Working From Home

and fearing that...they know that I know...and this was on purpose.

What if you were also on the shitter, would you reveal, just to save their embarrassment

We are all in the shitter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Working from home

lol @ Tim

There are mechanisms for directly messaging specific people and not bringing it to wider attention, just sayin

to be clear nothing even approximating this has ever happened and if it did I would probably need a wellness day due to throwing my back out laughing, so I'm not exactly worried about it!

worst thign that happened in the last week was someone on their second day of employment accidentally saying "you need to shut your ass up" while one of our executives was presenting. he (exec) just made a casual comment of 'make sure we're muted' fortunately.

My gf had a company-wide call yesterday, an 8am start for the LA office, and one guy didn't mute his mic, dozed off and snored loudly into his headset for several mins.

I have been sent my first company laptop for WFH, and I have to say that this is really going to cramp my ability to fuck around while working. I'd have to essentially change my whole work setup/configuration in order to fit both my personal and work laptops on the same surface— maybe even get a different desk. Kind of pissed about it, tbh.

Yeah, I just switch laptops for ~3 hours in the afternoon, then put the work laptop away and go back to my usual mix of working on other stuff and fucking around.

Yeah, I am thinking I might have to just get another contraption to create a second standing desk next to my current standing desk.

Also, truly don't understand how people work on Microsoft machines, total nightmare afaic.

Boy do I miss working from home. I miss being able to have that 5-10 minutes between meetings or tasks to accomplish something small around the house - starting a load of laundry, picking up some mess, sorting something, etc. Switching back to cramming that all into the few free hours I have at home each night kinda sucks.

Also, truly don't understand how people work on Microsoft machines, total nightmare afaic.

This has stunned me. They sent me an $800 Dell Latitude, and it feels like something from Bizarro world, or a model laptop made for kids. The keys are made out of some horrible cheap plastic, the whole thing weighs about twice as much as it needs to, everything takes like a full minute from the time you hit the button to the time the machine actually responds (with plenty of wheel-spinning in between)...it's horrifying. It reminds me of texting on a flip phone. How is this acceptable in 2022?

Boy do I miss working from home. I miss being able to have that 5-10 minutes between meetings or tasks to accomplish something small around the house - starting a load of laundry, picking up some mess, sorting something, etc. Switching back to cramming that all into the few free hours I have at home each night kinda sucks.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, February 23, 2022 1:15 PM bookmarkflaglink

yeah, all that stuff is a huge help. also breaks the day up a bit so you can get more done.

i am glad I'm virtual cos I can do caretaker stuff like escorting dad to his chair even if I'm teaching a class without anybody knowing or missing a beat. I just have them read on their own for 2-3 minutes rather lecturing the material to them, or line up the caretaking with a pre-planned activity.

if i wasn't virtual, I'd have had to quit.

(weirdly, the position wasn't a virtual position when I got it, and I started buying new work shirts thinking I'd be officebound, and then they told me a week prior that since I was already virtual before role-switching, that they'd let me stay that way. the others hired in the role weren't allowed to, so they kind of resented that at first, but now all of them are thanks to the pandemic and I doubt they'll ever be office bound again).

This is an interesting article on the repercussions of the "WFH" revolution:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/work-from-home-revolution/622880/

I agree with the basic premise that office jobs are not going back to the old 5-days in-person routine any time in the foreseeable future. One of the big questions is how this will spillover to people who have jobs where WFH is not an option. "There is real resentment among workers who don’t have this cushy work-from-home deal but all their white-collar friends do." He anticipates this will lead to demands for shorter work weeks for those mandatory in-person jobs. Also the office midtown economies and public transportation systems of major cities will have to go through a major readjustment, as the numbers will not be there to support them at their current levels.

Yet another article about work that doesn't include a single quote from an actual worker. Politicians, CEOs, fucking consultants, but no one who actually has a real job in a real office.

There was survey data of presumably real office workers. Not sure what a quote from an actual office worker would have added, tbh.

Not sure what a quote from an actual office worker would have added, tbh.

The sense that this article wasn't just a bunch of rich fucks and McKinsey types rimming each other?

Thanks for your input.

take it to the rimming thread

Thanks for your input.

I'm not faulting you for posting the link. There's an entire school of journalism now that's nothing but articles of this type, written with varying degrees of "time to get back to normal - suck it, drones!" None of them ever ask office workers what they think.

That's kind of not what that article was saying, but whatever.

