Working From Home

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