government then appeared to back up this message by retweeting the federation with the words: "We have one message for cyclists: 'stay home'. "

But when the ministry of interior was asked to confirm cycling was banned their response to Liberation newspaper was slightly different.

The ministry said it was permitted if it was "necessary for good personal balance" adding that that it is all about "reducing your trips outside to the maximum".

The interpretation of the rules by police on the ground may also not be consistent.

One French journalist reported taking his bike out to get some exercise and the police who stopped him to ask for his form accepted that it was allowed as long as he was alone.

Cycling to work is NOT forbidden however although you will need to have your "attestation" with you to show to police.

Runners on the banks of the Garonne river in Bordeaux, southwestern France, on the third day of the lockdown in France. Photo: AFP

The sports ministry's precision came after widespread criticism of the high number of people all over France taking to the streets to jog after the lockdown entered into force on Tuesday at noon.

"We are trying to protect as many as possible," the sports ministry said in their string of tweets.

"Be vigilant, do not distance yourselves too much (from your home. The idea is also to avoid anyone getting hurt to avoid overwhelming 15 (the French ambulance number) or health personnel."

I know we all hate cars, mostly with good reason. But if you have one, going for a scenic drive may be a relatively hygienic distraction. As long as you don't need to stop and get out for gas or meals or whatever.

Yes there is some risk of a car accident that puts you in unwelcome close contact, and stresses the health system. But with the quiet roads out there, it may be less risky than it normally is.

I went into work today to get my company laptop, instead of remoting to it from my home desktop. The smaller screen will be annoying probably, but I couldn't take another day of sitting in that chair, my back was going into meltdown. Now at least I should be able to try different setups.

Carpal tunnel update: now have pins & needles in my left hand :(

ok you can go home for the day

:D

Sorry about that, VG.

Came to post that I’m glad we still have clients to give my colleagues things to do, for which he gives me things to do. Was interacting today with friends who are basically the boss of their businesses but don’t have any business now and so were kind of distressed in a different way.

will I brick my personal laptop in order to squeeze employment out of nothing? time will tell

What do you mean? Saw your bad news on the other thread, that sucks

my employment, if it still exists (does it still exist? nobody knows!) is contingent upon my ability to do my work from home, which is in the stage of troubleshooting where it looks like I'm going to have to manually edit the windows registry to get it to work, which is risky

that's abominable.

we already had lots of telework capability in place, this has really just been a stress check on our VPN + O365 cloud services to accommodate everybody teleworking at once, which it appears Cisco and Microsoft were already prepared to deliver per whatever ridiculously priced contracts we have with them. One particular network that only certain analysts have to use has been a PITA all week but aside from that our stuff all works like a charm, no fiddling required.

otoh you didn't get a text from your boss saying "I think you shouldn't show up to work anymore, maybe just go ahead and file for unemployment, K"

at least you know and don't have to spend the whole weekend not knowin

I guess. I was making a bad joke about another ilxor's coworker's situation, I should probably hush. I hope you get some proper tech support or at least some respectful communication from your employer in the very near future.

at this point I would be surprised if there was a single person on the planet capable of fixing this, given that I've talked to almost everyone

Did you talk to Ed?

I really don't know who you're referring to

(when I said "everyone" I meant the tech support arms of every involved product/party, i.e. generally several hours of being tossed from person to department to person to department, none of whom helped, and also everything I could find on google, which was almost nothing)

Ed is a smart ilxor that often knows the answers to things

but is it something that any of us could help with? given that i have never once been able to solve a problem on the Oh no! More boring computer problems! Oh no! thread, i doubt i could help, but maybe someone else can?

sorry to hear about it, either way. tech problems are just the fucking worst, especially given the circumstances

I'm self-employed and have worked from home for the past year and half, though in the past couple months, I've been moving towards possibly being part-time employee rather than contractor for one of my clients -- and it was kinda nice going into the office, taking smoke breaks with my colleague, having beers after work -- now it's back to the way it was.

i find it hard to focus. however, i am enjoying not being in the office with people i don't like that much.

don't you have a cool arts job?

i'm burnt out on it

my coworkers and i haven't ever really gotten beers after work. i loved jobs where that was the situation

ha i remember when i used to work for an art museum -- i uh, was disappointed to learn/feel like it was way too much like a corporate job except people talked about art and were more attractive.

Socializing with co-workers after hours is the fucking worst. When I worked for a major label, having to awkwardly hang around with people I'd spent all day in the office with, at shows by one of our bands, was easily one of the worst aspects. Especially when the head of the label would show up; it turned going to a metal show into a performance review. "Clap louder if you want that raise!"

I liked going for a pint with colleagues right up to the point where I was the boss, then it got weird, now I have nobody to go for a drink with, but it's ok because the pubs are closed.

Ed is a smart ilxor that often knows the answers to things

xp -- at this point I'm just going to backup/reformat the PC and start over, in hopes that nuking the PC will fix whatever it is that is causing the problem

this is really about the worst possible time to do this, but we don't really choose these things, do we

I liked going for a pint with colleagues right up to the point where I was the boss, then it got weird,

I got lectured by a drunken staff member at Christmas about how much "power" had changed me :)
He was all apologies on the Monday - I told him I was drunk and couldn't remember what he said.

I say that to my coworkers all the time

whenever a colleague came to me to complain about my demeanor after I got promoted i just told them they were part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor and spilled my drink on them

right now, only two of my teammates are even located in the same city as me. my boss lives in a different country (Canada), and his boss is in Texas.

we have to fly in to be in the same place at once to even do things like drink together.

"I'm going to backup/reformat the PC," she said, expecting it to be easy and not to require her to take apart the entire apartment looking for a flash drive to turn into bootable media because the easy method didn't fucking work

finally managed to get it to work; never want to look at another powershell window again; murphy's law says I have now guaranteed my job loss

i thought i had the adapter for my work laptop here but i don't and it is dead now and we are required to ration our contact with the office. so i have given up. on my first day of working from home. i'll go in tomorrow morning and get it.

you can probably find a universal adapter online

nah i need to go in eventually anyway, i just wasn't going to waste my opportunities making a trip today

thought i would enjoy hanging out with my cats all day and taking it ~easy~ but my brain hates this, like it's constantly being pulled in two directions. an unholy thing has been let in my apartment.

that's all i'll complain about it though, anything is worth getting my commute time back

whenever a colleague came to me to complain about my demeanor after I got promoted i just told them they were part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor and spilled my drink on them

I missed this, but lol.

today was so dead i watched Desus & Mero clips all morning

kinda loving this whole WFH gig

ha

nicholsonyes.gif

truthfully though i thought i would hate working from home. but it is pretty good so far. even when it’s busy, just having a quiet space makes it easier to handle stress etc. i may go insane if this lasts months or just collapse from carpal tunnel paralysis but otherwise i dig it

i am kinda naturally not-social/chatty though so this kinda suits my personality

Once I got into the office it wasn't that bad. But boy did I hate having to "get ready" for work in the morning and then commuting. Every fucking weekday. Rain or shine, cold or heat. That was the worst part of school for me too. Just not a morning person. Was thrilled with myself one semester in college for structuring my class sched to start after 10am.

I had a two hour WebEx call this morning (9-11), and another one at 1 PM that was supposed to be an hour but we managed to resolve all the issues in half that time, thank fuck.

I have to fill out a Google Pages form listing what I did each day now.

all of us have been thrust with a heavy workload (which isn't that bad cos it's training so there's no chance of it lasting late into the night - it ends when it ends). means PTO might be limited for a bit, but they also don't want us to go into December not having used any, so I may just keep the dates I had in May that I don't TECHNICALLY need anymore.

on the plus side, I'm getting mass OT this month just for the 30 minutes before training and 30 after.

aside from the aforementioned computer fuckup I've freelanced long enough that I'm used to working from home; it's also nice to get back the 1.5-2 hours' worth of commute

I have to fill out a Google Pages form listing what I did each day now.

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum right now - no oversight, no one paying much attention, left to our own devices (literally, for most/many of us I assume, me included). I wish I could relax and enjoy it but I am utterly incapable of doing so. I would actually like a *teensy* bit more pressure.

it's also nice to get back the 1.5-2 hours' worth of commute

this I agree is an unabashed Good Thing

yeah prior to working from home I used to just not bother making plans cos I'd get home late and had to be up much earlier. it's very nice.

I would enjoy that aspect except that, y'know, making plans is mostly over for now lol

well right. now I actually prefer days with less free time in them :/

fuckin love not having a 30 min commute there & back every day

also cut down on my speeding tickets significantly

I miss my commute because it was 90 minutes of cycling every day, but I am really not feeling the desire to replicate it without the need.

my commute was 90m-2h of toddler-uninterrupted reading time every dat, idk where to get that time in the wfh situation

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum right now - no oversight, no one paying much attention, left to our own devices (literally, for most/many of us I assume, me included). I wish I could relax and enjoy it but I am utterly incapable of doing so. I would actually like a *teensy* bit more pressure.

― brechtian social distancing (Simon H.), Monday, March 23, 2020 10:48 PM (yesterday)

i'm in the same situation. i need structure. i was having trouble getting out of bed when i did have to go to work, so now i'm just giving in and it's not making me feel any better. i know it would be a good idea to write down a plan but something being a good idea is not making me actually do it.

not surprising or anything but i believe we're about to get word that this will be formally extended through the month of april soon, so i need to get some kind of system going soon or i will lose my mind. may be worth it to spend some of my "work" time today cleaning my dining room so i will stop working on my couch or bed like a lump

I'm grateful my job is still running virtually but I don't think our leadership got the memo we're in a crisis.

Just heaped the aforementioned insane workload on us, but they seem to have forgotten everything is slower.

Dumped 90+ new hires on us, knowing the technical issues at the partner site would be massive. However, the IT line, due to absenteeism and volume, has a 75 minute wait just for web chat. Our HR is pushing service requests back a week.

And leadership constantly breathing on us asking how it's going, it's like CHILL THE FUCK OUT, we're already stressed by what's going on outside.

knuckling down and concentrating for more than half an hour at a time is so exhausting. if it was something where i could get some reasonable state of flow going that'd be one thing, but it's all these fiddly, not urgent but important, unrelated little doodads to knock out. i've finally moved away from needing to do all those doodads the second they come in because they are always more, but then i'm at the point where i try to motivate myself to actually do some of the fiddly bits before they get unreasonably old

I have that same problem. Lol...."oh, not due for two weeks? Well let me get a head start. WHOA, I don't know the answer to that, will look at it later."

