Working From Home

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??

maybe you could have told her, "it's time for you to go... the autumn moon lights your way"

yes. we were supposed to finish the section at like....4:45 pm Eastern yesterday. we started at 9:30 am this morning - still not done.

I had to basically tell her to remember to watch the clock, because this lesson is one of the easier ones. how long is she going to take on teh longer ones? meh.

glad others gave gotten to a ‘phone it in’ mindset. i’ve been getting really burnt out, overall i prefer WFH to commuting and sitting in an office but its been four months now. i sleep way too much and am still exhausted most days. doesnt hurt that i had a really positive performance review last week. gives me some justification to go easy on myself

By my lights there's no gray area. People have busy lives. You have to stick to the advertised time. If you're not done, it's your fault.

Feeling that post, gt. It's been 4 months. I'm hitting a wall. Pretty much everybody I know is.

I’m working quite literally harder than ever, don’t know what’s wrong with me

usually that would be my response to stressful times. in my old job, I could lose myself for hours in writing customer care reference materials, doing technical configuration, and it would take my mind off of things.

but training people in less than ideal conditions when half of them are just as distracted as I am, oi. This was a dream job for me in quiet times - but right now? I'm frankly amazed I actually worked up the energy to be frustrated with how bad it's going at the moment, that's an improvement I guess.

Yeah I dont understand why Im also so fucking tired all the time, but I assume its complete lack of exercise and possibly the increased drinking (ugh and I'd been doing so well before covid too)

for me it's simply "not being able to sleep". lately though i've done better laying on my back at an incline, but that's when I snore wicked awful so I feel bad for my roomies

Half of the 8 people in my class have malfunctioning headsets (something that's been constantly happening with this partner site for FOUR YEARS), one learner left midday yesterday and told nobody.

Half of them still can't figure out how to mute and unmute their phones (because their site managers barely trained them on how to use it)

Our entire Citrix system went down for 3 hours this morning. Like it does because Citrix is garbage.

A problem we reported last December with server issues in our training environment is still unsolved and the IT team is so depleted there's little chance of it being fixed anytime soon.

I love this job really i do

Tough times don’t last, tough people do <- authorized graffiti on restaurant window in my neighborhood

hang in there bud

thanks - and yr right. I mean I've lasted almost 16 years here, so I'm doin something right.

You probably should figure out what you want to do next. It never hurts to have a plan to move on.

true. problem is, 16 years plus a load of huge merit-based pay raises and jumping from pay grade to pay grade = there are few companies who will pay me what I make here atm. last time I tried the market, I got offers that would be a 50% pay cut to do the same work at a competitor!

but...I also wasn't trying very hard.

I kinda wanna just roadie for a metal band for the rest of my life. but...lol COVID

It might be time to consider bossing

ugh

in a better mood today. we are actually having to pull my co-instructor from class for her performance. That isn't the happy part - I hate having to do that, and in fact, have never had to do it. She was woefully unprepared today and left the training on dead air for 15 minutes, so I asked to pull her, to give her time to re-review her materials, as she has to lead the same class next week, and I"ll finish the class solo. and I'm going to observe her and give performance feedback in her next class, as apparently, her classes have been getting poor feedback and nobody's ever formally observed her before.

took a problem and made it into a solution.

diversity day presentation over zoom. i am new here so i wasn't sure how mandatory this was. i logged in with the intention of just muting it and reading a book. then we got an email saying sorry some people couldn't get in, the presenter limited it to 100 people. i am taking someone else's spot who wanted to be here and i can't leave! i already know race is a social construct. i might leave at noon though.

Supposedly my last day of wfh is a week from Friday, then it's back to the office (unless we get another stay of execution, but I doubt it). What should I do on my last day? Pancakes for breakfast? B33r for lunch?

Wake and bake
Then breakfast of champions: Cheerios and Budweiser

took a problem and made it into a solution.

This sounds like something a boss would do.

yeah. I've never managed people before but I've been a project manager (two years). went from having a prodigious start where I took over a project before my training was completed and saved it from collapse, feeling confident, and loving my job for 2 years....

....to feeling dehumanized by nasty Executives and toxic business partners and having it wreck my mental health. i wasn't the only one - my peers were also miserable...and some left. was 100% the company, so maybe if I did it elsewhere, it'd go better.

"I'm 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 genuinely think this is okay and is about looking after yourself.

I took the rest of this afternoon off. the assignment I was supposed to start on isn't ready, I didn't sleep well, and I would rather just nap

"Yeah I dont understand why Im also so fucking tired all the time."

This but ... it's crap working from home. I resent the lack of division between home and work. I resent work filling my brain when I've stopped. I could go for an hour's nap in the middle of the day and would still be actually working harder than any time I'm in the office. I miss the pottering to the work kitchen for a coffee and a natter. I miss going for a lunch break, even though my lunch break was only ever wandering around Wilkos and probably buying nasturtium seeds. I miss my colleagues, even the ones I only quite like. Also, alcohol starts at 1700 instead of 1800, now.

(Disclaimer: really grateful that I'm not being made to work in a risky workplace).

I held a Psych game night on Zoom for 4-5 people last week and one of my friends couldn't get in (issue with the link) and after 5 minutes I almost called it off cos it felt too much like work helping him troubleshoot. but he got in.

"I'm 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 genuinely think this is okay and is about looking after yourself.

― djh,

^ this. I was trying extra hard the first couple of months but now I am slowing down a bit.

I'm still working too hard lol, nothing else is interesting to me rn