Working From Home

but also, I have been thinking about the technical aspects of converting office buildings into affordable housing ... there would be regional issues in terms of different zoning/planning codes (as well as building/fire/health) ... things would also depend on the age of the building. ...

Neanderthal that sucks! wtf not understanding what the word contingency means durrrr

omg sarahell if you still have that could you ilxmail it to me?!

(to be clear, I'm not mad at the person who lost power, I'm mad at the leaders in charge that kept telling me they didn't need to help find a backup resource for him because "nothing is going to happen with this storm").

xxxxposts

https://packardjennings.com/2020/02/01/somepic2/

this is why you must become management

then you get to argue with other people in management on a regular basis ... uh

many thanks sarahell!

I'll say this. I was a project manager from summer of 2012 to winter (early) of 2015. first year or two, I loved it - I had a way to finally unleash my creativity on my projects, I was good at meetings and talking to clients and well I got to travel a lot of cool places for free. I was a favorite of the director of our dept. and my first few projects went well to where I was getting massive bonuses/performance reviews.

the place became toxic in a way I'd never seen before - micromanaging and intimidation/bully tactics, and my mental health went south and I started being irresponsible and drinking heavily and one night drove home drunk and totaled my car by driving into a wall after I blacked out on a turn. not sure how I didn't get a DUI, but I basically fled that role after that. and the entire department two years ago.

I could maybe return to it at a different company though........just need to gird up my loins and find a company that wins those "best place to work" awards and try it out there.

(not suggesting that work is to blame for me drinking and driving, cos that was my folly, but it did contribute to the mental downward spiral that I chose to medicate in the wrong way.)

Do you have the job security to call a dumbass a dumbass?

at this point, yeah, i'm a lifer (almost 16 years) and I didn't get disciplined over my "hot mic" incident so if they were willing to let THAT slide....

I don't mind trying to keep up to the standard we maintained in the office (allowing for the difficulties associated with remote work). But I do object to having to do a performance review. Especially considering that there probably will be no net pay increases. Is it true that performance reviews only serve employers trying to document a need to fire someone?

not necessarily -- depends on the workplace -- depends on the type of review. I've heard about performance reviews being part of the DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusion) toolkit in terms of improving the workplace's commitment and efforts to such principles.

we do one every year. I object to having to do a self-assessment though. I know what the purported benefit is supposed to be (you get to sell yourself, talk about how well YOU think you did), but it makes no difference in our final score, and takes too long to fill out during a time of year when we're already busy. if I want my boss to be aware of something for my review...I'll just email it to him.

Last year I flew to the Philippines for a month and basically supervised the training programs for Manila and Tarlac (which are two hours apart), 14 classes simultaneously, with little to no issues, while simultaneously teaching 3 classes. All with a laptop that wasn't functioning properly and outright died halfway into the trip. My boss tried to advocate for this as me 'exceeding expectations' and was basically told "ehh, so, he's expected to travel". first rating that wasn't "Exceeds" in more than 10 years with the firm, despite putting in more labor than probably any year previously.

I know full well I ain't gonna get a raise.

so I'm leading a class last week, teaching other business instructors about how to handle discipline issues in a class, what we're allowed and not allowed to do. I draw from experience and tell them about a time where a learner made frequent inappropriate sexual comments in chat in training and describe briefly how we handled it. no specific details or names, obv, I couldn't even remember who it was or what he said, exactly - it was almost two years ago.

wouldn't it be my luck that randomly, one of the 25 attendees of my class was the actual asshole who made those sexual comments. who appears to have cleaned up his act and has now been entrusted with training people.

I found out cos he outed himself to the entire class and admitted he was the guy in my story. that wasn't awkward! had a giggle about that afterward. only me.

omg they are gagging for us to return back to the office. “second family”? pic.twitter.com/udntfSVXSh

— mi🌿 (@helloalegria) September 2, 2020

I am hung up on "bants"

we brits love some proper bants

one cheeky afternoon coming right up

"cheeky afternoon in the sun" is code for the affair you're having with a co-worker, right?

I am now worried that the bants I've been enjoying up to now have not been proper. Shit.

"cheeky afternoon in the sun" is code for the affair you're having with a co-worker, right?

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Thursday, 3 September 2020 20:58 (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"Seeing your second family" is barely code

can really sense the creeping desperation as it keeps going

bull up your bants

man, if I'd have forseen this pandemic, I never would have moved to a position that involved talking all day.