I am lucky to have a job I can do from home, I know, but the bits of the job I like and get on with are where frontline staff email to ask "please fix/process this small thing!" and I can turn it around right away without any thought, or maybe within a day or two with a little bit of puzzle-solving. realtime, reactive, feels vaguely useful.

now the frontline staff are not in work and that element of my job is just not happening, and there's nothing left but the long-term projects where I can't see how to start and I get overwhelmed with worry about getting it wrong because I'm not smart/organised enough to think all the possible pitfalls through properly.

normally I ignore those projects until they're way overdue; sometimes it turns out they didn't need to happen anyway and sometimes it's just that nobody notices/cares, because that's the kind of unobservant incompetence-enabling workplace I work for and am too scared to leave because where else would people be so careless as to leave me to my own devices and not tell me to shape up?

also I am strangely annoyed at a neighbour lying in the sun on the communal lawn, even though there's nobody else out there or likely to walk within at least a metre so it's more or less fine, but my lizard/bureaucrat/toddler brain feels peeved somehow that someone is getting away with something I didn't want to do anyway while I'm working stuck indoors, staring at a screen, pretending to work, clockwatching

also she's probably the person that always leaves cigarette butts all over the communal garden, which is nasty

just because everyone is WFH that does not mean you can schedule a meeting for 8am, particularly not when you send the invite out at 9pm the previous night.

That is criminal lol. I refuse to schedule any before 10 and even then, only if I sent it hours prior to the end of previous day

my new morning routine is much more relaxed than before, because I used to have to make my lunch, my son's lunch, get him out of bed, harangue him for 45 minutes, drive him to school, then into work. I still get up early now but now I just shower, walk the dogs, get slightly high, then come back and work is tolerable until about 1pm.

I have that same problem. Lol...."oh, not due for two weeks? Well let me get a head start. WHOA, I don't know the answer to that, will look at it later."

― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Tuesday, March 24, 2020 11:49 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is the default setting of my brain so really not much has changed wrt that

the o/h is having a Zoom meeting next door and I guess rounds of congratulations are being read out because I keep hearing bursts of clapping, from him, on his own

8am meetings are evil no matter what format/medium, and ridiculous to have so little notice as well. I felt vaguely annoyed there's a 9am meeting tomorrow, even though I no longer have to get up to commute

Just want it on the record that WFH with demanding small children (who are also at home) is NOT a constant ballet of cute "woops, cute kid came into the webcam frame and was cute for a few seconds."

It is also sometimes being curled up with a laptop in the closet, with my feet holding the door closed while someone screams DAAAADAAAAA and pounds on the door for half an hour. And then emerging to find the room decorated with diaper contents and magic marker.

If the liquor stores close I am doomed.

just because everyone is WFH that does not mean you can schedule a meeting for 8am, particularly not when you send the invite out at 9pm the previous night.

ugh. disgusting savages.

"i'm a morning person, so that means you are now too!"

I'm teaching from home (secondary: 11-16) and my school, seemingly the only one in the country from what I can make out, gave us a week to come to terms with Microsoft Teams so we can continue to give our kids the education they need. It's been... surprisingly OK so far. The kids are happy to have a routine, somewhere to gather and chat, and - so far at least - pleased to be getting on with something. I've got a top set bunch of 15-year-olds and godammn they're keeping me on my toes. We're reading farty old An Inspector Calls and I'm getting more from it than any previous year.

Downsides: it lacks the core element of teaching English - discussion and human heat; they've worked out how to mute the teacher and each other; they can gatecrash lessons; the chat function is amenable to all manner of filth and exotica; they're essentially unaccountable. I expect next week to devolve into the internet version of shitting in one's hands and throwing it around the room but for now, it's OK.

the lack of commute suddenly means that 10am meetings feel insanely late. i'm like, wtf do i do before then? the kids are already bored and drilling holes into each others' thighs by like, 7:50. joe wicks saves us for a half an hour before we all start yelling at each other again. by the time that day's 10am meeting rolls around i'm already fucking exhausted.

considering wearing a sombrero to my meetings from now on, unrelatedly (i think)

i did manage to do some work. i cleaned the table off. after i took a trip to the office, the grocery store, and target. target was to get two storage totes, one for knitting stuff and one for sewing stuff, because that was what was occupying the table. i have done more work than anyone else on a particular group project so i'm sure everyone thinks i've been working all day and only started after i did my own work. lol. i also am not used to typing on my laptop because i have a dock at work with an actual keyboard and i keep accidentally deleting half the things i type when my hands hit the touchpad. i'm just glad there's no diaper contents around me :)

the meme content of my workday has increased exponentially. i'm ok with this; have to cope with stressful skype meetings somehow. someone shared something by The Oatmeal and I responded by making a joke about the Chemical Brothers album "Dig Your Own Hole". I'd never actually gotten around to listening to the Chemical Brothers before. turns out Dig Your Own Hole is a pretty good record!

my home desk chair is going to give me permanent back and ass pain for the rest of my life but i'll be damned if i spend one red cent for the sake of this job

Good DN Simon H.

there's definitely been a bit of trenches spirit in this so far, with my work. zoom can make things feel really formal, nobody knows exactly when to talk. it's more important than ever for somebody to bring a joke or just chat shit for a good 5-10 minutes.

I am starting to get really good at this. Did I already brag about the setup? I have four screens, three keyboards, two phones, it's ridiculous in here. I feel like I spent last week getting all the sources of avoidable distractions out of my system and now I'm actually able to focus and get a lot of work done as long as the unavoidable distractions (home schooling my daughter, escorting contractors to fiddle with the HVAC, shit like that) don't disrupt too much of the day.

my "home office" is vastly more pleasant than my "office office", especially after I've made some long overdue rearrangements to improve both the aesthetics and functionality

having the rest of the family around gonna be a challenge now kids are doing school at home but although day 1 was a horrorshow, day 2 was vastly smoother - let's see how day 3 is

one thing about WFH is that it really does highlight when people aren't pulling their weight - a colleague whose sketchy reliability was easy enough to carry in the pre-plague days is now shaping up to be a real source of difficulty for remote work - I'm semi-sympathetic because they are freaking out about their living circumstances viz the lockdown, but we are also lucky to be in meaningful work at the moment and to keep it viable it's gotta be all hands to the pump

my worksite computer is the USS Enterprise, i'm flying the Galileo shuttlecraft here

all alone

When my work was mostly writing I could do it at night, after kid bedtimes. Now that it is mainly meetings everyone schedules meetings during the same daytimes that they would have ordinarily scheduled them in, which blows.

I finally got my big monitor hooked up
omg my eyes are so happy I can seeeeeeee again

we had a zoom meeting last wk & it was funny to see everyone’s different setups, one coworker was standing up, and staring down at the laptop camera the whole time & the resolution was super low & it looked like someone’s found footage of their final moments before being murdered, i was trying so hard not to laugh

There is a real crazy intimacy these meetings engender.. you see the inside of everybody's house!

I really like the people I work with - and some of them are interstate - so it's pretty cool to be having the virtual hangs

so far work hasn't required me to use video, which currently is a good thing because my microphone has yet to work after a reformat

(that said the dissonance between the force of the flood of "if you care about the economy right now you are basically hitler, satan, and trump as one individual, and support murder, slavery, and eugenics" and the terror I feel every morning around 9 and every afternoon around 5 at whether my income will exist for another day is making me lose my mind)

everyone deserves protection from the consequences of this thing - medically, and financially

also, trump is a moron

these things can be true at the same time

I will say this positive thing which is that my roommate and I have so far managed not to murder one another after suddenly being together 24/7

some idiot clicked on a malware link overnight and our whole network is now shutdown. we have also been blocked from another network we need to use. whoops. we have been told for MONTHS not to click links in emails due to repeated phishing attempts, such as "your sexual harassment training is going to expire in 24 hours." great job, everyone.

It's now prescribed that whenever someone coughs on a video call, they have to say "don't worry guys, it's not coronavirus!" and everyone else has to laugh at the joke.

civil service has initiated split shifts for working from home because load on the network or w/e i dunno

wife is on earlies, im on lates, this has plusses this has minuses in a one bed, one living space apartment

lucky we back onto the park, as long as the hysteria around people going outside at all doesnt get that closed too.

my worksite computer is the USS Enterprise, i'm flying the Galileo shuttlecraft here

all alone

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, March 24, 2020 9:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

hang in there morbs, we're here

I'm glad you're not going in any more, deems, but sorry yr employers have found a way to complicate things yet again

went back to office to retrieve my ergo trackball mouse & facilities mgr let me bring my chair home too
fkn YES finally bloody comfortable again

xp ty, we'll take the good from it to start.

one person on calls or w/e at a time, our preferred exercises arent mutual, leaves one guilt free to cook each meal, and we both have v v good noise cancelling headphones. we'll survive it.

Hooray for good chairs

hip hip support

Three chairs

ergonomic me conseated

How much would someone want for a set of ergonomic chairs?

if you backed me into a corner?

Two adults - who work in very related jobs at the same university - and two kids under 5 = neither of us getting masses done. Snatching the odd hour or two each day to answer emails and do video conferences. Thank god we turned on microsoft teams at the end of last month.

if you backed me into a corner?

Ach, it was a Castle reference. Tell him he's dreaming...

Glad I remembered to take off the creationist tshirt I was wearing ironically before teleconference

Ach, it was a Castle reference.

ach it was a reference to why one might need an ergonomic chair ;)

My partner has made me set a timer for every 1/2 to get up and stretch, which has been essential tbh.

thank you, I'm gonna do the same rn

ach it was a reference to why one might need an ergonomic chair ;)

Ach, wasted on me, lad ;)

stop

i really will get conseated

You're off your rocker, mush.

seriously d'Eames

the best thing about working from home is that if i randomly decide i want some toast, i can just go to the kitchen & make some

the worst thing is too many goddamn meetings

anybody use WebEx and have it be really terrible with sound quality for people dialed in thru internet this week?

anybody's VPN get toasted?

otoh i am kinda loving that I'll get paid time and a half solely because of how bad things are.

I don’t actually need to use the VPN for anything it turns out, can get by with our internet-facing ssh bastion and port forwarding, and none of the web-based stuff i need to deal with has any IP-range restrictions. An upside of the web SaaS era I guess.

i can do a significant part of my job without VPN, but they're putting us on Workday soon instead of Peoplesoft for time card and we're entering a blackout period, so I decided to be safe and filled out hours through 3/31 today

both my work vpn and my lol just for fun home vpn are doing fine

teleconferencing has been a struggle, we don't actually have enough licenses for everybody to be talking to each other all the time through conferencing it looks like?

im rather staggered that our citrix system not only worked first time and flawlessly all day

well i say all day but look

but that it has an android app and that also works p well on my moveable phone well cya offive it was nice knowin ya but i think our relationship has moved on bye now bye

ms teams working good so far
vpn still good

I haven't had to sign in to the university VPN yet. I had two meetings today, one on WebEx, one on Teams. They both worked OK. Teams was a little better in terms of sound/video quality but my laptop's fan was blowing so hard I thought the machine was gonna burst into flames.

our VPN is fine but it's a good thing my work hasn't required any audio/video meetings since I still haven't figured out how to get my mic to work again after the wipe

Do any of y'all who use VPN also use Jabber? Got sent a headset to use on calls but you need to have calls routed thru Jabber to use it and it seems like that option isn't viable if I use VPN.

