Working From Home

working at home = dud for me. 6 mos. of freelancing for aol and i was ready to comit hara kiri with a letter opener.

Always got stuff done though - often at 9pm on the Sunday night when server traffic was quiet and my conscience was playing up.

working from home: classic
working from home when your flatmate has been made redundant and is mooching around the flat with his annoying boyfriend all day: DUD DUD DUD oh god just go awayyyyyyyyy

I twisted my knee playing football last night (that's why I'd stopped playing!), and couldn't walk properly today as a result, so I emailed in sick to work, and told them I had various things I'd do online and that I'd be available via email and my work mobile. As result I've actually been marked down as "home working" today rather than on sick leave.

This is the first time I've done this (although I do, if off sick or on leave, generally check work emails reasonably regularly - especially when I was off after my hernia operation for instance), and it's been surprisingly productive; I've organised as many if not more things as I would have done had I been in the office, sent a gazillion emails chasing various things, edited a load of copy, drafted some new web pages, AND had a nap and stroked the cats. And all while wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that are full of holes and not fit to be seen in public.

i'm working from home today and it is fucking amazing.

-shouting abuse at co-workers who can't hear you in response to their emails
-singing along to records
-cooking your own lunch
-not bothering to pretend to work if there's a lull or you're done by 1600
-no commute obviously

I have been working from home for almost four years. I can only see advantages. If you're office based and you have Skype, Webex and so forth I really don't see any reason *not* to. The people who still insist on buying or renting huge energy consuming, Earth destroying office space (space which could be used so much more constructively, be it for housing, parkland or given back to nature) are truly behind the curve.

What I'm interested in -- and I'm interested to know if there has been research in these areas:

(a) Has anyone done serious calculations of how much energy we could save (inter)nationally if everyone who *could* work from home did so and secondly,

(b) from a sociological point of view, the focus has been on the negative ("you can't get to know/work properly with people who don't see and physically interract with, ergo groups of home working people are doomed to failure") but shouldn't we also consider the flipside, that home working allows for people to be judged on their true merits, rather than the ad hominem nasty stuff that comes to the fore when people have to share a space?

Heh, my wife just started doing this full-time and has liked it so far.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a couple people at my office must have asked about the possibility because the partners sent out this really passive-aggressive email at the start of the year about how it will never be a possibility here because, basically, "it is impossible to believe that anyone could work productively out of their home". It was just laughably obnoxious and reductive about any possible benefits. (Of course, several months later one of the partners' favorites moved to Texas with her husband and was suddenly approved to work "remotely")

I don't ever want to do it

with my immunocompromised status and the virus terror, I may have to

BUT

the plantation I contract for, at a pitiful wage, uses a "VPN" that requires use of your

PHONE

which I do not have and do not want

fuck apps, fuck texts

is that app PingID?

no

Full time wfh since Oct 2012. Best thing ever. Makes work not suck. Def still look forward to the weekends but I no longer dread Monday. Limits my "advancement" options but I don't care; if I could maintain current position now thru retirement I'd be thrilled.

makes personal traveling mid-week possible. it's harder now that I changed roles, but when I was working in implementations, all they cared about is that I worked, not where I worked from, so sometimes I'd head out of town mid week and bring my laptop.

did manage to go to Vegas midweek last year because i had no classes that week

I’m starting to wonder whether spending £4500 a year on train tickets so I can commute to London, sit in an office and have web conferences with my colleagues and customers around the world is the most productive use of my time and money. The big problem with working from home ime is that it is much harder to put a cap on the day. I’m more likely to agree to 7pm meetings or answer emails at 10pm than I am if I have physically left my place of work.

Full time WFH since May 2015. It is definitely harder to put a cap on the day, though I don't really have meetings or emails to answer (I'm a web dev)

Its the job content itself as much as the WFH but I've changed around my perspective to not see work in terms of hours or blocks of time like this, but blocks of stuff that I need to have built by the end of the week or month. This means the delineation between own time and work time is more entwined. Mentally I'm kind of always at work but also never at work, I don't know if its better or not but I don't miss my 90 minute each way commute!

I feel a lot of the risk could have been mitigated if more organisations were better at actually allowing people to work staggered or different hours - fewer people on public transport at peak times, less crowding on train/tube platforms (can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a crush of a few hundred people waiting to get on a tube train) and management doesn’t have to pretend it cares about having a coherent wfh policy. My parents have never worked more than ten minutes from where they live and I envy them.

I feel a lot of the risk could have been mitigated if more organisations were better at actually allowing people to work staggered or different hours - fewer people on public transport at peak times, less crowding on train/tube platforms (can’t count the number of times I’ve been in a crush of a few hundred people waiting to get on a tube train) and management doesn’t have to pretend it cares about having a coherent wfh policy. My parents have never worked more than ten minutes from where they live and I envy them.

