I am lucky to have a job I can do from home, I know, but the bits of the job I like and get on with are where frontline staff email to ask "please fix/process this small thing!" and I can turn it around right away without any thought, or maybe within a day or two with a little bit of puzzle-solving. realtime, reactive, feels vaguely useful.
now the frontline staff are not in work and that element of my job is just not happening, and there's nothing left but the long-term projects where I can't see how to start and I get overwhelmed with worry about getting it wrong because I'm not smart/organised enough to think all the possible pitfalls through properly.
normally I ignore those projects until they're way overdue; sometimes it turns out they didn't need to happen anyway and sometimes it's just that nobody notices/cares, because that's the kind of unobservant incompetence-enabling workplace I work for and am too scared to leave because where else would people be so careless as to leave me to my own devices and not tell me to shape up?
― a passing spacecadet, Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:00 (four years ago) link
also I am strangely annoyed at a neighbour lying in the sun on the communal lawn, even though there's nobody else out there or likely to walk within at least a metre so it's more or less fine, but my lizard/bureaucrat/toddler brain feels peeved somehow that someone is getting away with something I didn't want to do anyway while I'm working stuck indoors, staring at a screen, pretending to work, clockwatching
also she's probably the person that always leaves cigarette butts all over the communal garden, which is nasty
― a passing spacecadet, Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:08 (four years ago) link
just because everyone is WFH that does not mean you can schedule a meeting for 8am, particularly not when you send the invite out at 9pm the previous night.
― akm, Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:09 (four years ago) link
That is criminal lol. I refuse to schedule any before 10 and even then, only if I sent it hours prior to the end of previous day
― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:10 (four years ago) link
my new morning routine is much more relaxed than before, because I used to have to make my lunch, my son's lunch, get him out of bed, harangue him for 45 minutes, drive him to school, then into work. I still get up early now but now I just shower, walk the dogs, get slightly high, then come back and work is tolerable until about 1pm.
― akm, Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:12 (four years ago) link
I have that same problem. Lol...."oh, not due for two weeks? Well let me get a head start. WHOA, I don't know the answer to that, will look at it later."
― sorry for butt rockin (Neanderthal), Tuesday, March 24, 2020 11:49 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
this is the default setting of my brain so really not much has changed wrt that
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:25 (four years ago) link
the o/h is having a Zoom meeting next door and I guess rounds of congratulations are being read out because I keep hearing bursts of clapping, from him, on his own
8am meetings are evil no matter what format/medium, and ridiculous to have so little notice as well. I felt vaguely annoyed there's a 9am meeting tomorrow, even though I no longer have to get up to commute
― a passing spacecadet, Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:48 (four years ago) link
Just want it on the record that WFH with demanding small children (who are also at home) is NOT a constant ballet of cute "woops, cute kid came into the webcam frame and was cute for a few seconds."
It is also sometimes being curled up with a laptop in the closet, with my feet holding the door closed while someone screams DAAAADAAAAA and pounds on the door for half an hour. And then emerging to find the room decorated with diaper contents and magic marker.
If the liquor stores close I am doomed.
― love will keep us apart (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:50 (four years ago) link
ugh. disgusting savages.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:56 (four years ago) link
"i'm a morning person, so that means you are now too!"
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 16:57 (four years ago) link
I'm teaching from home (secondary: 11-16) and my school, seemingly the only one in the country from what I can make out, gave us a week to come to terms with Microsoft Teams so we can continue to give our kids the education they need. It's been... surprisingly OK so far. The kids are happy to have a routine, somewhere to gather and chat, and - so far at least - pleased to be getting on with something. I've got a top set bunch of 15-year-olds and godammn they're keeping me on my toes. We're reading farty old An Inspector Calls and I'm getting more from it than any previous year.