Set up my home router to use its 5GHz antenna, then got my Airport Express to use that signal to extend the network a bit - gamechanger for Zoom - you don't want to be the one always dropping out / breaking up. You don't want to be that guy.

Because if you are that guy, I know another guy who will find you and mute you: me!

The weekly conference calls and multiple times weekly check-in calls from management have been fine. Just fine. Why the goddamn fucking motherfucking fuck do we need to start doing video chats next week, you goddamn stupid fucking motherfucking fucks.

I'm just gonna tell 'em the cameras on my phone and laptop are broken. Fuckit.

the best thing about working from home is that if i randomly decide i want some toast, i can just go to the kitchen & make some

I'm somewhat alarmed at how much more I'm eating during the day now that I'm home, especially since the only regular exercise I'm getting (aside from a quick bike ride after breakfast) is the walk upstairs from the basement office to get a snack.

Why the goddamn fucking motherfucking fuck do we need to start doing video chats next week

Last week I and most of my coworkers were leaving our cameras off on the calls we've been doing, but this week without prompting more and more of us are turning them on and I must say it's been nice to see their faces. I genuinely like the people I work with though.

My wife has to sit through a freaking daily check-in call with the rest of her office. I’ve been lucky enough to only have to endure three meetings since lock-in started here two weeks ago

this suuuucks!

had a meeting yesterday that lasted an hour, probably could've been dealt with in an email and a little bit of slack back and forth. I really needed to pee during it but 1. standing up would have shown that I was in my underwear and 2. the meeting was on the brink of winding up for about 25 minutes so it was easy to think I just had to endure a little more.

working in my office today. I am walking distance from my office and there is no-one here, so this is a lot less fraught than going to buy groceries, which I have to do every couple of days because I don't drive.

ergonomically my office is soooo much better than working at home. good chair, two big monitors at eye-height vs a MacBook Air on the kitchen table, etc.

Yeah, I often complain about what an ergonomic nightmare my workplace is, but it's only taken two weeks of WFH to turn me into Quasimodo.

like 3 years ago my boss said he was going to get me a camera for video conferencing and thank god the motherfucker is forgetful cause I still don't have one

I've had the same relatively cheap office chair for 7+ yrs but addition of a bed pillow to it makes it extremely comfy

the meeting was on the brink of winding up for about 25 minutes so it was easy to think I just had to endure a little more.

microsoft edging

had a nice zoom meeting today. our oldest co-worker first had up a picture of himself finishing a 5k instead of video. then he got the video to work and was doing the meeting from his deck. looked nice. then he accidentally clicked something and showed everyone his screen forever. nothing bad on there, was just kind of adorable that he couldn't figure it out. for some reason another co-worker was doing dishes? like there's no other time you could do this? then she got mad because people said the background noise was her doing dishes.

aaaargh

it's great having co-workers who set the bar soooo low that you can just easily step over it

my wacky coworker attended his first zoom meeting last week in an actual white tuxedo
no idea why, i thought he was joking when he said he would the day before

meanwhile a clean hoodie, sweats & vaguely combed hair is the best they are ever going to get out of me

I don’t like this at all. Once a week would be fine but everything is harder on this laptop and I’m going stir crazy.

:(

Yeah, I often complain about what an ergonomic nightmare my workplace is, but it's only taken two weeks of WFH to turn me into Quasimodo.

it me!

my work are cheapskates so we all have 15-20 year old office chairs which are falling apart: big patches of fabric worn away, cracked/disintegrated arms, the adjustment mechanisms don't work, jammed at weird angles, etc. I scavenged a couple of other equally elderly chairs to replace mine but they all just hurt different parts of my body so I cycle through them whenever I'm tired of them

but here, I'm just slouching on the couch with a laptop and no wrist rest and paper strewn around me, and I could almost miss those horrible chairs

I'd buy a new chair but I don't even know if you can still order them anywhere and I'm p sure I'm not going to get to try any out before ordering

sorry ENBB :(

yeah, everything's harder here too and I'm just lucky that nobody's really been keeping tabs on me so I've been slacking off a bit, but I'd better get my act together next week

(my usual day-to-day work has ground to a halt as nobody's in the office, but there are other things I should be picking up instead)

I'm not sure how anyone has their act together right now tbrr

my boomer colleague and I do the exact same job, answer emails in the same inbox and now, working from home, check the same voicemail box. she's revealed that she doesn't return any of the voicemail messages except by email, as she does not want students to have her personal phone number. she was confused that this did not bother me, and even more confused when I explained I don't answer unknown numbers, have my voicemail set up, and my phone is always on both silent, and no vibration

(I don't have my voicemail set up, sorry for tortured sentences)

what makes it harder?
They kept trying to get my to switch to a laptop and I didn't want to, cause small screen and annoying keyboard but I was assuaged by promises that I could hook up a different monitor and keyboard to it. Then my boss's request to provide me a laptop got denied anyway so...

nobody's really been keeping tabs on me so I've been slacking off a bit, but I'd better get my act together next week

This marks the 372nd week in a row I've told myself this

haha, well, the same might be true here now you put it that way

it's like I said about having coworkers setting a low bar: co-worker who is part time wfh has been repeatedly caught breaking THREE of the big no-no's (1 she sells jewelry on facebook during work hours 2 she took photos of herself wearing said jewelry while at her desk that included sensitive info on her monitor in the background, and 3 she tried to recruit co-workers into her jewelry cabal) that are discussed during our annual compliance or ethics or whatever it's called training, yet she's still here.

and on top of all that, she's not even good at this job!

literally considering doing weekend work so i can get some reporting done without interruptions

i kind of suck at this i feel like

have received a very ominous email about the existence of my job

I'm doing the jim in vancouver maneuver right now. but I have pants on

we did 'office drinks' today at 4pm where a few people from about three related teams cracked open a drink of their choice and we opened up a massive zoom call. it was fun! after about half an hour we realised we should probably stop so we did.

I’ve done a couple of zoom HHs so far, they’re OK. Was more rewarding to just walk down the alley outside with my beer and chat with IRL neighbors from a safe distance.

Sorry katherine

Jim I am 100% with you on phone protocol except I have a ring vibrate which is a very brief “zz”

The only thing I miss about my old job is I worked solo on most assignments.

I train full-time and our plate is full and the sheer volume of people on VPN is overwhelming servers and our IT line so I can't get through a single training session without a major stoppage.

Which is fine if they let you make adjustments but they always want you to finish in the same duration despite the issues so you make massive cuts to the curriculum and then they ask you why something wasn't taught.

I had a one person class today and two hours of VPN issues later....had to postpone.

My boss is pressuring me to have her finish on her own and I'm like "why? The rest of my week is open, why shouldn't I finish it when she's back up?"

we have our new email stuff after last week's phishing incident and they have set up a new group on workplace for the IT help desk. which someone added me to against my wishes. it is full of extremely dumb questions, failure to read instructions, and whining. "but i don't like gmail!" and other gripes. it's great.

man I really appreciate my boss (and company as a whole) after hearing about some of the bullshit other wfh ppl have to put up with.
exhibit a, email from today:
"Hi team,

I know there is a lot of craziness going on, kids have eLearning, dr appts, family stuff, etc…

Since we are all WFH you can have some additional flexibility with your schedule. Our intent is not to have everyone burn through PTO because they can’t put in 8 hours per day between 9-5.
Some things are easier done off-hours, so if that works then go for it. If you need to work 6 hours one day and 10 the next then just let us know. "

Flexing is a necessity. People are gonna burn out unexpectedly some days or their kids are going to need extra attention others.

Good for them recognizing that.

Yeah 1 of my coworkers (who is all-around great) has 2 young kids with ADD, 1 more severe than the other. She is struggling.

it's amazing how ppl who are a total pain in the ass in the office retain those qualities remotely

nothing worse than a pain in the ass who now is forced to communicate via poorly-drafted email

lol

i'm glad i'm not being supervised because i would have to explain why i'm working 2 hours one day and 1 hour the next day

The one thing I hate is that our terrible outsourced IT is so backed up rn, if we have tech issues we basically have to solve them ourselves.

Lol i will cop to watching tv on days when I'm not training people

A good friend of mine has two young kids and her manager's response to this crisis has been to micromanage everyone + ask for more + call them up when deadlines get blown. Absolute nightmare fuel.

You just can't expect great productivity from people rn.

But some bosses want shit to be business as usual.

times when i feel guilty i just remind myself of all the time they stole from me when i worked 60 hours and was paid for 40 because i'm salaried

ha same

Pretty much had I been OT eligible in 2017, i might have cleared six figs for the first time in my life

this crisis has made me realize that I am so used to doing my bathroom business at work that I have absolutely no concept of how long TP supplies last

I don't feel as guilty cos when I don't have a class, there's not much for me to do. I've taught them all so often i need bare minimum prep.

And I don't tell my boss anymore that i have capacity to do more work cos i got fucked me in the past doing that

Xpost lol

One day it's here, and then it's gone

i hadn't even thought of that! i'm on my last roll before i break into the 30-pack i got at costco before panic buying started. one thing that is weird about my current office compared to my last office is how many people seem to poop at work. maybe they're onto something, shifting the TP costs to the office supply budget.

before working from home I did nearly all my pooping at work

Read that as 'shitting the TP costs...'

I have ulcerative colitis and work for the government so god knows how much of the state budget I was blowing on TP before WFH

today in online meetings: is my mic not working properly or is it just situation normal that every time I start to say something someone starts talking over the top of me and nobody responds to anything I say?