Pre-pandemic, it was as cozy a job as ever, and it will be as well when it's over. but now I have to feign a level of passion I can't even remotely dredge up right now.

things have stabilize. we hired our own employees rather than using a partner site and class is going very well, with few to no technological issues, and the learners are great. my co-facilitator knows what she's doing.

now, in the absence of any actual issues, I have the yips. I guess having things going wrong to blame helped me be more relaxed as I knew I wouldn't get blamed for any fuckery, but now that that's gone, I feel immense pressure to deliver.

idgi. i've been here almost 16 years, I know what I'm doing, I'm a good speaker, the classes find me entertaining, and yet I find myself examining every word I say, I get us behind because I'm lacking confidence that the class is ready to move on, the one time my co-worker (incorrectly) corrected me, I felt beet red, even though I was technically not wrong.

I think part of it = we're using webcams. I used to teach in person all the time, and that is nothing for me - I use my theater background to get past anxiety. but I've taught virtually for so long that I've gotten rusty with it and also, I don't have a property desk setup in my room. my room has a mattress and a tv and not much room for much else and I never thought I"d have to use my webcam.

I'm getting a desk/new bed when I move into my new place but I have to contort myself into weird positions to look proper on the camera since I'm basically propping myself up on a pillow.

i think i'm just too mentally fatigued to actually work right now. when this election is over, maybe not.

actually I think I feel so under pressure to succeed in everything and feel so judged and seen by everybody now in all walks of my life (which is just a perception, not reality) that I just need a few days out of the public eye so my four days of PTO will be nice.

I think getting a desk will help. I just got myself a desk and set up my room with a little office corner, and it makes a big difference to how professional the whole thing feels.

Remote classes are just not as good as in-person classes, though, and that's hard for those of us who base some of our identity around being good at our jobs. Especially if you've spent 16 years being good at this particular job. I'm sure you're doing everything as well as it can be done w/the limitations of the tech, but it's hard to have an idea in your head of what a good class w/ high energy & student engagement should look like and not be able to reach it.

I looked up Graham Greene + burnout the other day because I was wondering if he coined the term (he did) and saw that somewhere he calls it "The long despair of doing nothing well."

Neanderthal, your training sessions need more ukulele

lol...i...could maybe do that towards the end.

xp - I wonder how much of that perception is due to a contraction in the scope of your life? Maybe yours hasn't ... mine has. I work more than I used to because I feel like there isn't anything else to do, and thus my work feels more stressful and important than when I had more balance in terms of creative fun, friends, etc.

perception re being judged, not perception re more ukelele ...

oh it totally has to do with that. full stop. without activities like theatre, singing at fundraisers, attending concerts, sometimes I get release or feel fulfilled, most times I feel preoccupied with work.

i've found more safe activities as a result but honestly I think we all just need the year to end. we've been told the busy period of our department, which has lasted since March, will probably go to next March. and we're a dept that usually has a manageable summer and a quiet winter. we're also running with 5 people in a 7 person dept

I can totally relate -- wait, I said that already, yeah? ... I think this whole thing has done a number on so many people's senses of time and work/rest etc. ... because a lot of my work involves individual clients, it's like I am "on call" 24-7 in terms of the texts and emails I get from clients, which, before CoVID no one emailed me or texted me at 7pm on a Saturday night. And I don't _have_ to respond immediately but it provokes anxiety and sense of obligation ... so then the sensible thing is to set times for myself where I don't look at email or messenger or texts, which used to be fine because I could go out to bars and parties and shows and see friends, but now, the phone and computer are also the mechanisms through which I socialize and it's harder to filter the work stuff.

xxxxposts to self

ok one thing that annoys me about my co-facilitator

she keeps saying AWESOMESAUCE.

it's been 50 or 60 times since Tuesday.

what YEAR IS IT

xpost I feel you on the "I don't have to reply but if I don't, I'll feel anxious until I get rid of it". when I was a project manager I got my emails on the blackberry and it would be too tempting not to look at them and reply to them. I was even at Gasparilla Pirate Fest replying to emails one weekend. and that was before COVID.

agree that maybe coming up with a schedule where you consider it "sarahell time" and dont' allow yourself to look at work emails is a good idea, but are these emails intermingled with personal emails, or separated? same with messenger/texts (ie do you have a work number and regular number or does everything go to your personal line?)

xpost - Oh god, we've had a third party facilitator working with us as we launch this new software system that will be rolling out over a few years, so we've had a number of training sessions and working groups with a grown ass person that says "AWESOMESAUCE" and "COOL BEANS" allllllll the time. It never fails to make me embarrassed about the whole thing.

For me, responding to an email on an evening or weekend is nbd because I let the work-life balance go in both directions. If work takes my "me time" I retaliate by doing my "me stuff" in the M-F 9-5 space.