Downsides: it lacks the core element of teaching English - discussion and human heat; they've worked out how to mute the teacher and each other; they can gatecrash lessons; the chat function is amenable to all manner of filth and exotica; they're essentially unaccountable. I expect next week to devolve into the internet version of shitting in one's hands and throwing it around the room but for now, it's OK.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 19:03 (four years ago) link
the lack of commute suddenly means that 10am meetings feel insanely late. i'm like, wtf do i do before then? the kids are already bored and drilling holes into each others' thighs by like, 7:50. joe wicks saves us for a half an hour before we all start yelling at each other again. by the time that day's 10am meeting rolls around i'm already fucking exhausted.
considering wearing a sombrero to my meetings from now on, unrelatedly (i think)
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 21:03 (four years ago) link
i did manage to do some work. i cleaned the table off. after i took a trip to the office, the grocery store, and target. target was to get two storage totes, one for knitting stuff and one for sewing stuff, because that was what was occupying the table. i have done more work than anyone else on a particular group project so i'm sure everyone thinks i've been working all day and only started after i did my own work. lol. i also am not used to typing on my laptop because i have a dock at work with an actual keyboard and i keep accidentally deleting half the things i type when my hands hit the touchpad. i'm just glad there's no diaper contents around me :)
― forensic plumber (harbl), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 21:04 (four years ago) link
the meme content of my workday has increased exponentially. i'm ok with this; have to cope with stressful skype meetings somehow. someone shared something by The Oatmeal and I responded by making a joke about the Chemical Brothers album "Dig Your Own Hole". I'd never actually gotten around to listening to the Chemical Brothers before. turns out Dig Your Own Hole is a pretty good record!
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 21:12 (four years ago) link
my home desk chair is going to give me permanent back and ass pain for the rest of my life but i'll be damned if i spend one red cent for the sake of this job
― ℺ ☽ ⋠ ⏎ (✖), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 21:14 (four years ago) link
Good DN Simon H.
― lefal junglist platton (wtev), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 21:17 (four years ago) link
there's definitely been a bit of trenches spirit in this so far, with my work. zoom can make things feel really formal, nobody knows exactly when to talk. it's more important than ever for somebody to bring a joke or just chat shit for a good 5-10 minutes.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 21:24 (four years ago) link
I am starting to get really good at this. Did I already brag about the setup? I have four screens, three keyboards, two phones, it's ridiculous in here. I feel like I spent last week getting all the sources of avoidable distractions out of my system and now I'm actually able to focus and get a lot of work done as long as the unavoidable distractions (home schooling my daughter, escorting contractors to fiddle with the HVAC, shit like that) don't disrupt too much of the day.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 24 March 2020 21:33 (four years ago) link
my "home office" is vastly more pleasant than my "office office", especially after I've made some long overdue rearrangements to improve both the aesthetics and functionality
having the rest of the family around gonna be a challenge now kids are doing school at home but although day 1 was a horrorshow, day 2 was vastly smoother - let's see how day 3 is
one thing about WFH is that it really does highlight when people aren't pulling their weight - a colleague whose sketchy reliability was easy enough to carry in the pre-plague days is now shaping up to be a real source of difficulty for remote work - I'm semi-sympathetic because they are freaking out about their living circumstances viz the lockdown, but we are also lucky to be in meaningful work at the moment and to keep it viable it's gotta be all hands to the pump
― umsworth (emsworth), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 21:40 (four years ago) link
my worksite computer is the USS Enterprise, i'm flying the Galileo shuttlecraft here
all alone
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 21:46 (four years ago) link
When my work was mostly writing I could do it at night, after kid bedtimes. Now that it is mainly meetings everyone schedules meetings during the same daytimes that they would have ordinarily scheduled them in, which blows.
― love will keep us apart (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 22:12 (four years ago) link
I finally got my big monitor hooked upomg my eyes are so happy I can seeeeeeee againwe had a zoom meeting last wk & it was funny to see everyone’s different setups, one coworker was standing up, and staring down at the laptop camera the whole time & the resolution was super low & it looked like someone’s found footage of their final moments before being murdered, i was trying so hard not to laugh
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 22:34 (four years ago) link
There is a real crazy intimacy these meetings engender.. you see the inside of everybody's house!
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 22:45 (four years ago) link
I really like the people I work with - and some of them are interstate - so it's pretty cool to be having the virtual hangs
― umsworth (emsworth), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 22:47 (four years ago) link
so far work hasn't required me to use video, which currently is a good thing because my microphone has yet to work after a reformat
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 22:48 (four years ago) link
(that said the dissonance between the force of the flood of "if you care about the economy right now you are basically hitler, satan, and trump as one individual, and support murder, slavery, and eugenics" and the terror I feel every morning around 9 and every afternoon around 5 at whether my income will exist for another day is making me lose my mind)
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 22:53 (four years ago) link
everyone deserves protection from the consequences of this thing - medically, and financially
also, trump is a moron
these things can be true at the same time
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 24 March 2020 23:28 (four years ago) link
I will say this positive thing which is that my roommate and I have so far managed not to murder one another after suddenly being together 24/7
― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Wednesday, 25 March 2020 02:17 (four years ago) link
some idiot clicked on a malware link overnight and our whole network is now shutdown. we have also been blocked from another network we need to use. whoops. we have been told for MONTHS not to click links in emails due to repeated phishing attempts, such as "your sexual harassment training is going to expire in 24 hours." great job, everyone.