I'm going with somewhere between the latter and actually I don't care, fuck all these stupid meetings anyway. I swear we didn't have this many meetings when we were actually, well, meeting

I am so used to doing my bathroom business at work that I have absolutely no concept of how long TP supplies last

envious, as I always breakfast at home and hafta interrupt it for you know

I am so used to doing my bathroom business at work that I have absolutely no concept of how long TP supplies last

most otm post of all

i spent the last year and a half converting our garage into a habitable space with a bathroom and we finally got a sofa in there this week and after one day of working out there away from my family I actually feel like I'm 'working' again after a month. i love my family but they have no boundaries when I'm at home and visible.

akm can I come work in your garage

I have done very little all day

this scenario happens in-office all the time but seems to be much more prevalent via remote

HEY THERE’S A FIRE PUT IT OUT ASAP
Me, a firefighter: ok where is the fire
HANG ON A MINUTE
ok send me details asap so i can take care of it
...
...
hey do you have details
STILL CHECKING, PLEASE WAIT FOR MY INFO
ok
....
(later)

I SEE THAT THE FIRE IS NOT OUT YET, DID I MISS SOMETHING?

i can and am getting all my work done from home, no bother

but i feel like i could spend the rest of my life trying to get the remote desktop window to fit my extended monitor and its still gonna have an inch either side and its destroying my soul minute by minute

I SEE THAT THE FIRE IS NOT OUT YET, DID I MISS SOMETHING?

otm

I have done very little all day

also otm

My (government-issued) laptop has locked down Skype to just text, no phone or video. Now my manager wants us to install Microsoft Teams on our personal laptops/other devices. I assume videoconferencing is on the horizon.

I have one guy in my team who fucks up joining Skype meetings every single time. Today I ended up with an IT guy phoning him and screen sharing to talk him through what buttons to click while the rest of us waited patiently and listened to half of the conversation because IT guy stayed in the Skype unmuted the entire time.

We'll do it all again on Monday.

I shaved my beard into a handlebar mustache for two videoconferences’ worth of comedy value today. Tomorrow everyone just won’t recognize me since I’m now barefaced for the first time in over a year.

WFH is working out better than I thought. Getting an extra hour of sleep due to no commute makes a huge difference.

Y’all got some crazy micromanagers. We’re not really “working from home”, we’re “trying to survive and just keep all the shit we oversee from breaking without actually creating anything useful”

Which is better: Skype, Zoom, or Teams? Asking for an IT Department.

OMG, the TP thing. Reminds me of the times I was so poor I stole TP from work. And that office TP is so thin and brittle, I don't think it lasts as long.

Getting an extra hour of sleep due to no commute makes a huge difference.

Absolutely. I had to get up at 5 this morning because on Thursdays I do laundry before work, but other than that, yeah.

Which is better: Skype, Zoom, or Teams? Asking for an IT Department.

Lots of articles around stating that Zoom is basically spyware and that the company gives access to any cop that asks for it. I have been using Teams the last couple of weeks and don't hate it. We also use WebEx once a week for a two-hour team meeting.

Skype > Teams > Zoom > Webex > Gotomeeting

I think.

In five-ish years of using Skype for everything (IM, presence, voice, and meetings) I had very little trouble.

Webex gives me headaches like two or three times a week. I hate it. I cannot understand why my company has Skype for presence and IM but won't use it for conferencing.

Teams, I believe, is functionally a front-end for a combination of the worst features of SharePoint, Skype, a bad version of wiki, and a bad chat room. I haven't warmed to it but I am pretty sure it can't suck less than webex.

I think I meant can't suck MORE than Webex, sorry

Which is better: Skype, Zoom, or Teams? Asking for an IT Department.

Teams by a long shot. Skype is a wasteland of drops and breakups, Zoom is a security nightmare right now.

Teams is better than any in-house frontend for SharePoint I’ve ever experienced. The discussion board and wiki functions are weak compared to purpose-built stuff but they’re serviceable

Teams is great, super fast & easy to use

Ok Tom + Veg.

I worked at Microsoft exactly when Lync was shading into Skype for Business. Teams was just starting to be a thing when I left; they were shaking out the bugs. Hence my affection for Skype as opposed to Teams. Haven't tried it in a while but I guess I should. True UC in one package may be a distant dream.

Still think WebEx blows dead bears, btw.

Oh yeah WebEx is trash

Also I would bet money somebody actually thought about “what UI color profile makes most folks look OK during a videoconference” and that’s why Teams defaults to warm purple

"Warm purple" sounds like a strain of boutique weed

Which is what I will need to get through my next 37 conference calls

hi im the expert on Teams in my organisation, ama

nb

i was appointed today

what the fuck is teams

crash course welcome because management board is in 8 hours ty x

(you don't really need to tbh, ill bluff it pretty comfortably)

Teams is an app

uh huh

great, great, gimmme three more pieces that good and ill spin an hour and probly a promotion tbh keep it comin

It’s the purple one, with a T. Click on it

killer

a t, got it

right or left click?

the training I start next week = for a high profile client who met with our CEO to ensure we would meet their needs and we've been told there's "no room for error".

bitches...right now IT has 2 hour waits for CHAT SUPPORT and hangs up after 30 minutes on the phone, tickets go unresponded to. so when there's a problem, we have little chance of resolving it the same day. we also can't have people sit with other learners if their computer doesn't work because they're all working at home.

and VPN technology for our partner sites is notoriously spotty for WFH employees, to the point where the person I taught the other day got bumped out of it for two hours and screamed "JESUS CHRIST!" during my training the last time it happened.

there will be error. lots of it. you and the stupid client will have to deal with it.

I might finally get to send a passive aggressive email detailing how little I care. it's been a while.

Click on chat and start a new chat with me, your Teams expert. Congratulations you can now chat.
Click on Teams and start a new conversation. Great. Now click on reply. You’ve discovered how to thread.
Go to calendar. See those meetings? Beautiful.
Go back to teams. Click on wiki. It works like a wiki.
Now start a new thread. Click the paperclip. Attach a file (something family friendly). Say something about the file. Hit send. Go to files. There’s your file!

but can i have your sister emale

The above is an illustration of why teams is both good and also bad not good, because we have some folks (ok, one dude) who are relentless about fucking it up

The extent to which Teams a frontend for SharePoint has to do with the "attach a file" thingy Tom mentions - somewhere there is a Sharepoint site with that file in it. I will never not want to got to _that_ site and see it in a nice normal directory where I can sort by date modified and see the versioning history and enable co-authoring.

Haven't used it much for conferencing so if other folks are ok with it I will give it another try.

ok heres one for ye

what the fuck is onenote *for*?

Dude I don’t know but a lot of my classmates used it last year and afaict it did them no favors except maybe saving on pens and proper notebooks

Even the professional services people we employ just fire up Word to capture meeting minutes etc

I fucking HATE OneNote

we abandoned it shortly after we rolled it out

what is it for? damned if I know

ok thats a quorum, congrats we just cancelled onenote in this entire ministry

while ye have me, what else would ye like me to kill

I never understood OneNote when at Microsoft and still don't. Like, you type stuff into it. And it's, like, there. Ok great why can't I just do that in Word or Notepad or, heck, a PIECE OF PAPER

hint: weve a pack of wild animals in athlone still using lotus notes

it was difficult to use, we put agendas in there for meetings and that was about it.

lol we have Lotus Notes but we don't really put new things in it. it's just that it has 20+ years of archived stuff that we haven't all moved other places

Out of office autoreplies

half the people at my company either use specific dates in their OOO message and forget to update them each time, so you'll be in October seeing someone's message assuring you they'll be back on July 5th.

or they leave them on like a week after they return, confusing everyone.

afaict re onenote there's some functionality that lets you tags docs for better cross-reference or some shit but rly it was def not worth the time taken to learn it let alone pay for the product or training or roll out or following up

essentially the same flaw with everything office has rolled out since pivot tables

like i keep arguing that theyd get more out of my salary by letting me sit in with each unit and after a day or two gently show them how excel does that for you than they do any ten salaries in IT or training at present

but i recognise that without that makework the people doing it could quite easily destroy the place. its the equivalent of handing king kong a maiden, yeah you hate to see it but the alternative would be briefly entertaining, long term devastating and not for one second would having done the right thing save you when the mob comes looking

the training I start next week = for a high profile client who met with our CEO to ensure we would meet their needs and we've been told there's "no room for error".

bitches...right now IT has 2 hour waits for CHAT SUPPORT and hangs up after 30 minutes on the phone, tickets go unresponded to. so when there's a problem, we have little chance of resolving it the same day. we also can't have people sit with other learners if their computer doesn't work because they're all working at home.

and VPN technology for our partner sites is notoriously spotty for WFH employees, to the point where the person I taught the other day got bumped out of it for two hours and screamed "JESUS CHRIST!" during my training the last time it happened.

there will be error. lots of it. you and the stupid client will have to deal with it.

― narcissistic sleighride (Neanderthal), Thursday, April 2, 2020 8:34 PM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's katy perry isn't it

that things she does during ur gonna hear me roa a a aa ar wasnt a stylistic choice it was just her crappy home wifi

Most jobs could be replaced by software but it doesn’t follow that they should be

2xp to d

yeah im with that

So my vision of the future of the bureaucratic sphere is you employ a great many people to be customer service reps who take requests by phone and email and so on and key stuff in to backoffice software of various kinds, but if the whatsit is too complex you escalate to a meeting with a Tier 2 person, who keys in the ultimate solution across as much software as necessary, unless it’s not a supported configuration and you escalate to the business analysts and programmers who figure out the need and implement it and the end beneficiaries don’t have to use a computer at all if they don’t want to

What’s key here is you have to hire dozens of reps, you want no waits at all times, that’s the employment guarantee part of this reform package

oh we do most of *that* we're the civil service, dear

i like onenote. you can organize it like an actual notebook. it's very searchable. you can throw in links and pictures and tables and stuff. i find it much easier than having a million small or a few super long word documents.

hmmm

whats yr hourly rate to give webinars

dmac my like underlying contention is that there’s too much emphasis on building the self-service frontend for everything, some things sure the students should be able to sign up for classes without calling anyone but there’s not enough UX designers in the world to make everything actually easy.

i used to use it a lot but it crashed all the time so i just use docs & notepad now

If end-user programming were a real thing people wanted to do we could just let everyone open up a database shell and have at but nobody actually wants to be an end user programmer. u.u

I’m with Silby here

I mean we’ve diluted generic website ux down to the most basic level, you got a hamburger and a magnifying glass and the scroll, and people will still never find shit without help. You need more help. People-on-people help.

hmmm

whats yr hourly rate to give webinars

― ole uncle tiktok (darraghmac), Thursday, April 2, 2020 9:43 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i promise you it is astronomically expensive

ok

what's my cut

What is teams? Teams is that thing that auto-opens every fucking time I open my laptop and click away faster than a speeding bullet. Is it actually good not bad?

its the next big thing man, get on it now

We had Lotus Notus until a few years ago, now we have Google Mail + Google Docs and Slack + the one thing no-one's mentioned so far, Google Hangouts, which seems to do us pretty good?

But soon we're getting Teams. No-one as far as I can tell is enthused about this.

