outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I also strongly believe that being physically around other people is an important part of fellowship, brother/sisterhood and workplace solidarity and I don't just mean mental health

it has been kind of a depressing paradigm shift for me, my whole life was spent waking up, going ~somewhere~ until about 4 or 5 and then returning home, for all the benefits of WFH it kind of sucks that I'm just...not around people anymore. there were a lot of people at work who were like...not friends exactly, but we'd hang out occasionally and chat a bunch, now I think it's plausible that I just never see some of these people again

i find work relationships to be exhausting to maintain when i have all these actual friendships already and just working in the same place is not really enough to make me want to talk to ppl or feel like we have a lot of common ground, but i have always been a hermit who would fully embrace WFH whenever it happened

a few places have started unions remotely tho. fellowship is not all gone

i changed jobs in june 2020 and haven't seen anyone in person except for one outdoor lunch with some of them. it is a weird and disorienting feeling to not ever see anyone, and to have no prior experience to compare it to. but i'm still on the side of preferring 100% WFH. i am an introvert though.

Real good with WFH except on the odd occasion where I need to go to an actual meeting that makes a difference to what is being worked on. Totally accept those are needed.

Commuting because the rich need commercial rents to be paid leading to a potential housing crash and recession? Not my problem.

* otherwise leading to

The pandemic has taught me: I'm an introvert but no longer shy.

Agree about the insanity of commuting but I also strongly believe that being physically around other people is an important part of fellowship, brother/sisterhood and workplace solidarity and I don't just mean mental health (though I do also mean that!) but in sticking it to the man who is always trying to divide you and screw you over. Being around people is important. I dread a future where we all just live in our little boxes on zero terms contracts getting Deliveroo three times a day.

Agree with this, it was one of the problems I ran into trying to do union organizing as an adjunct; we weren't WFH at that point, but there was no central office, people just drove in, taught a class and went home. So it was hard even tracking people down, and even though our contracts were awful, there was no momentum to get anything changed because there was no community at all.

The pandemic has taught me: I'm an introvert but no longer shy.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 September 2021 13:25 (fourteen minutes ago)

Agree about the insanity of commuting but I also strongly believe that being physically around other people is an important part of fellowship, brother/sisterhood and workplace solidarity

Sorry but this is fucking horseshit that gets pushed by middle managers as an excuse for "butts in seats" and I'm disappointed to see it trotted out here. This "brotherhood" at my office includes a toxic person who literally throws stuff around the office at least once every two weeks because she can't control her anger and, because of that person, another that spends an hour after employee A's outbursts crying because she feels threatened. As a result, the rest of us pop on headphones first thing in the morning and leave them on all day. Some fucking brotherhood. I gave up playing a 10 minute card game with my son every single day for this?

Dude that really sucks and sounds toxic. Sounds like an HR problem at your workplace, but that's no excuse. I am sorry that's happening to you

Not saying that my experience is universal, but there is not one single thing that has been "good" about being back, now that's been a month. Due to all the bullshit drama and random drop-bys, my productivity is down, my morale is down and I'm wasting more time commuting again. I wasn't expecting to WFH forever, but a day or two a week would go a loooong way towards making me feel more balanced.

It is toxic, unfortunately our HR has done nothing about it. I don't want to get into the details too much, but for HR to take things seriously we've learned that you need at least one supervisor to "buy in" on escalating the issue. Unfortunately, Employee A is considered a "hard worker" and since her outbursts ALWAYS happen when her supervisors are away (she knows what she is doing, which makes it more infuriating), no one believes the complaints.

Sorry Tracer, I don't mean to make you bear the brunt of my frustration over my specific situation, but I also don't buy into the whole fostering "brotherhood" bullshit even in the best of times.

one of the cool things i've been learning while organizing is that some people i have had civil conversations with in the office for years turned out to be scabs and transphobes :)

definitely don't miss the stress that comes with having to be in the same room as people you hate

i do think it's important to have an aspect of work that is not work, for instance ppl to shoot the shit with, because as long as work is a necessity to live there should be as much incentive to not do it as possible built into the structure (sorry to reveal myself as anti-work here) but i guess for me now that is saying hi to my cats during the workday

I do genuinely like several of my coworkers, but because Employee A is also know for eavesdropping on conversations and repeating it to everyone she can, we don't feel safe discussing anything personal or even minor work "bitch sessions".