― forensic plumber (harbl), Wednesday, 25 March 2020 17:33 (four years ago) link
It's now prescribed that whenever someone coughs on a video call, they have to say "don't worry guys, it's not coronavirus!" and everyone else has to laugh at the joke.
― rí an techno (seandalai), Wednesday, 25 March 2020 22:09 (four years ago) link
civil service has initiated split shifts for working from home because load on the network or w/e i dunno
wife is on earlies, im on lates, this has plusses this has minuses in a one bed, one living space apartment
lucky we back onto the park, as long as the hysteria around people going outside at all doesnt get that closed too.
― ole uncle tiktok (darraghmac), Wednesday, 25 March 2020 23:20 (four years ago) link
my worksite computer is the USS Enterprise, i'm flying the Galileo shuttlecraft hereall alone― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, March 24, 2020 9:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, March 24, 2020 9:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink
hang in there morbs, we're here
― lefal junglist platton (wtev), Wednesday, 25 March 2020 23:21 (four years ago) link
I'm glad you're not going in any more, deems, but sorry yr employers have found a way to complicate things yet again
― a passing spacecadet, Wednesday, 25 March 2020 23:49 (four years ago) link
went back to office to retrieve my ergo trackball mouse & facilities mgr let me bring my chair home too fkn YES finally bloody comfortable again
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 26 March 2020 00:24 (four years ago) link
xp ty, we'll take the good from it to start.
one person on calls or w/e at a time, our preferred exercises arent mutual, leaves one guilt free to cook each meal, and we both have v v good noise cancelling headphones. we'll survive it.
― ole uncle tiktok (darraghmac), Thursday, 26 March 2020 00:42 (four years ago) link
Hooray for good chairs
― El Tomboto, Thursday, 26 March 2020 00:42 (four years ago) link
hip hip support
― ole uncle tiktok (darraghmac), Thursday, 26 March 2020 00:43 (four years ago) link
Three chairs
― love will keep us apart (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 26 March 2020 01:14 (four years ago) link
ergonomic me conseated
― ole uncle tiktok (darraghmac), Thursday, 26 March 2020 01:21 (four years ago) link
How much would someone want for a set of ergonomic chairs?
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Thursday, 26 March 2020 09:18 (four years ago) link
if you backed me into a corner?
― ole uncle tiktok (darraghmac), Thursday, 26 March 2020 09:31 (four years ago) link
Two adults - who work in very related jobs at the same university - and two kids under 5 = neither of us getting masses done. Snatching the odd hour or two each day to answer emails and do video conferences. Thank god we turned on microsoft teams at the end of last month.
― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 26 March 2020 10:01 (four years ago) link
Ach, it was a Castle reference. Tell him he's dreaming...
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Thursday, 26 March 2020 20:21 (four years ago) link
Glad I remembered to take off the creationist tshirt I was wearing ironically before teleconference
― COVID and the Gang (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 26 March 2020 20:39 (four years ago) link
Ach, it was a Castle reference.
ach it was a reference to why one might need an ergonomic chair ;)
― ole uncle tiktok (darraghmac), Thursday, 26 March 2020 20:40 (four years ago) link
My partner has made me set a timer for every 1/2 to get up and stretch, which has been essential tbh.
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 26 March 2020 20:47 (four years ago) link
thank you, I'm gonna do the same rn
― Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 26 March 2020 20:56 (four years ago) link
Ach, wasted on me, lad ;)
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Thursday, 26 March 2020 21:30 (four years ago) link
stop
i really will get conseated
― ole uncle tiktok (darraghmac), Thursday, 26 March 2020 21:38 (four years ago) link
You're off your rocker, mush.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Thursday, 26 March 2020 21:48 (four years ago) link