He anticipates this will lead to demands for shorter work weeks for those mandatory in-person jobs.

This would probably be good, not bad, as more people would need to be hired to pick up the shortfall.

Also the office midtown economies and public transportation systems of major cities will have to go through a major readjustment, as the numbers will not be there to support them at their current levels.g

In London this would be an unmitigated victory. Public transport was groaning under the numbers of people it was trying to serve pre-pandemic. The new Elizabeth line was projected to be at capacity within one year of its opening, raising the prospect of the need for immediately beginning the construction of a new 10-year rail construction project (which was never going to happen).

agree with unperson here in general but also .. who does it serve to pit wfh people against have-to-be-there people?

pubs like the atlantic are full of this sort of thing, stubbornly refusing any kind of class analysis that reflects the reality of the situation which is the unmitigated greed of the ruling class.

the reason why articles like these don't do a lot of quotes from actual workers is that the point of these articles is to obscure the truth and the fact that most people know the truth.

have-to-be-there jobs will become relatively undesirable overnight but since when did that ever mean properly compensated or respected?

the opposite is usually true afaict.

Yes, except in service jobs for the rich, which while not respected, are often well-compensated. I worked luxury retail for three years, made $20/hr with health benefits, it was a sick gig catering to awful people.

My partner works for a chi-chi garden company, so he plants and prunes beautiful things in rich peoples' gardens. Makes more than he made as a technician in an emergency room at a teaching hospital.

In London this would be an unmitigated victory.

Yes agreed

Yes, except in service jobs for the rich, which while not respected, are often well-compensated. I worked luxury retail for three years, made $20/hr with health benefits, it was a sick gig catering to awful people.

My partner works for a chi-chi garden company, so he plants and prunes beautiful things in rich peoples' gardens. Makes more than he made as a technician in an emergency room at a teaching hospital.

― we need outrage! we need dicks!! (the table is the table), Friday, February 25, 2022 12:55 AM (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

tbr these kinds of gigs are the dream for cis gay men who are born without access to money but the people who run them are usually unbelievably toxic.

it's also like, you have to be able to pass a certain threshold to "act rich" in the sense of being cultured, things that make that possible are having gone to the right school and being sexy / desirable in some way. not trying to shade you or yours as we all work with what we have but i feel like sometimes we don't realize our own advantages. which doesn't mean that we also don't have our own disadvantages either.

it's ultimately wild to me that wfh has, as far as i can tell, been the biggest contributor to traveling feeling like you're just wading through endless throngs of people.

We're supposed to go back in mid March - almost exactly two years since most of us have set foot in the office. In the last two years we've had a ton of churn. A bunch of people have 1+ years under their belt and haven't been in the office. Though we're coming back in a hybrid scheme, and return on the day of re-opening is optional, team leaders are being pressured by upper management to encourage a strong showing. They think our culture is one of the big draws and has been missing these past few years.

I think the hybrid model is lose/lose for management: They are still paying the same price for the same office space, but have less team cohesion, poor visibility on the workforce many days of the week, and now a bunch of scheduling complications for meetings. Everybody wants Monday and Friday off -- oops, I meant to work from home those days. Only thing is now that those are the only days home; they'll save all of their little personal errands they were peppering throughout the week for those two days. Or, like, the article says, spend half or more of them traveling to the mountains to go skiing or whatever. I don't see a lot getting done those days.

I suspect companies are all watching to see what other companies are doing. If big Employers of Choice start eliminating the hybrid model after nine months, the smaller ones will too, and each that follows will diminish the threat of employees leaving for greener pastures.

My office is a fairly dilapidated hell-hole. My friends have mostly left in the past few years, whatever "culture" we once had I am not a part of anymore, I've become used to picking my kid up from school every day, and the thought of going back to losing hours out of my day and hundreds out of my check to commute there fills me with dread and loathing. But, whatever.

He anticipates this will lead to demands for shorter work weeks for those mandatory in-person jobs.

