Working From Home

lol I know my posts make it sound like that. the actual act of training people, I actually do still enjoy, it's mostly the other nonsense politics I don't. I'd be free of them cos I'd be in a completely different wing of the business for the first time since....well...ever.

this friend of mine isn't exactly a mega-positive person so when he says he loves it, that's a p good endorsement for me. not to mention the money.

basically, the customer care wing hired a complete dolt 8 years ago, and inexplicably, he's kept the position and run the unit into the ground. I'd be leaving that wing to a non-customer care side.

Is there a good thread where the conversation is about people being miserable at work, possibly post-Covid era, possibly related to being burnt out, possibly related to office use or under-use?

Here would work

Work situation: knackered at work and conscious that most of those around me are also. Burn out gets mentioned a lot, without any obvious solutions. The office was previously (pre-pandemic) a decent place to (do difficult) work. Lots of very legitimate reasons for working from home (often around childcare, sometimes about saving money on commutes and/or saving time, sometimes about working preferences). Lots of reasons legitimate reasons for working more in the office (support, functioning work). I suspect "the Covid Years" changed something and people are a little broken. Stuck on what might resolve things, even a bit.

The thing that helped me when I was burnt out from work was a month of leave

I'll take two

lol otm

I have been seriously burnt out for two years, but no amount of time off will solve it tbh.

There is no finish line; there is no "done." It is a matter of finding a series of more or less tolerable situations until I can embrace a reasonably dignified death

...and on that cheerful note, how b out them Mets?

had to withdraw my application, apparently there are multiple versions of this role open, and the one I posted for was not the one my friend's division is posting. it's in a division where they work crazy hours and are work-obsessed, so I'm going to wait for my friend's division to post theirs and re-post. he works 40 hour weeks and takes vacation literally all the time.

re: burnout, yeah - sometimes even time away doesn't work, though I wouldn't refuse it if someone told me to take a paid month off (Narrator: It wouldn't be paid).

I'm a teacher and hell yes to burnout. I think 'I'm too old for this shit' probably 10 times a day. If I knew of a way out, I'd chew yer arm off/be like a rat up a drainpipe/move like shit off a chrome shovel. (Is writing poor figurative language a job option?)

Chinaski: my friend, I was in a job interview today and I literally said "this is your baby, and I'm the midwife."

And then I paused to wonder if I had really said that out loud, and it turns out that I had.

Fortunately it went over well - I can easily imagine it going the other way.

Welp.

These are the fortunes of someone with an English/philosophy double major trying to survive in business. Every once in a while, I choose a metaphor that lands wrong, and I find myself jobhunting again.

I don't even like the Groundhog Day metaphor anymore, but everyday at my kitchen table is just like the last one, and the one before that

Sometimes a package gets delivered... sometimes I'll do some laundry. Some afternoons I'll have an iced vermouth, or walk around the neighborhood for twenty minutes.

I can't believe it's been three fucking years

I've grown thoroughly comfortable with it, but it helps I have my routines, and while part of me wishes I didn't have to go in on Monday and Tuesday afternoons briefly it does provide some scheduled variety. Honestly if you told me this would be what I'd need to do for the next decade or so, say, I'd be perfectly fine.

reapplied for the correct job. apparently it's not exactly in my friend's division but it's not in the 'insane' division either.

going to ask for a $30k raise, wish me luck

(not really but might as well aim high right lol)

xpost Ned - yeah, I actually don't want to go back to the rat race at all, just grumbling. We kept our San Francisco office (SOMA) but it's a total shambles with boxes and junk lying everywhere. No one will have their own desk or office anymore.. it'll just be all common space. But there are days where literally NO ONE goes into the office, not even the skeleton support staff (Operations, receptionist etc.). I don't know what the future is but it won't look anything like the past, every again.

For awhile our CEO was going on about 'I know that everyone is really psyched to get back in the office in person' but then she moved to Florida (thanks DeSantis) and she's dropped all that. Nobody talks like that anymore.. it's all vague talk about future events, summits, in-person scrums and team meetings, stuff like that

X-post to Ye Mad Puffin: please tell me you were going for a job as an actual mid-wife.

This:

everyday at my kitchen table is just like the last one, and the one before that

Sometimes a package gets delivered... sometimes I'll do some laundry. Some afternoons I'll have an iced vermouth, or walk around the neighborhood for twenty minutes.

