Working From Home

It wasn't Saviynt, was it?

I haven't a clue. It looks like a stock application that was deployed poorly

Dear Andrew ******,

You have 1 assignment that is 1397 days overdue.

You must complete the following assignment(s):

- Executive Series: Securely Working From Home with Quiz

in the office today, second time this year (but the first where it's not been all-day meeting). things i don't miss from the office, a list:

a) the terrible coffee
b) colleagues overdoing the deodorant
c) colleagues using their outside voices even though they are only 3ft apart (and only 5ft from me)

d) he's been here 10 minutes now and is still arranging things on his desk to be optimal. desk is attached to mine so when he shakes his, mine also shakes.

e) shared toilets
f) back-ache-inducing chair (probably from just having to sit up properly after 3 years on the sofa)

how’s Corporate Wireless working out for you today koogs

ha, i'm in LH and that has special network ('interwebs') for R&D reasons. it's slower than i remember it but...

g) too light in here and too much is moving

h) the snacking / lunch options

can be well worth it to walk to Japan Centre in Westfield, as user Fizzles kno

i) n people, n-1 desks. people who booked desks have been gazumped by the people who didn't know they had to but just sat down randomly. other people have booked desks and have been sat in meeting rooms all morning not using them.

j) zoom meetings where 80% of the people are within hearing distance anyway.

The plot thickens. Today I'm at work and the only other colleague from my team has just left... It's not a big team, but we're still twelve I think.
If the experience is almost the same, what's the point ? I hear the rent is huge and I can't say the same for my salary.

k) four people stood around the desk next to mine. two are actually working.

after a couple of years of trying to encourage employees to go to the office, it looks like my employer has given up and decided that it actually is a waste of money to pay for office space that is barely used. I only ever went once, but from what I heard, even the people who were in teams that regularly went always had to do the meeting through teams because there was always at least one person who was not there in person, so basically nobody got much of the benefits of actually being at the office. Coffee at that office was really good though.

the last time i had an office job, the coffee was great, but that was because i worked for a local branch of a food service company and the locals were snobs about coffee.

i just get coffee from any of the coffee places around my office 🤷‍♂️

(i left at 14:00, having been there since 06:45. another one of these next month, but i have holiday to burn...)

e) shared toilets

this one is big for me... there were some odd shit happening in our shared bathroom pre-pandemic, and not nearly enough stalls for how many people were in the office

Here at home, I have an old magazine and quality TP

for me the benefit of tinkling at home is a bidet and cheap washcloths (i can't just shake it and shove it back into my pants anymore, and toilet paper tends to get stuck to it).

of course a lot of places you also have _gendered bathrooms_. all of that trans bathroom shit, you don't get that here so much, and even if you did i got passing privilege, but god gendered bathrooms are fucking stupid. i'm sorry. they just are.

i don't want a lady to hear me taking a crap, are you crazy

that's why when my wife and i are both working at home i use the outhouse

obviously not a subscriber to the henny youngman school of gender studies

In my dream home (not yet a reality), the bathrooms and showers are outside and can't be reached without leaving the house

lol rush i did think that just as i hit "submit".. i guess that simplifies things

we had an earnings call and we had a fairly disastrous year, rumors of layoffs swirling.

pro: layoffs result in severance, get 2 weeks for each year of service (I have 19)
con: i am likely the highest salaried in my department (excluding the managers) - easy target
pro: i know how to do things nobody else does on this team
con: this company has proven nobody gives a shit about that
pro: i've survived every round of layoffs before
con: i've survived every round of layoffs before

office much nicer today with exactly 0 people in it. coffee still gak though.

it is just a coincidence that today is the last opportunity i will get to use the company bandwidth to download episodes of doctor who ahead of them turning off desktop downloads and me being on holiday for a week.

Neanderthal: that is almost exactly my position, right down to the years of service! Town Hall next Thu. I guess I would hear something before that.

Most teams now have "anchor days", where they're required to come on-site once a week. I'm not included in this requirement (in fact, no one has spoken to me about WFH/office policy in over a year). We've greatly reduced our physical office space (it started pre-covid) and now - for generic hot-desk set-ups - it's a single floor (100 capacity) in the western hub (industrial estate, Z4), and a single floor (65 capacity) in the central hub (old Victorian building, Z1). Canteen in former closed permanently spring 2020. If it's free food truck day, the place is packed. The Z1 office is generally pretty full, judging by the booking app. There are also activities in this business that can't be done (easily) remotely, and those teams have always been coming in (different wing of the Z4 office).

