Working From Home

Minneapolis

I took a walk around the office neighborhood awhile back (SF SOMA) and it was pretty desolate.. a lot of small deli's etc. were gone, while most of bigger taprooms and sit-down restaurants have managed to survive.. but not much foot traffic

The WiFi at this place is pretty solid, faster than what I have at home... but yeah, I won't be coming down here again anytime soon

There was actually a bit more life than I was expecting.
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what city is that, out of curiosity?
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Minneapolis

Torn between a joke based on "life is just a party and parties weren't meant to last" and something more like "electric word, life, it means forever."

Sadly the Starfish and Coffee Deli has closed.

bring your own lampshade, somewhere there's a party, and parties weren't meant to last

Last time I was in Melbourne CBD (last week) I was suprised how crammed and lively it's returned to. Over the last 2 years the place had been a ghost town - our city relies (too) heavily on SEAsian students, who couldnt study here til this year due to the border closures. And everyone else WFH.

They're all back now. In fact things have become a clusterfuck because theres now a housing shortage/COL/rents have skyrocketed but thats for another thread.

Today is the third anniversary of me and my coworkers being sent home. We have since been snapped up by a different contractor, under a 100% remote contract, but sometimes I'm ready to go back to an office at least part-time.

The company I work for was aquired by another larger company in March 2020, it was announced to us on the Monday of the week where covid really started in North America (NBA shutdown, Tom Hanks, etc.). On Thursday I knew I would work from home on Friday because schools had announced they would be closed. When leaving the office, I jokingly said to my coworker who works next to me "Well, goodbye, I guess this is the last time any of us are ever coming to the office". That joke ended up true (our offices were closed permanently during the pandemic by our new parent company to cut costs). I've worked from home ever since. I miss some of the aspects of a communal office, but I definitely wouldn't go back.

PG&E sends out monthly "energy efficiency" letters about how your "home" compares to other homes with enlightening infographics and visual signifiers of positive and negative reinforcement of energy efficiency that look like they are geared to kids ... these end up being "energy shaming" to me because I work from home and have the heater on when it's cold, and have an AC unit in my home office that I run when it's hot ... I wonder if they will adjust their measurements to reflect more people actually being at home all day... idk.

haha i've installed a 4-unit mini split system and an EV charger in the last 18 months and let me tell you the usage graph is not happy with me!

kinda curious about the unhappy infographics where you are!

Still think it's wild that companies are now saving on office space while shunting the cost of heating, AC, internet and office furniture onto their employees

yep

i'll take higher energy bills over the also wild expectation that i risk life and limb twice a day in a white-knuckle car commute though.

Eh ,I'd be paying for the internet either way, and there's always *someone* home at my house so I dont think its much of an increase in utilities. Plus, I'm saving $50 a month on travel and at least $60 a week on lunches. Bwteeen all that and quitting smoking I've saved a LOT of money since lockdowns.

Yeah I will happily exchange the travel costs for leaving thermostat settings in place at home.

and commute time

that being said the bills are def higher

but jeez even my miniscule commutes added up to 3+ hours a week, that's a significant chunk of time

Yeah I think its why my company have remained happy with WFH - if I come into the office I'm in at 8.30 and out at 5, but if I'm WFH I'm often logged in/at my desk by 7.30 and still plodding away after 5, and I dont usually claim OT if its only 20-30 mins. Theyre getting more work out of me for sure.

Yes, this. I just turned down a job even though they would have accepted an extremely weird schedule: work from home in the AM, drive in like 10, leave at like 3, long in and work a bit more.

Way easier to just be generally available for a reasonable portion of the day, and skip the 1.5 hours of non-productive highway time.

considering showering at the office for a while to claw back money from the last few years’ water bills

pre-screened for the new position, am moving onto the interview process.

i was reading ILX threads during the conversation.

in a way it's kind of a testament that I could do something like this half-attentive and avoid filler words and sound interesting for 15 mins with a complete stranger, but actually interacting w/ strangers socially = stutter central.

i had my first t*x client meeting of the year yesterday (because of storms almost everyone in my state gets an extension until October, so I'm not super late) ... I was super anxious even though I've been doing this for 20 years, but I quickly found myself in autopilot mode and afterwards was like, "Oh, damn, I have gotten good at this?!"

still waiting for the interview to be scheduled (now that the recruiter doesn't do it themselves, it tends to move slower - but this is normal), but my friend on the inside put in a good word for me.

have found it hard to stay focused this week. i wound up playing World Series of Poker for an hour during my shift yesterday, while I actually had things to do.

Best of luck to you Neanderthal

I think one thing I've often left out in my work rants over the years is how progressive in terms of values my company has been since I started, which is probably one reason why even after some of the stressful years I endured here, I've stayed. it's not just lip-servicey either, for decades we've had several inter-office groups/clubs for gay and trans employees, and invited guest speakers (The Trevor Project is a very frequent invited guest for lunch and learns), and we normalized using pronouns years ago. the workforce is extremely diverse.