Assuming we're talking about legitimately shorter work weeks (e.g. going from 37.5h across 5 days to 30h across 4 days as opposed to compressed work week bs where you cram a full work week into four days) most people can't afford the commensurate drop in pay. And only the most fringe employers will shift their entire staff to a four-day week with no cut to salary. I like to think that if unions had a strong presence maybe things could head towards shorter weeks for everyone but I might be living in the past, man

At least the article does acknowledge that a majority of people can't work from home. Too many of these sort of pieces in the last two years have made it seem like wfh is the norm when it definitely isn't. UK stat is something like 37% of people did some days at home during pandemic. And then within that 37% there will be people who don't want to wfh all the time or whose jobs don't really allow for it long-term, let alone the spatial variation (e.g. higher wfh rate in London, and within London likely higher wfh rate in places like Wimbledon, Hampstead, Twickenham). I've just assumed that people writing these articles, and probably their peers, are in that 37% bubble and they've just lost perspective. That's not to downplay the impact of wfh on cities, which I've spent the majority of my own (wfh) job analysing over the last two years so I know it's important, just something I've found irritating.

Anyway fuck commuting, I want wfh as a rule and office by exception

there is definitely a wide range of compensation in terms of the category of mandatory in-person jobs. While the lowest paid / most exploited workers are in the mandatory in-person category, there are people in the building trades that do quite well for themselves. These articles definitely have a "target audience" and "target subject" that are somewhat exclusive. It's "interesting" to me what types of labor are excluded.

as for me, pre-pandemic, I would have clients come to my home office and do in person appointments, which would sometimes mean the morning mad dash of tidying and the panic-inducing doorbell buzzing when I'm still in my pajamas ... and now, it is way more relaxing even though my housekeeping has fallen to shit and I often feel like a feral child.

Man my house is much more tidy thanks to WFH. And way more meals cooked from home. It is working great for me as a partnered 48 year old who had long since transitioned from work-based/work-tangential social group (also happy hours, shows, clubs) to non-work social group (and cessation of partying ways), but damn I know that WFH would have really sucked at an earlier time in my life.

one thing that does bug me about WFH is how sometimes feedback is received much better in person when you can talk face to face vs written or by digital phone call.

not enough to make me not WFH, but misunderstandings definitely seem more possible in this environment (which can be mitigated by taking extra care when you deliver the message, of course, but that takes more time naturally).

my housekeeping has fallen to shit and I often feel like a feral child.

it's nice to know i'm not alone in this regard

man when I lived by myself, there were bags of chips all over teh floor, printed out paperwork sprawled out everywhere, tv dinners galore flowing outo f the trash can. "I'll pick up after work"

*work ends*

"ehh I'm too tired"

feral child crew, unite

the fun of Daylight Savings Time is that our training classes include learners from different countries/regions, so since we schedule all of our classes in Eastern or Central time, technically those trainers/trainees who are part of a country or Commonwealth that don't observe Daylight Savings Time are going to arrive one hour earlier next week for their classes.

yes, that's obviously also technically true for those observing DST, but for instance, if class is meant to start at 9 am EST, even though it's technically one hour later, it's still 9 am EST our time next week. Whereas in Gurguram, India, this week, that would be 7:30 pm their time, but 6:30 pm next week. which of course could impact things like child care arrangements/car-sharing arrangements with spouse, etc.

we've been doing this for years but inevitably it always causes confusion as we always forget to remind everybody until it's upon us. thankful someone reminded me of DST today so I could remind everyone.

I'm supposed to interview an artist on Monday who lives in Brazil (which does not observe DST). Currently figuring it out with the publicist. "So...it'll be an hour later for me, but the same time for her, so maybe don't even tell her about the change?"

make all appointments in UTC

makes me glad my workplace does everything via calendar invites on the same exchange server because I’ve got people from several time zones in virtually every meeting

I’m pretty good at remembering what time it is in Indian Standard Time now! (the half hour still throws me for a loop sometimes)

after 2 years of covid, i have stopped giving a fuck if people suspect i am on zoom calls or google hangouts while in bed. my headboard is quite aesthetic and looks somewhat chair-like. idk

I just hide the pillow, which is easy with a blurred background

https://fortune.com/2022/03/10/goldman-sachs-office-hybrid-remote-work-david-solomon/

Goldman Sachs is ordering employees back to the office 5 days (or more) a week. Inside CEO David Solomon’s mission to end hybrid work for good

They are such cocks

“Solomon has risked looking like a Neanderthal as remote work has gone mainstream worldwide. Top-tier tech firms—Salesforce, Twitter, Met…”

If they can make up for full in office with significant pay then maybe …otherwise they got some learnin coming to them

“Solomon has risked looking like a Neanderthal as remote work has gone mainstream worldwide.

can't he just hide the pillow which is easy with a blurred background like our Neanderthal?