I choose to go the Z4 hub on quiet days, once every few weeks, and never to the Z1 hub. Better ambient lighting and temperature than I have at home, especially in winter. Monitor and chair lottery, however. Free coffee, tea, toast, etc. I feel like a bit of a ghost.

I think the return-to-office was much more keenly pursued in other locations.

(we were told, mike, that the industrial estate that we share(d) with you was being sold off and required a very expensive move somewhere else - all the climate controlled storage etc had to go. did that not affect you?)

((you probably saw the auction of a bazillion vinyl albums...))

I'm never there often enough to notice what happens at other units (it's pretty vast!) but, no, I don't think that closure affected us. That place was the only reason to want to come to that part of the world! I think I'd be pretty happy archiving that stuff for the rest of my working life, instead of doing... whatever it is I do.

I like to go out for lunch to break up the monotony of the day, work a little while out, then go home and finish the day.

today, I forgot somehow that I had a meeting at 1:30, and I only arrived at the McDonald's at 1:15. oh well, I'll attend it from here. this McDonald's is quiet, and it's a short meeting.

no sooner than the meeting starts, a very noisy pair sit very close to me and the barely audible muzak suddenly turns into a very loud Usher/Lil Jon "Yea"

lol....lesson learned.

The place I work for part-time is interested in increasing my hours starting in June; meanwhile, the place I work for "full-time" as a contractor is giving me additional responsibilities and there's talk of hiring me as a full-time employee. I really hope the part-time spot doesn't want me to go full-time as well; juggling both would probably start to feel like real work.

lol, it was a valiant effort Neando.

Going out for a walk at lunchtime and forgetting about that 1pm meeting is something I do a bit too often. Likely to happen a bit more often in the coming weeks with the spring weather.

I walk down to a park a few blocks from my house almost every day, usually stopping to buy a bottle of Guinness on the way.. rain or shine
Nice to get out of my place, even if just for a half-hour

I was inspired by my trip to Stockholm last summer, seeing people laying in the grass sunbathing: "what are theses people doing? don't they have work or school? Wait, I'm gonna start doing that too."

another monthly Face to Face day where everybody is meant to come into the office. but...

one is crying off with 'diarrhea since early morning' (thanks for that)

and the one who instigated these face 2 face days has just posted 'would love to have been there, but have to wait in for delivery'

elsewhere people are commuting in having moved away during lockdown, hours of train travel and literally £100 in one case.

the other two senior managers are a) travelling in after 11 after not feeling well this morning and b) on holiday today

but nigel HAS made it in from Penge. and a colleague who nobody has seen since in person since march 2020 is here.

after last time i booked a desk on the quiet side, away from the desk-eaters and the shouty people. nice view of white city, if such a thing is possible.

Going out for a walk at lunchtime and forgetting about that 1pm meeting is something I do a bit too often.

Having the dev scrum dailies right in the middle of my lunch break (it's not anyone else's 1:30pm) is a new intrusion into routine. Walking around the rec ground, earbuds in, trying to follow a screen-share on a phone.

Going in tomorrow: the Xmas gifts have arrived! Corporate-branded merch that the kids like. Ironically perhaps. In three years we've gone from: 200 'credits' to spend in our online store, shipped to yr house in Dec, to: choose two things only, it'll be three months before you get them, collect from the office.

The best thing about working from home (which I’ve done, for, gasp, 11 YEARS now) is the lunchtime walks in relatively mellow surroundings. Just essential for clearing my head. Every now and then the work day is too crazy or the weather sucks, but without the ability to do this I might lose it

Koogs, your description of your office is straight out of Barbara Pym's Late Quartet.

another in-office day on... Tuesday, the day after Easter holiday weekend. i can guarantee people haven't seen this in their calendars because nobody looks beyond the current week, especially if the week before is short.

(and last Monday all the mixer taps were out of order so no hot drinks (short of popping to starbucks))

Dear Andrew ****,

You have 1 assignment that is 1454 days overdue.

You must complete the following assignment(s):

- Executive Series: Securely Working From Home with Quiz

Lol

I am working from home tomorrow but cannot because kids are on Easter holiday and mother-in-law in staying and I will not be able to focus for one minute. So I need to go to a cafe or a pub, however though I live in a city (Cambridge) there are no cafes or pubs within half an hour's walk.

No point here, just thought I would have a whinge.

Coffe grounds and hard boiled eggs