Google hangouts or meet or whatever it’s called is very good. Better than zoom for just regular video calling and team meetings.

darragh as long as you're banning things can you also ban bullshit email signature disclaimers about "for your eyes only" or whatever suck bullshit compliance language people stick in there

(The information in this post is intended for ilxor dot com only. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. Please notify the poster by ilxmail, and then destroy all copies of the post and any attachments.)

in the office today.

nobody else here.

zoom won't work on the Mac desktop I have here, left my work-issued MacBook air at home, so missed an hour and a half long zoom meeting.

two big monitors, office chair, wireless mouse vs sitting at my kitchen table hunched over a laptop with no mouse and a small screen.

bring it all home. We were told that today's the last day to bring equipment home from the office if we don't otherwise need to be there, I should've really gritted my teeth to bring my actual computer and monitor home but I've been getting by OK with ssh and a lot of port forwarding and so forth so I figured if it wasn't essential I shouldn't do it.

We were strictly forbidden to bring our desktops home, fortunately I have a company issues Surface and had an extra monitor at home so I've been able to make do as much as I can.

yeah I am going to bring stuff home. wireless mouse, mouse mat, second monitor, monitor risers.

office chair I don't fancy pushing for 16 blocks so that will have to stay here

oh and my keyboard

I think we were told to not take furniture

my colleague took her chair. but accidentally dropped her monitor off her chair while wheeling them to the elevator and shattered it. a nice newish Mac monitor not a shitty old dell like mine

I decided to sleep in today and burn the PTO and of course someone was out unexpectedly and they were looking for me to jump in.

I get Friday and Monday off next weekend and I am so looking forward to 4 days off

Agh, any chance of taking PTO is at least two weeks away for me. I had like 8 weeks of nothing to do but kept coming in to the office, then I got uber-busy right when the world went to shit. Since 3/13 I have had no chance to get bored or binge Netflix or undertake a baking project - every day has been full of kids, work, school, house. It's like five full-time jobs divided between two frazzled stressed-out people.

Some time to just focus on the kids, the house, the garden, music, and sanity would be luxurious if it ever happens. I am aware that we are very fortunate. But it does rankle when people in my social circles post that they're bored.

I'm not even close enough to anyone with kids that are old enough that I could offer to take a kid for a day, if that were even wise under the circs, probably isn't.

technically speaking I am working fewer hours but fortunately, so far, there's been enough freelance to make up the shortfall

yeah silby don't take a kid

Need a kid?
Take a kid

Have a kid?
Leave a kid

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/35/Babys_day_out_poster.jpg/220px-Babys_day_out_poster.jpg

how the fuck do you deal with people coming at you from a bunch of different directions simultaneously

skype and juggling two or three text conversations and every five minutes another "bing!" from the email, and i don't even have to deal with phone calls really!

i'm trying to remain social to keep my sanity, but the Urge to tell anybody who talks to me to fuck off i'm already having three conversations is pretty strong

we have now been banned from using zoom for work business because of its security problems

rush now add two bored kids into the mix 💀💀💀

Fuck me, Teams is SICK. Intuitive, audio/video quality are good, you can paste inline images in your chat sessions (which was a huge gripe I had with our previous software), and easy to share/upload files. Thumbs up!

last week, just about every one of our new classes had awful starts (I wasn't part of any of them), so they decided to start this week's classes half a day later to give them more time to work out their Day 1 logistical issues.

It was just as bad. Nobody could get into WebEx, nobody was listening, and of 20 people in the class, only 60% of them could get their credentials to work in Citrix, and of that 60%, only 1 got past the EPA scan, whereas everybody else was denied access due to failing said scan. and I'm betting it's because virus software and recent scans are required to access my company's network, and these hires are so underpaid, I bet none of them HAVE Antivirus software on their home machines, other than the pre-installed Windows Defender. What are you gonna do, lay all these people off a day into the gig?

so we got just about nothing done. I'm glad to have a job, but I would prefer if said job didn't make me want to scream. this class lasts until the 30th of April ffs.

🤯

🤯

🤯

Third time is the charm - jackpot!

Teams isnt so bad - someone was talking to me the other day and got frustrated he couldnt explain what he meant and said "hang on a sec" and just started sharing his screen in the chat window and showed me.

The group videoconf in it is also pretty solid, we've been using it for daily standup meetings in our little team, which usually devolve into "I cant by any flour" "I keep telling you, go to the indian grocers" every morning.

Sitting on the sofa behind the other half as he has a work video call.

Carefully shuffled over to the side of the sofa that should be just out of view, but intermittently find myself nodding my head along to music on headphones or rubbing my nose (don't touch the face! and definitely don't do it in a way that might look like picking yr nose on someone else's video call) and having to remind myself not to do that, just in case

had to fight myself from snapping today. i have a hard time with constantly being interrupted and there was zero flow today because WebEx audio was so bad, and still not everybody's tech working.

would be nice if I could chuck whatever curriculum I felt like but now we're four hours behind in a mere two days which i somehow have to make up.

i stopped caring mid-day and just phoned the shit in. then my mom tells me she quit her job and my brother is messaging me frantic worried she won't get her unemployment and I'm just like...you gotta wait bruh.

Almost lost my shit at a manager this morning.

My boss's boss asks me out of the blue to pick five learners to yank out of my class and move into a 401k class, suggesting I should ask their manager if any of them have relevant experience. Boss's boss nags me about it end of day. A bit annoying, as my partner was out so I was leading the class alone, but I survey the managers and tell her I will have 5 names in the morning.

I come in to find out the learner's manager had forwarded my survey to his boss, who anxiously CCed one of our ops managers, Kevin, saying he wasn't sure how we could do it.

So the ops manager dresses me down in a two paragraph essay for reaching out to Kevin before her (which I didn't even fucking do). So I defendes myself and said I did exactly as my boss's boss said to do, and I didn't send it to Kevin. Boss's boss admitted fault and called her to explain that it was her goof.

Yet still no fuckin' apology from the person who humiliated me in front of peers because she didn't bother to obtain facts before blaming me.

Christ, i know we're stressed, but when I copped a negative attitude on Tuesday, I apologized to everybody without them even asking that evening. Just cos we're all in the shit doesn't mean you get to step on me. You had PTO yesterday. Mine was almost all cancelled this month!

I horribly mangled the details but you get the idea

I 100% get the idea.

I think a lot of people are ending up on each other's shit lists under these conditions, because they aren't accustomed to working like this.

Somebody shared this with me the other day, I thought it made some good points: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/its-pandemic-work-from-home-brad-judy/

Like many organizations this week, mine sent out the message that all employees who did not need to be on site should stay at home. As a manager and leader in my organization, I have been thinking a lot about what this means. I have read many comments from peers across the country who were excited that this surge of remote work would allow companies to see the value to employees and increased productivity. Pandemic work is unlikely to play out that way.

I definitely think there's truth to that because those of us who have WFH for years, like me, are relatively well-adjusted to it, but that's a fraction of us.

I just need to be RIFed already. I've stuck around because seniority and performance has gotten me to a salary that I won't get for this work elsewhere (I've tried - they all pay much less. I'm paid more for my reputation than the role at this point).

But maybe the massive severance and finding something else is in the cards

Yes, I think some WFH advocates (especially those with disabilities and/or kids) have been, I think, prematurely saying "SEE? We TOLD you we could work remote but you didn't believe us."

I know I'm not working at 100% - I'm stressed as fuck, barely sleeping, and also maybe a little bit terrified of dying. So I have made a couple stupid bonehead mistakes at work and am still kicking myself about them. The groups of people I interact with are pretty dysfunctional as well, and collaboration is suffering. I fear that some employers will say "SEE? We TOLD you that remote work isn't as good as being in an office.

Both interpretations are incomplete because lots of jobs are a mix of things that can/should be done in person and things that can/should be done at home.

Also once the pandemic is behind us, at least some people will likely be eager to go back to work, just for the novelty factor.

thx for that link el tomboto, good points indeed.

the standard rulebook has been consigned to the shredder.

I know I'm not working at 100% - I'm stressed as fuck, barely sleeping

i'm at 50 at best, probably less, and have the same collateral ymp. hang in there.

I’m lucky enough to have a boss who’s said that he doesn't expect anyone to work full days, and people with kids even less. And he's requiring everyone to take three days of leave before the end of May. If you have less than 30 days of leave left you can take "exceptional leave" which doesn't count against your total. Yes there is a strong history of unionisation at my work.

Microsoft is giving ppl 12 weeks of parental leave, which they can use in a chunk or in little bits at a time.

So yeah, the internet on our block is dead again and AT &T is backlogged wrt reps visits, so for five days I have to use my cell for meetings and such and I need a new cell cos this ones too cheap. I don't have all the equipment I need and basically have to transfer all files to my cell then upload them. On top of it all I have back and shoulder pain because ergonomics. Now I need furniture upgrades. There goes my stimulus check. This is a fucking disaster. No point in complaining I mean every time I go online someone died. By the time this is over, being confined all day will be a traumatizing memory - no thanks.

My company is stretching my patience. On the one hand, they've done well in a number of areas. There's a <Company Name> People Matter fund (I really REALLY don't like that they co-opted BLM, but....), and it pays $200 to those who are in need and apply. They are allowing people to use sick leave (which they already provide) when they can't come in, I mean....as far as other companies go, they're doing better than many of them in that regard. and they've moved something like 90% of our call center operations to work from home.

But there's just other little things that piss me off. for instance, the new 401(k) withdrawal that the IRS allows. No peep on this from them, so I finally piped up a second time and asked, and someone from HR told me they were aware of the provision, and were looking into whether to allow it or if what they currently had available for their 401(k) was sufficient. I was flummoxed because this plan only allows 1 loan at a time (and obviously loans are problematic due to it shrinking their paychecks to pay it back), and also, if you're under 59.5, unless you've made significant after-tax/Roth contributions over a specific minimum, your only withdrawal opportunity is a Safe Harbor Hardship, which by law you can only take for prevention of eviction/foreclosure, Funeral/burial expenses, purchase of a primary residence, unreimbursed medical expenses, tuition reimbursement, or unforseen damage to home.