I appreciate the apology jon. I think it's important for workers to help each other out and feel connected. If you think you've got that covered remotely then good for you. But I'd appreciate it if you could resist the temptation of accusing me of passing around middle management excuses. That's not what I'm doing - as you might have recognised through the tears of your blinding rage if you'd just taken a second to breathe. Frankly the suggestion is offensive.

I feel for everyone having to go back to work.

I did for 3 weeks (3 days a week) and when Delta started popping off I pulled an Office Space: I went on vacation for 3 days and then just started working from home without saying anything or asking permission (I work for a small company and I am pretty senior). No masks were being required (or any other precautions) so I felt justified, especially now that there have been at least two positive cases the last 6 weeks.

I am now trying to push management to mandate social distancing and masking as my read of current NY law is that it is now required due to the governors 9/6 designation of covid as an airborne infectious disease outbreak. Getting ignored right now - CEO pays lips service to protecting employees but he implied that company would have to shut down if we went remote again, which is bullshit because we operated fully remotely from March 2020 to July 2021 with no discernible loss of business/efficiency/etc.

I appreciate the apology jon. I think it's important for workers to help each other out and feel connected. If you think you've got that covered remotely then good for you. But I'd appreciate it if you could resist the temptation of accusing me of passing around middle management excuses. That's not what I'm doing - as you might have recognised through the tears of your blinding rage if you'd just taken a second to breathe. Frankly the suggestion is offensive.

Well I still do apologize for going at you so personally, but that doesn't change the fact that I find most "team building" and "brotherhood" to be laughable at best. Ime, vanishingly few bosses genuinely care about nurturing a team, they just get more creative about ways to encourage you to be on site, being more productive so they can be seen as productive bosses. I have to be honest, you and I are never going to see eye-to-eye on that one and I do feel bad about going after you personally, but I could have done without that ridiculous, belittling condescension at the end.

shortly into the pandemic the company I work for closed our office and made work from home permanent. It mostly has more positives than negatives, but I do wish we would do occasional in-person meetings instead of doing everything through Teams, especially when dealing with somewhat complex issues. I'm lucky enough to have nice coworkers whose company I enjoy. I realize this is not the case for everybody.

I was fully remote before covid and just quit my job to work somewhere I’d have the option of going into an office. Planning to go in 1-2 days a week from the new year

Yeah I'm not against being in the office a few times a week, I'm just disappointed that I don't even have the option to WFH ever.

What really burns me is that my team has proven that we can do all our work fully remotely but my boss has made a big show of claiming that he will be in five days a week with the implication we should too.

I love my job but I spent four hours every day commuting because I can’t afford to live closer to my work.

Some personal science results for those of you that dig such things. I've been participating in a Red Cross antibody study since June 2020, when I donated blood and tested positive for antibodies on both the Roche and Ortho tests. Assuming I had Covid in the first week of March 2020 (which is possible), that means I was testing reactive for antibodies on both tests three months or so after exposure. I tested double-reactive a couple more times over the following months, but then I started testing reactive for just the Ortho test but not the Roche, which means my antibodies were still there but had faded (as expected). Fast forward several months, for reasons of timing, and I gave my first blood sample since vaccination a few weeks ago. I was fully vaccinated by March of 2021, and by this past late August (so, five or so months) my tests already showed waning antibodies, reactive on the Ortho but non-reactive on the Roche. In other words, vaccine antibodies behaving just as predicted/reported, and similar to natural antibodies: fading, at least somewhat. Now, what I don't know is, were I exposed to Covid again, would those antibodies bounce back up in response? Or is my protection compromised, requiring a booster (as many expect)? I suspect that's part of the study, though my handler if I heard her correctly told me that they hadn't yet had a participant who had been reinfected.

lol jon the suggestion I would ever use the phrase "team building" in earnest is possibly even more offensive than what you said before!

I'm talking about brotherhood and solidarity LATERALLY among WORKERS AGAINST MANAGEMENT to stand up for themselves when they are being dicked about. As other people in this very thread have testified in the last 24 hours or so, physical absence makes this much harder! So yeah, sorry I mean epic point-missing is going to get you condescended to, particularly when you lash out with such hostility. I don't make the rules!

it is true jon there are a lot of people who do way better on their own and their jobs would benefit from not being interrupted by meetings - i get that. those people should certainly be allowed to work from home when they want imo and i'm sorry that's not happening in your case! seems extremely dumb.

