Working From Home

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