And this:

No one will have their own desk or office anymore.. it'll just be all common space. But there are days where literally NO ONE goes into the office, not even the skeleton support staff (Operations, receptionist etc.)

... seem so familiar.

xp YMP, your metaphor cheered up this miserable prick. Perhaps we could form a metaphor-writing company. The profundity apparatus. Needs some work; might fly.

The Profundity Apparatus must surely be a novel by Nicholson Baker.

reapplied for the correct job. apparently it's not exactly in my friend's division but it's not in the 'insane' division either.

going to ask for a $30k raise, wish me luck

Get it. Pound the table till you get it. You deserve it.

Yup.

cosign

I was pleased as punch when my current position was moved to WFH in 2016, well before the pandemic happened. Now we're a fully WFH company with no local office to even go into.

Not sure I could ever do the commute to and from an office gig again. I'm broken in the best way.

It's not a skilled position, and I really only make enough to keep my mortgage paid, but more $$$ usually equals more stress and, with no family obligations, I just want to live the rest of my life with as little stress as possible.

xpost thanks all.

agree about y'all making the pun company too.

but what would you...name it

Metaphore on the Floor

JF I am also (recently) 100% WFH and I am loving it

Chinaski, I am totally down with launching an artisanal metaphor store.

Metaphors from my working world that I am pretty tired of:

- "Big rocks" to mean "problems we need to solve"

- "The long pole in the tent" to mean "the thing we need to figure out before anything else can get figured out"

- "Shark in the water" to mean "unsolved problem"

- There's another one that I sometimes hear that's like "the wolf that's closest to the wagon" that means "the most urgent problem we have right now."

This business-speak is interesting because it's all about a fantasy of wilderness survival (which makes exactly zero sense for suburban IT workers). It's a little bit better than war or sports metaphors, but not by much.

In my ideal world, businesspeople would have a wider range and could draw from less macho realms. Like, "this reminds me of the My Little Pony episode where Twilight Sparkle needed to use the power of friendship." "Folks, we need to have a solution meeting about this - let's go into the Barbie Dreamhouse conference room."

Just once I'd like to hear "I think this executive summary needs more smize." Or "can this proposal get more pizazz?"

THE MERCHANDISE IS PIZZLED

(sorry)

oh and: best of luck to our favorite protohuman, Neanderthal. hope things go well.

I used a Marie Kondo reference at work today.

lol, this budget item does not spark joy

"The long pole in the tent"

Jeez don't let me boss hear these, he loves a good 'everything looks like a nail' or whack-a-mole reference

I have found myself saying "heavy lift" multiple times over the past few weeks. I need to fucking stop with that.

i say "going forward" and "reach out" all the damn time now :|

lots of "check in" and "chat". less "circle back" and "touch base" though, thankfully.

i prefer faux-humble-folksy work lingo to sports metaphors

I prefer "heavy lift" to "big ask" fwiw

"big rocks" just makes me think of this dude i knew back on usenet who went by ICEKNIFE whose answer to everything was "KILL THEM WITH BIG ROCKS". even when there was no question. _particularly_ when there was no question.

I used not one but TWO simpsons gifs in a Teams discussion with my Big ticket mobile client today. But he replied with "uh oh spaghettios" so there's that.

We're going into the office tomorrow but its just a prop so we have an excuse to go out for lunch. We probably wont get any work done. People come and go in dribs and drabs. but the ping pong table's folded away and the PS4 looks sad and neglected. We downsized the giant espresso machine to a little nespresso pod thingy. The Sydney office are talking about selling of a whole floor.

Selling OFF a whole floor.
They'd not do that in my office, we dont even have a whole floor, but it is in a AAA building and must cost a lot. Uninterrupted views to the bay, the MCG etc etc.

yeah, they downsized us about 6 months in. and I've not been to the new place.

immediate area has also seen a splurge of new office building as is barely recognisable now.

cannot overstate this: verify contractually in the paperwork that your new job is remote and will remain so regardless of corporate changes.

isn't the big rocks thing a dumb metaphor about prioritizing work? it's not just problems to solve, it's recognizing which take prominence

now i've shown my ass and you know i've paid too much attention at work

I believe the point of a “big rock” is that it is hard to move.

you gotta make it into smaller rocks

one bite at a time

(sorry, that's elephants, not rocks)