Working From Home

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