Part of this is kids (especially small and special needs kids). If my kid needs my attention on Tuesday at 10 am, I feel exactly no guilt about providing it. And now that everybody's at home, much of my "work day" is consumed with chin-wiping and logging into virtual school and troubleshooting the math app.

In exchange, I typically move a lot of the concentration parts of my "day job" to off-hours and quiet evening time.

I need to manage the balance, but most of the time it has been a fair trade.

I did used to like reading emails on my off days so that when I came back, it didn't feel overwhelming.

and yeah being able to do personal stuff during work day does make it go down easier

everything goes to my personal phone and email ... some of my clients are also personal friends so there is added awkwardness there.

My closest colleague is a bit more "on trend" than yours, but I honestly don't need to hear "bonkers" anymore times ever. ... and because of CoVid, this colleague has become a much larger % of my interactions with other people

If you haven't enabled the setting to automatically join by computer audio, you can test your speaker and microphone before joining a meeting:

1. After joining a meeting, click Test Speaker and Microphone.

lol?

MS Teams seems to have broken my co-instructor. First, she rambles without a breath for about 15 minutes at the beginning of class, and she starts rambling on unrelated topics for 15 minutes, getting the class talking about the election and their benefits. I am getting agitated as I'm supposed to start going over a lesson and I have no idea why she is hijacking my time when she blurts out "I'm waiting for Rob to join, that's why I'm going over this", and I said out loud "I'm here." and in private snottily wrote "I've been here since 5 minutes before class started". Her explanation - she can't figure out how to use Large GAllery (it's literally the easiest thing), so she didn't see my webcam on, and didnt' see my name in the chat (probably because she looked in the attendee list, not presenters). EVER HEARD OF ASKING 'ROB, ARE YOU THERE?!"

also, she never checks her private messages, she keeps saying "she didn't see them". HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU NOT SEE THEM? I get that while you're presenting, yes, that's not where your focus is, but she doesn't even read them when she isn't presenting! and even when I'm presenting the MS Teams icon at the bottom of my screen flashes when there's a new message and a number of unreads so I can easily pop in there to check them at my earliest convenience.

Yesterday I kept sending her private messages and I couldn't speak them out loud because they are related to learner performance, which is private. I even started tagging her IN PRIVATE CHATS so it would make the 'bing' sound to alert her. nothing. hours after class ended, she said "oh sorry didn't see these". I've had to start sending messages in the MS Teams Meeting room's chat and say "please see your side chat" - because MS Teams doesn't have the option WebEx did where you can choose the audience for your message. side chat is the only option.

I don't get how someone can be this....dumb?

oh and I logged into WebEx Teams the other day, which we're not even supposed to be using anymore and find out she's been messaging me there. I'm not reading these messages because WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE USING IT, so I'm not even logging into it.

As far as doing personal stuff during work, I can do chores, but forget doing anything leisurely even if it's slow. The best I can do is engage conversation online but reading for information or leisure is (mostly) a no.

idk if people have different settings on MS Teams than me, but getting people to respond to side-chat messages during a meeting/training takes an act of God. My Teams flashes and shows me the number of unread messages, so if you message me even if I'm in a meeting/raining, I'll know I got one (yea, won't always be able to read right away, but before too long).

my training partner, on the other hand, I will send a message regarding something we need to discuss that the class need not see, at a period of time when she's not even presenting, and it'll go unread for hours, even if I send multiple follow-ups and go into the training chat and tag her and say "please see side chat". she always says "oh I just didn't see them".

last night, I needed a student to attend a short meeting, so I private messaged them three times, tagging them each time, and when they didn't reply, I messaged three times in the training and tagged her, and no reply. she said she 'missed' the messages.

today, a classmate msged me when I was in the bathroom, and I replied when I got back, and my reply sat unanswered for over a half hour, even though they were on break and I replied twice asking if they still needed my help.

it doesn't feel that hard to me, but it seems like pinging people on the side during a meeting (which is often necessary) is near impossible without saying out loud "see your private messages", which is like calling someone to tell them you emailed them. this never happened to me on other chat clients to this degree.

yesterday it was annoying because I needed to know if she could stay late with me to help give one-on-one help to two students and I didn't get a response until 5 pm, when class ended.

teams is terrible at this, I generally agree

but I feel like this is really just the difference between “people who try to dutifully manage their notifications/unreads” and “people who have given up”

a large part of it, too.

I'm the only one on my time with just one monitor (everybody else uses dual, I'm old school, plus I was never issued one). they asked "how are you so smooth in keeping up with everything with only one monitor" and my smug response was "I can multi-task"