I guess I didn't follow the larger point about it being workers against management because your post was sprinkled with the EXACT SAME buzzwords that every mid-level manager has thrown at me my entire career as to why, for just one example, we must attend an a mandatory after work bowling party that I won't be paid for because why, "FELLOWSHIP" and "TEAM BUILDING". I concede that I did miss your larger point though, the shitty buzzwords I've have heard for two decades raised red flags.

i have never had a manager use "workplace solidarity" and wanting "to divide you and screw you over" (phrases that are actually in the post, unlike "team building") as a reason for doing something but ymmv

Oh jesus christ. I admitted I missed the larger point, but continue to pile on me in good ol' ilxor style.

but for the record, since you seem so invested, I have actually had a manager use "workpace solidarity" multiple times as a reason for team building events.

i had no idea that “brotherhood” “solidarity” and “fellowship” were buzzwords. do you work in a church jon?

harbl’s post is helping me feel like i’m not going crazy so i appreciate it frankly.

do you ever come back to these fits and admit you were a complete asshole jvc

or is it all just fuel for the "everyone piled on me again" routine

youve been barking at tracer for about a dozen posts now after inventing the original offence, harden the fuck up about being asked to check yrself gullad

well my investment is not paying off so i'm going to close my position now

I mean, I did apologize to Tracer several posts back for going after them personally, that was totally uncalled for. yes. And I acknowledge that I completely missed his larger point. Do I need to issue something more formal too? I fucked up and misinterpreted the post, and probably erred by overexplaining my position. My issue with "piling on" was harbl swinging by to take an unneeded swipe at me too.

ok if it matters it was a response to your very last post which i did not read that way, not an attempted pile-on

I apologize to Tracer, it was definitely uncalled for and I fucked up by not considering the entire point. I'll be the first to admit that I get myself into hot water sometimes by multitasking and skimming posts too quickly, absolutely. Shame on me for that.

sounds like somebody could use a morale-improving kahoot quiz!

lol

I think harbl is allowed to express her opinion

On a message board

would be better if i wasn't, tbh

Quiet you

My own personal experience of being in a workplace union showed me that even in many of the unions, the buzzwords mean absolute dick. So many meetings where organizers and union officials would pay lip-service to ideas of solidarity, only to back away in negotiations.

Which is to say that I actually kind of disagree with both jon and Tracer here— I think that there is something good, mentally and emotionally, about going into a work setting and being around co-workers, particularly if the dynamic isn't toxic. I also am immediately distrustful of unions because of my own experience with them...in fact, before I decided not to adjunct this fall, I'd gone out of the way to *withdraw* my membership from the union.

i have dedicated my life to being anti-work, and i have a feeling i'm going to have to go to work again soon. but i think i'm going to liquidate my entire retirement account first (losing a bunch to taxes and early withdraw) just because i hate to "work" (make money for other people) so much, and not working is so many multiple times better than working that if you apply a net present value to it and give yourself some reasonable assumptions, it probably makes more sense to just say fuck off from the world and enjoy 5 completely non-work years, on your own terms, then it does to live 40 years and work all the time and finally take that big trip to south america when you're 75

why? because of covid. full circle

very curious to me that you feel this way but then i have never been part of a unionized workforce xxp

in fact, using this theory and stretching it past the limits of logic, some say that it is possible to live a better life in 1 hour, 1 amazing hour, than it is to work your entire life at a normal job in the united states

I don't think this undermines tracer's key point that atomised work forces are difficult to organise in terms of unionisation etc. Efforts to prevent unionisation often target making sure workers spend almost as little time as possible if any interacting with each other in person. I think this is partly why efforts to organise deliveroo staff have been more successful than Uber, drivers are inherently cut off by their vehicle from each other. This is not to say there are not huge opportunities to be had from working from home but it does seem to be rarely the case historically that workers ultimately benefit from these kinds of technological improvement, often the reverse, and as such we should be very mindful of the attendant risks. This seems quite reasonable to me.