But there's also supporting paperwork that requires being sent in, so it can take up to two weeks to see money (due to time needed to receive and return paperwork, and processing, and standard payment timing). also, it doesn't cover other reasons, such as "my significant other is out of work and is eligible for state/federal unemployment, but the state they live in is very backed up on processing claims, so until we get that money, we are struggling to eat", or "I had to take an unpaid FMLA leave to care for a sick relative who has COVID, so neither of us are getting paid, and we're waiting forever for unemployment", or "yeah, I can't be evicted right NOW, but I don't want to emerge from this in the winter and owe my landlord $5,000 that I can't pay". and it doesn't require paperwork, so the money would come sooner (our standard withdrawals are paperless). I feel like there was no reason not to adopt this other than they don't want their employees pulling money out of the plan. whereas my mother's company already has it available online.

and, they're not cutting us any slack right now. almost all of the training to get people who are working from home ready to go has fallen on my team. We're understaffed due to a RIF last year, and they froze hiring so we could not replace who we lost. Prior to this, none of us had experience with training CCRs who work from home, or even know how their VPN works. Despite this, no adjustments were made to the training schedule, they want us to finish in the allotted time we were given even though we sometimes start 2-4 hours late on Day 1 due to all of the technical problems. and they don't want the quality of the training to suffer. even though we're all largely distracted and aren't operating at 100%

When we told them about the technical issues on day 1 of the last two classes, the solution from leadership is "well these technical issues were probably a fluke and probably won't happen again" (they did! they aren't a fluke!). Also, after 25+ years of our IT being in-house, we outsourced it in 2018 when we spun off, and the current IT is overwhelmed to where tickets sit unanswered for weeks. I'm not an IT person, nor are any of us, so any problems we can't figure out sit unresolved for weeks, with learners and their managers frustrated and asking us what the holdup is. They gave us a workaround that allowed us to submit tickets by email, and....nobody does anything with them.

But more frustratingly, these IT folk keep claiming they called the people who started the ticket, despite their phones never ringing. or they say they tried the number, and they got a busy signal (which they claimed despite calling CELL phones), or that it says invalid number. Some of these resources are overseas and it's clear that they don't know how to dial internationally and none of their managers are telling them how, so we've had to resort to "FINE, let us call YOU, or create a Skype meeting".

years ago, when we were called something else, Florida got hit with 4 hurricanes in one season in 04, and they gave everybody a day off to take to spend at home cleaning up, as well as allowing people more time off as needed if they were more severely hit. they didn't care how it hurt operations.

nowadays, they only care about how we serve our clients. if a client is bitching about interruptions to service because they're 1% shitbirds who don't have sympathy, we apologize and say "we'll fix it", when we used to just tell them to "piss off" when we were a private company. hell, I had to listen to Birther clients go on a racist rant, only to hear one of our employees agree with him loudly, while my eyes bugged out, angry.

my boss is cool and he's one of the most empathetic people I know, but thinking of asking him "hey y'all need to cut budget? can I be your sacrificial lamb"? I could spend time at home with my father, and i'd get 30 weeks of severance.

Our online course curriculum timeout malfunctions.

It doesn't time you out after 15 minutes of inactivity. It times you out after 15 minutes... regardless!

So you are in the middle of presenting and the "you will be timed out" pops up even though you've been using it the whole time

That happens with our main internet-based system. Then the message is "you have been the portal!", leaving out the "logged out of" part. Really instills confidence in the 3rd party vendor who created and maintains it.

WebEx: "The meeting has ended."

Persons with approximately Catholic upbringing: "Let us go in peace."

Our online course curriculum timeout malfunctions.

It doesn't time you out after 15 minutes of inactivity. It times you out after 15 minutes... regardless!

So you are in the middle of presenting and the "you will be timed out" pops up even though you've been using it the whole time

― genital giant (Neanderthal), Friday, April 24, 2020 10:39 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a weirdly common issue with videoconferencing/streaming for some reason

a supervisor has finally gotten her new email set up and just sent everyone a very confusing and badly written email as a google doc attached to the email, rather than just an email. another has sent out an invitation for a google meet with no subject for the meeting. then she sent another for the same time and it is called "wellness check." tbh i need more wellness checks when we are not working from home and doing nothing. i would probably cry at them though. lol i'm quitting this job soon.

On the positive side: I haven't had to commute by bus during all the rain we've been having.
On the negative side: Coping when there's no work and I'm longing to take a nap. Protestant Work Ethic FTL.

i gave in and took a mid day nap yesterday, don't want to get into the habit of that but it really was needed. and i ended up having to work until 7pm anyway, so it evened out

I have been taking FULL advantage of the ability to nap

That said I'm never as tired. Probably because I don't have the stress of 2 hrs of London transport to deal with!

These past two weeks have really been overwhelming and I've been working harder and much longer hours that I have in the past few years. Given that my position is tangentially involved in getting a campus ready for students to return into the fall, we are jumping through hoops and exploring worst case scenarios in how to plan for social distancing in the future. Which I get, but it's a lot. And I'm feeling the strain, compounded with any of the usual self care things having evaporated and the weather having been shit for the past four days so I haven't even been able to get out for a walk. Any free time gains I had by erasing my half hour commute on either end has been obliterated by my working hours extending 1-2 hours in either direction.

that's not fair. somebody else has got to help or your boss has got to understand that things will just go slower. we're living through an insane crisis. i know, easy for me to say, but really.

To be fair, my boss gets it, it's really our whole department that is overwhelmed and stretched thin right now. He's actually working to try and readjust expectations for the higher ups to be more reasonable, but it's the age old story. Orders come from above to figure out how to accommodate all of our students assuming 30% max occupancy in classrooms and they think it's adjusting a few lines on a spreadsheet, not actually pulling up floor plans for every building and doing multiple furniture layouts, etc etc etc. Summer is usually our busy time anyway, but this just adds to the stress. I'm reminding myself that I'm fortunate to even have a job... just this week in particular I can feel the cumulative effects catching up to me.

2 positives of zoom meetings:

- they start on time. or at least closer to when they're supposed to start than in-person meetings.

- tedious conversation dominators have less of an opening to ply their trade. it does still happen sometimes but their arsenal of f2f techniques for bulldozing everyone doesn't work nearly as well. with zoom/hangouts/teams etc the limitations of the technology encourage each person to have their 'turn', almost like they're holding the 'talking stick' at a hippie pow wow. it's much more obvious when someone gets interrupted.

Our Monday morning meeting always begins with 10-15 minutes of "how was your weekend?" talk, and always runs 30-60 minutes over time; it's supposed to be 9-10:30 and it sometimes ends as late as 11:30, wasting the entire morning.

Any way to politely ask for the invite to either be adjusted or the meeting to end on time? I get furious at stuff like this - it feels completely disrespectful of everyone's time. As if there's nothing else to do.

v glad there's a general culture of no-longer-than-needed meetings at my work. the standard meeting time is 30 mins.

I have been taking FULL advantage of the ability to nap

I will miss these siestas

I'm an inveterate napper and am taking full advantage.

I think I'm actually missing the fitness center at my workplace--my back has been bothering me, maybe because I'm not lifting weights currently?

goblet squats!

definitely been taking advantage of the ability to nap during the day, easy enough to make up the difference with work in the evenings/weekends since there's no sports to watch anyway. i even canceled my Sling a couple of weeks ago because sports was the only reason I had it anyway, though I am already regretting it a tiny bit because now I can't watch the Jordan doc series on ESPN.

I went for a piss during a meeting today and no-one noticed.

Our Monday morning meeting always begins with 10-15 minutes of "how was your weekend?" talk, and always runs 30-60 minutes over time; it's supposed to be 9-10:30 and it sometimes ends as late as 11:30, wasting the entire morning.

This is indeed the worst. We have a department meeting every other week that is often interminable. It was originally scheduled for an hour, but it kept running way over. The organized bumped it up to 90 minutes for the invite and now we routinely pass two to two and a half hours. There's probably 30 minutes of good material every week, the rest is small talk, idle complaining and the rest of us essentially sitting in on conversations that should be one-on-ones. Unfortunately this is my entire department and run by my boss' boss, so little more than just grinning and bearing it every two weeks.

I hate small talk in meetings band often bail when meetings run over even if i don't have another scheduled after

I went for a piss during a meeting today and no-one noticed.

pro bathroom break tip: turn off your wifi and turn it back on when you return. "oh my wifi blipped"

do y'all work at places where it's not ok to say "sorry i need to step away for a minute?"

Oh yeah, we can step away - I do that during the current Zoom versions, and during the real ones. But since it's our entire department, it's really frowned upon to skip out on a portion of the meetings.

I write "brb" in the chat

do y'all work at places where it's not ok to say "sorry i need to step away for a minute?"

― call all destroyer, Monday, 4 May 2020 15:58 (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I could do that but two guys were talking at/past each other and with all the lack of social cues and accidental interruptions that audio only brings - so I figured correctly that I could step away unannounced.

But even when i forget, unless I'm on the agenda as presenting, nobody cares if i step away to take a leak. If somehow i got called on in the 2 minutes i was gone, i answer it when I'm back

My Webex app froze up today and I had to force quit - when I came back two minutes later nobody had noticed. I'm sure I could take a bathroom break and upon my return, blame technical difficulties, if needed.

The dude leading my webex infoshare right now has apparent never heard of consonants, so he sounds like he's chewing on taffy.

It got so bad Chief Keef joined the meeting to complain.

we're getting pounded right now due to COVID fucking up our staffing and upper management unable to accept that things can't be business as usual due to a global pandemic. We usually had a practice of having a week off of training whenever a class ends, to give us time to rest our voices, prepare for next class, special projects. And, this is typically our slow part of the season.

Instead, we've all been in back to back classes for over two months, were told we couldn't take any new PTO in March or April beyond what was already approved before shit hit the fan. and they told us not to expect it to slow down anytime soon, and filled our schedules up for May and June before most of us could find time to take PTO. I lucked out and am taking a week in late June.

by the time we get to busy season in September, we're all going to be gassed. thankfully travel is banned for the year due to budget.

I just can't take it anymore. I would take an unpaid leave at this point if fucking Florida's unemployment wasn't a mess. I've had to loan my mother $3k (no fault of her own) to help pay rent and bills due to FL DEO still not paying her correctly.

we keep getting thrown into these impossible situations where they mash 7,000 people into one class and where we'd normally have someone on site to help, we obviously can't, but no adjustment to the schedule is permitted, we still have to finish on time. So this leads to a bunch of people complaining during the training, results in more technical issues which means I have to be a babysitter and keep detailed logs on every learner who has a problem, and means multiple people interrupting me and barking my name all day. all fine during a normal time of year, but when my anxiety is already bad enough to where I am not sleeping well and breathing heavily all the time, I can't take the constant "brain fry" that happens to me every day where I mentally check out by 2 pm.

oh and our "busy season", starts next month, oh oh oh oh lovely

I've voluntarily come to the office three days in a row after nearly having a mental breakdown trying to work from home. Like the closest I have ever felt in my life to an actual breakdown.

probably a wise idea. i had one of those at work 5 years ago where I wailed on the floor and was having nonstop palpitations....not fun at all. also sometimes just good to see other people around even if they're 700 miles away.