Not all of the EMPLOYEES here, mind you, are all that forward-thinking - a few years ago, trainees learned that one of their fellow trainees was transgender, and several issued threats to this person. but when leadership takes these position, it helps a lot, to make clear that this shit isn't acceptable (I have no idea what happened to these employees but fairly sure they got shit-canned immediately).

today, one of our leaders wrote an article titled: "Trans colleagues need support as violence turns toward community". incredibly well-written article focusing on the community healing from the school shooting while also calling for compassion for trans colleagues who have now become an increased target of hate due to it.

really helps a lot in these dark times to at least know the place you work at is actually not enabling this horrible shit.

That is good to know, for sure.

Got an interview today for a gig doing promotional materials (maybe creating, but most likely just proofreading/editing) for some healthcare lab. Should be at least mildly diverting and hey, money!

best of luck!!

lately our VPN connection has been messed up, almost like the login script that is supposed to run after you connect doesn't always work.

many of us having to disconnect and reconnect multiple times throughout the day when applications mysteriously stop working mid-day, despite still showing as connected to VPN

Does it have options? We have like "Staff Remote 1" and "Staff Remote 2" - sometimes choosing another remote will make it work, in my limited experience (I'm no IT guy)

interview in t minus 7 minutes.

already did my preparation, now it's just go time.

Good luck!!

meh. I overtalked a bit, but I had prepared with copious amounts of notes so when they asked behavioral questions, I answered them very thoroughly. my problem was I was trying too hard to fit in what I do now with this job, because they're different departments, instead of trusting that they could make that connection or ask.

but....I'm always critical of myself in interviews. we'll see how it goes. I was the fifth person they interviewed.

after hearing a description of the role, I could do it in my sleep.

Sending good thoughts your way for good news soon! I'm sure you nailed it.

wtg, n!

Best of wishes to Neanderthal

look forward to hearing that you got the job, Neanderthal

you should totally get this job, but otoh there are a lot of stupid people in positions of power, so if you don't get it ... it's not you, it's them

so far, haven't heard anything back yet. but they said 'within the next week', rather than "by the end of the week".

I was towards the early wave of interviews though so I'm not too worried - i'm going to log on and peak later to see if my application status has changed.

I will say, at this company, you usually get ghosted if you didn't get the position, or told like a month later

ok, application status is still "reviewing application" so that's good, selection hasn't been made yet

fingers crossed for you Neando, hope you get good news soon!

lord. one of the last classes I supervised, after a few months of a more hands-off approach, turned out to be a disaster that created a lot of noise, so I decided to fight through my burnout this week and keep a closer eye on this class. i figured it'd go fine as both instructors were experienced, but they committed every rookie mistake possible today and fell 2+ hours behind (which pretty much means we're fucked and will have to make cuts now).

so I gave a ton of feedback and I guess one of the instructors is 'bummed' about it (even though I did highlight what they did well). ffs, if I'm not allowed to shut down when I get feedback at work, you aren't either.

this was after rewriting the feedback 70 or 80 times to remove any harsh edges. i see that was pointless.

May I recommend a move into marketing? Not *writing ad copy*, but proofreading/copy-editing/etc. I make a substantial portion of my income that way and it's not that hard to break in; in fact, with your combined background you'll probably wind up making more than me because you can get in on the tech side (I don't have the vocab to work on SaaS marketing shit, but you probably do).

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, May 2, 2023 8:08 PM (two days ago)

Shifting this from another thread so as not to derail it, I could use some leads and pointers on how to pursue this. "Not that hard to break in" especially caught my attention, since I had been under the impression that copy editing was a dying field due to cost savings, but maybe that's just in newspapers. I'm currently very underemployed at three bar shifts per week and proofreading/copy editing seems like something I can succeed at.

hi dere, I do technical writing and editing for a living.

You could start with some staffing agencies / temp agencies; some used to specialize in editorial workers (Like Editorial Experts Inc., now sadly defunct) but maybe find out what's local to you. Say no to anything administrative or clerical, specify that you will only do editing/proofreading.

I did a bunch of consulting and freelancing and temping, but it was years ago. A smidgen of medical/health, PR/marketing occasionally. But currently I'm mostly in proposal development, which is a very specific niche but not impossible to start in. The biggest placement agencies are https://www.shipleywins.com/careers/ and https://smawins.com/jobs/. Boring but lucrative. A lot is attached to government contracting, because that's where the money is, but there is plenty of other work out there.

YMP, thank you!

I got a new laptop a month ago. they gave me a prepaid UPS box to send it back in, and I made a mental note that I'd go out to a drop box and send it back that Friday.

that mental note congealed into a false memory that I'd actually sent it back, so it sat in my closet untouched until I finally noticed it this week, screaming "send me back!" in a blithe voice. interestingly, nobody on IT side asked about the missing equipment until yesterday, lol.

finally sent it back. we'll always have Paris, Dell