I don't know if I'd even go in if my class was in Orlando, given how many people are probably coming to work sick.

everybody keeps talking about how we're in a crucial period (cos we lose so many clients) and it's like, do they really think any of us are focused on what we're doing right now? even in a less fucked-up work scenario, our attention would be divided, but throw in my company's bullshit of overloading everybody while dangling the diseased carrot of layoffs in front of our noses , and most of us have just snapped.

even one of the most kip colleagues yesterday flipped out on her class for being disrespectful, which at least told me it isn't just me.

what does your company teach? what are the classes? ... I have a complex mix of jobs right now (some due to PPP loan issues) and I do have an office to go into, which has helped, because I get to interact in person with a couple of colleagues who are also personal friends. ... Though the location of the office has made it such that sometimes it is not a good idea to go there because it is right near where many protests take place.

like, one of my great fears is driving to the office and having to extricate my car from the middle of a crowd after work and losing my shit because "I just wanna go home ..." ... so on the days when major demonstrations are planned, I either work from home (most of the time) or park somewhere a few blocks away where people are less likely to congregate/march.

we administer health, 401k, and pension benefits for companies who outsource the recordkeeping to us. I'm responsible for teaching people health, 401k, and pension. I like the job, hate my company, but 15 years brings me a salary and benefits here that I'm unlikely to get elsewhere.

I'm good at it and know the material front to back and in normal circumstances, I usually make it a fun experience for all, but right now, it's hard to put on a faux cheery demeanor when I'm miserable outside of work. and stressed out by the endless disorganization of my firm, who is just hiring hundreds of people to start on the same day without realizing that requires like 4 or 5 people to train them (and there's only 6 of us).

on the plus side, at least my job ends at a specific time each night. fuck being salaried during COVID....so happy I'm hourly.

one of my great fears is driving to the office and having to extricate my car from the middle of a crowd after work and losing my shit because "I just wanna go home ..."

lol otm, I used to hate that

Sympathies to Neanderthal and man alive.

For me, working from home with small kids (who are on track to be out of regular school for at least a year) is the main hurdle. If I am on a conference call, my non-neurotypical son gets jealous and will follow me around screaming for attention. If I go to a room with a lockable door (of which we have precisely two), he will park outside the door and pound on it, screaming. So I stay on mute until I have to say something, and then whatever I say includes an undertone of anguished screaming. Or I go outside, and whatever I say includes an undertone of traffic and birds.

In the past, much of my work was writing, which I could do at night after the kids were asleep. Now a lot of my work is managing and collaborating, which still tends to take place within traditional business hours.

Obligatory acknowledgment of privilege: my wife and I very privileged to be the kind of workers who can work from home. We are privileged to have decent jobs in the first place, and to have as many resources and options as we do. But it is still a challenge.

xp oooooooh does your company also do the thing where they are the employer of smaller companies' employees (I am momentarily forgetting the acronym)? ... A few of my clients work for small tech startups and their w-2s list a corporation in Florida as their employer ...

Trinet! that's the Florida company

yeah YMP I feel that. my 5 yo son gets really excited to see people on a call & he loves to fight with his sister whenever I've got something going on. WFH & WFH with small children are two totally different things, not comparable in the slightest

ha speaking of that -- one of my colleagues has a 4 year old -- he was working from home one day and I called him, and there was silence and then the sounds of footsteps and then a loud high=pitched squeal (this was after a few minutes) ... the child had picked up her dad's phone and had answered it and was presumably trying to "be like dad" by walking around carrying the phone.

no need to acknowledge your privilege, YMP, anyone on this board who would try and toss that at you given what you're dealing with is a fucking asshole.

during our (fairly informal) team meetings there are frequently pets in the background, which my kids of course get very excited about, which leads to everyone on the call showing off their pets, which leads to my kids thinking every call is full of people who just wanna show them their dogs

xp well that sounds actually one notch harder than working from home with my two kids who just like attention a lot like most kids

no need to acknowledge your privilege, YMP, anyone on this board who would try and toss that at you given what you're dealing with is a fucking asshole.

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Wednesday, July 1, 2020 12:45 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah I'm a bit tired of the internet scolds sounding more than a bit like mom reminding you there are kids starving in Africa -- sometimes it's ok to just express your unqualified frustrations

I appreciate your considerate replies, evol and man.

But at the same time I can't stop thinking about people who a) aren't working at all or b) can't work from home.

I see a lot of glib "just stay home, mfers, it's not difficult!" stuff from people who haven't appeared to consider how difficult that might be for someone whose family's financial survival depends on e.g., a in-person service-sector job. Not here on this board, but certainly in my social media orbit.

i have found some of the "stay at home, assholes" msgs come from people who turn out to not have stayed home themselves.

not like, going out partying per se at packed bars, but a few I've known have taken out of town trips or gone to bars. with masks, distancing, etc, but that's kinda why I don't bother lobbying grenades when I know I haven't had a spotless record (even though I largely barely leave the house).

and the people who say "Universal Studios should't have reopened", well.....you aren't wrong, but you're also telling my brother he shouldn't have gone to work, and he's been wracked with anxiety of losing his job for months and needs the money.

because we don't have a government that takes care of its people, it's pretty difficult atm.

theyve just re-locked down the areas near where I live cos we've had a big community outbreak. I barely leave the house anyway but it looks like I'm WFH for at least another month at this rate.

Funny side effect: my long-sight vision has gone to shit because I'm only ever staring at walls/items in my house. I need to sit on the balcony and stare at faraway trees/clouds more or somehting.

My wfh strategy has involved a lot of slacking off, which is only possible because of my particular role in my organization, but I’m still feeling frustrated because I personally need to feel more involved in my work like I’m engaged in making a difference and changing things for the better (according to me, of course). Skating by on just responding to emails (i.e. only speaking when I’m spoken to) has gotten way the fuck old.

I have a couple things to work on now that should be bigger than that, looking forward to them coming to fruition and being paid attention to by more than just yours truly.

One side effect of WFH that I did not anticipate was getting used to the constant drone of lawn mowers in our neighborhood. I think between Monday and Friday there is less than five hours per week when there isn't an audible lawnmower running on our block.

i have found some of the "stay at home, assholes" msgs come from people who turn out to not have stayed home themselves.

not like, going out partying per se at packed bars, but a few I've known have taken out of town trips or gone to bars. with masks, distancing, etc, but that's kinda why I don't bother lobbying grenades when I know I haven't had a spotless record (even though I largely barely leave the house).

― I hear that sometimes Satan wants to defund police (Neanderthal), Wednesday, July 1, 2020 5:34 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I saw a great tweet around the beginning of this madness to the effect of "everyone who is slightly less precautious than I am is a science-denying death cultist, and everyone who is slightly more precautious than I am is a virtue-signalling ninny." I try to keep that in mind, though I do find myself rolling my eyes more at the latter group, which is only a reflection of my own anxieties, obviously I would rather be misjudged as being too safe than not safe enough.

xp yeah, there is an insane amount of lawn care in the summer if you live in a neighborhood with lawns. i can almost predict it now--today was wednesday, so there's a service that comes at 7:30 am and fires up a bunch of stuff to do a lawn a few houses down.

"everyone who is slightly less precautious than I am is a science-denying death cultist, and everyone who is slightly more precautious than I am is a virtue-signalling ninny."

Similarly "everyone driving slower than me is an idiot; everyone driving faster than no is a maniac."

What I like is erotic; what you like is kinky; what THEY like is perverse.

*than me

Anybody who doesn’t live in a city full of constant development and renovation can eat my ass about lawncare noise

it's more an observation than a complaint

Maybe I should document some more observations then

Tombot how do you eat ass about something

I’ve never had to tbf

Ask esby

I find lawnmower sounds quite comforting TBH. Dont hear them anymore living in an inner-urban hood with tiny yards. The sound reminds me of childhood summers in the backyard.

Also, LADS.

Take sides: lawnmowers versus the air conditioner on the Russian Embassy grounds next door. Bonus: screams from the playground in the embassy compound.

"screams" eh.

an asshole hedge fund billionaire in texas who was somehow involved in enron convinced my city that they needed a propeller plane to fly in circles all day to take pictures of crimes happening. it makes one revolution every 7 minutes. it's supposed to fly at a greater height than it is. every day there is obnoxious propeller plane noise, all day, but intermittent. zero crimes solved in the several months of pilot (heh) project. oh and it only flies during the day, so this stupid waste of fuel misses most of the real crimes. lawnmowers have never bothered me but this is so, so annoying.

if u wanna be happy when you're mowing the grass
never let a Tombot eat your whole ass

zero crimes solved in the several months of pilot (heh) project

just wanted to humilitybrag about dealing with the worst of both worlds w/r/t getting both constant development/renovation noise AND lawncare adjacency noises.

my ground-floor studio apartment is strategically located in the corner of an old (for this city, i.e. 1920s) three-story apartment building of tiny 1-bedrooms and studios in an urban neighborhood just across the interstate from downtown, with construction going on right across the street. the building's dumpsters and recycle bins are located three feet from my kitchen window on the north side, and the entry/exit gate to the complex is located three feet from my bedroom window on the east side, directly adjacent to the sidewalk of the street with the construction site on the other side. hella noise every few minutes on both sides. in the summer I basically have to choose between privacy or ventilation, as it heats up pretty quickly with no fencing or awning or vegetation shading the facade, and the ceiling fan can only do so much and is pretty noisy itself (can't have it on while trying to sleep).

I'm not really complaining, it's the cheapest apartment available within a ten-minute walk of my downtown office ($940), and I chose it for that reason, but GODDAMN is it not an office and nowhere near ideal for focusing on spreadsheets and word docs and permit applications and having Microsoft Teams meetings and conference calls for eight hours a day. my upstairs neighbor's 100-year-old hardwood floor is basically one and same as my ceiling and I hear EVERY tiny bit of her contact with it whether or not she wears her clogs (and she always wears them) and she's a hairdresser who's been out of work for the last three months and physically cannot sit still by the sound of it. much cracking and creaking and stomping about, all the time. the resident manager lives nextdoor to me and he's been staying busy with his circular saw and nailgun and hammer on some sort of tiny garden planter project he wants to install in the perpetually shaded narrow space between our wall and the noise-collecting concrete retaining wall between our building and the taller building nextdoor. it's been in progress since Memorial Day, a little noisy bit at a time, four or five feet from my window.

anyway, in addition to all this, our gardeners, the nextdoor building's gardener's, and the other nextdoor building's gardeners all come on their own individual weekdays to trim our respective shubberies with their two-stroke clippers and leafblow all our trash into the street for twenty minutes a day. landscaping is important for a property management company, they want these shitholes looking nice. and then the garbage trucks too, and also the recyclable trucks, can't forget those, they have their own days too. they're always laughing their asses off when they come to wheel the dumpsters out from three feet from my window when I'm having a 12-person Microsoft Teams meeting with all the windows open. I should've known better than to leave them open! suffocating in a 10'x10' box without fresh air is totally cool!

so yeah I like offices. they're good places to work for people like me to who live in squalor. and I've had more than a few conversations with coworkers who are like "ummmmmm yeah I'm loving this working from home situation! in no great rush to get back to the ol' office!!!" and who can blame them, cause they're successful humans who are comfortable in their own homes and can get stuff done there. shoot, my department hosted their quarterly forum online for the first time last month and it featured endless slideshows from the various dept section people showing off their swanky living room workstations. one guy was even douchey enough to share a photo of his laptop perched next to his hottub on his deck at sunset with a frickin cocktail thrown in for good fun. these people are proper people.

I'm only a five minute bike ride from my office so I'm still making trips downtown once or twice a week to get into the office to do stuff I can't do from home on my laptop, printing and hardcopy permit package submittals and whatnot. It's cute though that the department policy as of two months ago is that my remotely-working section head has to do a facetime "screening" with me no more than ten minutes prior to my entering the building where he asks me if I have a fever or a cough or a headache, and I say no, and then says "great, you may enter the building."

STOP MOWING UR LAWN U CNUTS

I live by the port,train tracks,and while my apartment faces away from the very busy road I live on,it is on the corner of the building,so sirens and trucks going by are very loud. I'm inured to it but the other day a student I was talking to on the phone (I work at a university) said it sounded like I was outside lol

Oh yeah I also have two fans going on constantly (apartment is small and hot)

so yeah I like offices. they're good places to work for people like me to who live in squalor. and I've had more than a few conversations with coworkers who are like "ummmmmm yeah I'm loving this working from home situation! in no great rush to get back to the ol' office!!!" and who can blame them, cause they're successful humans who are comfortable in their own homes and can get stuff done there.

Yep. I don't miss the bus ride to and from downtown. But I miss the company-paid air conditioning. I miss the fitness center, and not just because of the tension of whether or not I would see Nick, and would he and/or I be in a mood to talk. Working in shorts and a t-shirt is nice, but I miss putting together an outfit that wouldn't be destroyed by the bus trip. (I'm sewing stuff in anticipation of this fall, but who knows if the area will open enough for me to go out and wear these things.)

just wanted to humilitybrag about dealing with the worst of both worlds w/r/t getting both constant development/renovation noise AND lawncare adjacency noises.

High 5! I got constant construction noise plus leafblowers and fireworks minus actual lawnmowers

however, I am currently devoid of police sirens and flashbang grenades and news & police helicopters after two straight weeks of it --

though speaking of construction -- when we were on full lockdown -- which meant no construction with the exception of affordable housing -- the neighborhood was eerily quiet, it felt like the suburbs. It also grimly demonstrated that next to no affordable housing was under construction near me ... which is an area where they should be building affordable housing.

that's surprising that residential development would drop off so dramatically like that under a temporary construction moratorium, considering that most new residential developments (at least in major California cities) are required by local ordinance to have at least some of their units be dedicated as "affordable." I guess every city implements their rules different. We're still shovel-ready & shovel-willing down here.

I miss the fitness center, and not just because of the tension of whether or not I would see Nick, and would he and/or I be in a mood to talk

this sounds like some juicy Nick drama that I think we all deserve to know! spill those deets here and now!

Juicy, no. Tedious, for me at least. He's a classic Washington white collar type, in this case working for a lobbying firm while I work for a Federal contractor. We would cross paths at the fitness center, and sometimes get to chatting. I tried asking him to a free screening of Christmas Vacation during the holidays, but his mother died that very day.

Officially I don't even miss Nick as much as I miss occasionally seeing interest in men's eyes (not that I was ever able to capitalize on any such interest).

Chevy made Christmas Vacation for two reasons and two reasons only: to make more money to buy more cocaine, and to console through laughter those grieving over the loss of a parent. Nick should've known this, and therefore he sucks.

I'm getting server time-outs literally every 15-30 seconds. Like I can't complete a sentence of an email without every one of my apps freezing and glitching out. I assume this is currently the case for all of my coworkers, as well. I still have quite a lot that needs to get done (including, what, six letters that need to be drafted and sent out) before the three-day weekend which, for me, starts in 90 minutes. Oh well!

xpost: Occasionally I bless my fairy godmother (whom I believe to be the late Dorothy Parker) for steering me away from boyfriends who aren't worth the salt in my tears. But sometimes I fear she might also be steering me away from men who might be worth a tumble.

Point of clarification: She died the day of the screening, and as Nick didn't have my contact info, he couldn't get in touch with me until after the holidays.

Also, officially I miss the gym because my back has been hurting.

that's surprising that residential development would drop off so dramatically like that under a temporary construction moratorium, considering that most new residential developments (at least in major California cities) are required by local ordinance to have at least some of their units be dedicated as "affordable." I guess every city implements their rules different.

here as well as in San Francisco, what is common is that new developments can either designate that required percentage/amount as affordable OR they can pay additional "impact fees" essentially paying into a City-administered fund that theoretically is used to build affordable housing elsewhere in the City. ... In practice, very little affordable housing does get built and the City is sitting on a bunch of money and builds no affordable housing, and, in addition, the City doesn't even collect from developers the entire amounts of the fees they are obligated to pay, which assumedly, also results in next-to-no affordable housing being built.

Another problem is that the City isn't terribly imaginative when it comes to affordable housing developments in terms of type of units and scale of development. They tend to wait for the perfect big project that checks all the boxes, which haha, rarely happens, rather than commit funds to a larger number of small projects, often involving renovation and/or conversion of existing non-residential structures. These smaller projects tend to be less expensive per unit, to boot.

and now this thread has gone from being about Working From Home to Working On Homes -- sorry

Went to the office today to actually bring my computer home (had been sshing in) and it made me sad! I like the office!

Yup

one of our trainers abruptly quit. that now puts us two below staffing target (we have 5, we need 7). On the plus side, this really reduces likelihood of any imminent layoffs. On the other side, we're in a hiring freeze, and we're headed into our busy season 2 people understaffed. And - he was one of only 3 people (including me) that knew one of our key curriculums. Fortunately, we're training 4 more right now, but this basically means it's going to be back to back classes for the remainder of the year, with zero prep time, and limited time off.

sigh. happy for the paycheck, but we've been at amplifier level 11 since March of this year and it would be nice to have a respite.

turns out i'm really bad at this but only when i have a big deadline crunch week

im being extremely lazy, my productivity is absolutely in the toilet. I don't give 2 fucks tbh.

might be worth checking the tax statutes where you are as I've seen that I can claim working from home as a tax credit (a percentage of the rent on my apartment, the heating, the electricity, the internet bill, etc.) which I will enjoy doing next tax season

might be worth checking the tax statutes where you are as I've seen that I can claim working from home as a tax credit (a percentage of the rent on my apartment, the heating, the electricity, the internet bill, etc.) which I will enjoy doing next tax season

the Trump tax overhaul bill that got passed in 2017 actually eliminated the long-standing deduction for home office expenses (and other unreimbursed expenses) for employees (that exceed 2% of AGI and if you itemize deductions) that a significant number of people used to take ... some states still allow the deduction and haven't changed to conform to the new tax code. ...

im being extremely lazy, my productivity is absolutely in the toilet. I don't give 2 fucks tbh.

Yeah lately I've just been phoning it in. If ever there was a time to do C minus work, this is it

I really need to stop weekday drinking again, sure I only have to roll out of bed to my desk 2 feet away but ugh. Cannot funkshun.

Nearby highpitched squeal of concrete drills in road is NOT HELPING

You're in Melbourne, Trayce?

I so much wish I could phone it in for a few days right now, job just doesn’t allow for it, too high pressure. I have been going to the office more lately and I second liking the office. Whenever I pull a couple of days at the office and then one at home I realize just how fucking much I get interrupted at home, like easily every 5-10 minutes for some stretches.

James: I am, Im in Brunswick and yeah we're all on lockdown now. Not that I left the house much to begin with lol.

Anyone not aware: my city has had a sudden large uptick in covid cases (well lol, large for us is "120" rather than "120,000" but you know).

So they have decreed we go back to stage 3 lockdown ie do not leave house at all unless for medical, to get groceries, or school/work where neccesary.

Americans would go mad.

xpost my old boss (who is in another dept) keeps on asking for me by name to train the classes that will be going to his teams, I have a feeling they're gonna try to bully me out of the PTO I have in the fall, but I'm holding firm on that shit. by August, esp if Florida is even more of a COVID cesspool by then, I'm gonna need massive decompression

So they have decreed we go back to stage 3 lockdown ie do not leave house at all unless for medical, to get groceries, or school/work where neccesary.

Americans would go mad.

heh -- in my part of America we were at that stage for 2 months at least ... it is weird to see/hear about all the other parts of the country that have gotten back to normal sooner and/or not been on lockdown at all ... but on topic, i had a skype meeting with a client this morning and I realized that on skype, no one can smell your sweat

drinking a beer while wfh for the first time. amazed it has taken almost 4 months

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/30/4e/fb304edf610c07daaf0f3239722ab671.jpg

already become fully adjusted/used to having 2 extra hours in the day not spent preparing for/commuting to the office

already back to feeling like there aren't enough hours in the day, not getting enough sleep, not getting anything done, despite the 2 extra hours

it's definitely a me problem (depression/whatever) but the thought of going back to the office schedule and losing these 2 hours is a nightmare. i miss seeing coworkers in person and other things but not that much.

obviously there are more important things right now, this whole experience has just made me internalize how shitty the office schedule is and how much of a negative it is in my life

work days should be shorter. unfortunately the "most workers only do 4 hours of actual work in an 8 hour day" thing doesn't apply to what i do.

hard agree

I absolutely agree that for those of us doing this easily theres no logical reason why we should go back to wasting an extra 2 hrs of our day, and money on transport/adding to pollution, leaving house to work.

But yeah also agree I cant do less hours - part of my job includes being available on a fucking rostered phone number between 8.30 and 5.30 ugh

wish studs terkel was alive to opine about this

class of only 9 people, and 6 of them have major audio problems that have lasted over a day (as they always do at this site). 4 of them are outright not participating at all, requiring me to call on them to make sure they're actually here (and sometimes I catch them napping).

and my co-facilitator might as well be named Led Zeppelin because all she does is ramble on - 90 minutes over the allotted time for the *first lesson*, and the class is lost.

at this point i'm just happy for the paycheck, but the perfectionist in me hates this nonsense.

wait.. she talked for.. an HOUR AND A HALF too long??