WFH today. Probably one of many. Technically I am a 'remote worker' anyway, having been made one about a year ago, but I still come into the office as it's about 10 mins cycle away. Frankly I've nowhere to work at home - I have a small desk in my room that's uncomfortable to sit at, and my sofa and kitchen table are no better.

been asked to supply emergency contact info at work in case of

lol

"adverse weather closing the office"

politics is the art of what cannot be said etc

The big problem with working from home ime is that it is much harder to put a cap on the day. I’m more likely to agree to 7pm meetings or answer emails at 10pm than I am if I have physically left my place of work.

We have a pretty flexible working culture with a lot of working from home and honestly it's great, but it only works if you're prepared to treat people like grown-ups. TBH I'd retain the same boundaries as you do in the office. I don't especially mind working a bit later if I'm not going to be commuting home, but if you do have a 7pm meeting what's to stop you taking a longer lunch break or similar. As long as you get the work done when you're supposed to, who cares?

International meetings make things harder, but one way psychologically to put a cap on the day is just to make a clean break by immediately doing something that absolutely says to yourself I Am Not At Work Any More. Cooking, opening a beer, playing a video game, whatever. If you just start tapering off it becomes very easy to get dragged back into it.

I'm a freelancer, about 80% of my work is on-site at various places, just had my first conversation this morning about an office shutdown, guessing that most everywhere else will follow, shit is going to get tight.

no wonder u ppl are on ilx all fucking day

Been WFH since 2017. Love it. Possibly starting a 9-5 office job on Monday, though, and not sure how I feel about that (besides “thanks for the money”)...

The lifeblood of ILX the entire internet is bored office workers, moreso without the office.

its a turning point in history

in a bad way

let's run all the megapolls we've been fantasising about

i hope office buildings empty out like suburban malls and are repurposed into affordable housing.

Does anyone do this with kids in the house? Seems kind of impossible without turning child into tv zombie

Looks like this will be me from next week, or even maybe tomorrow. My plan is to move to the conservatory and stock up on educational software / film downloads for them.

I cannot work with kids disturbing me, this is going to be hard.

turn child into book and board game zombie imo

my carrom board is finally gonna get some use, v excited to get good

i hope office buildings empty out like suburban malls and are repurposed into affordable housing.

― Yerac, Thursday, 12 March 2020 12:56 (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

I wish I could find that faux-pamphlet from a few years back about an office building gradually turning into an overgrown post-apocalyptic ecosystem

I've worked from home for almost 19 years. I expect it to all come crashing down around my ears any day now.

i don't maintain much of a social circle outside of work (mostly just my wife, my parents, and my cat) so I do think I benefit from the social aspects of coming into an office every day and interacting with people. i'm lucky in my position that I typically don't HAVE to do much interacting in any given day if I don't feel like it, but if I do then there are always people around who want to shoot the shit.

Does anyone do this with kids in the house? Seems kind of impossible without turning child into tv zombie

i do but there's always another carer around. she (child not carer) occasionally comes up to spin around on my chair but generally respects the sanctity of the office space.

that sanctity in full:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKxqy9SJ-0I

Spare a thought for us poor sods who can't work from home, we're dead.

My first day of working at home. Not without its downsides, but I did watch an episode of Kojak during my lunch hour, and so without coronavirus I would possibly never known about this meeting of the titans

https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/images/reviews/190/1346970079_6.jpg

hoo boy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCm0_ZzpBDE

Hey that was in Infinite Jest

off from work for four days. was tempted to make my out of office message "suck it, bitch"

one of the "exciting" things about working from home is that you can more easily cancel meetings at the last minute.

nothing like taking a wicked grumpy and realizing the conf call you're supposed to lead starts in 58 seconds.

"oops sorry, moving this meeting back a half hour, uhh...there...is...something urgent that came up with...budget"

*click two buttons, done*

I "had a power outage" when I overslept for a meeting one morning. I live across the country from the rest of my coworkers so they have no way to know if I did.

hey donna rouge, just want to say i'm glad you're ft somewhere and sad you're experiencing the wfh blues. weirdly i was wfh for a year before covid happened and that particular position was like you describe - weeks on end without human contact and just feeling like a zombie. it sucks. i know i bitch about work a lot but i do actually like accomplishing things at my job and putting effort in, so i get it. i hope things work out for you and your partner. but know how stressful it must be to be dealing with this for another, what, six months at least? hoping you all manage to get through this without too much more pain and misery.

thanks map <3

I've just been jotting down a timeline of all the things that I've binged on since March, dvds, Prime, Netflix, Youtube, and podcasts. Even though this whole event feels like it started not long ago holy shit it felt like years ago that I watched the entire Miami Vice series!

(sorry thought it was relevant due to none of that binging could have been possible without working from home)

Quarantine made it possible for me to spend four hours this week playing guest speaker to students from high school to graduate level and all I had to do was stay pinned to my seat and remember to keep the camera and the microphone on during class

So that’s kind of cool I guess

That is cool!

What did you guest-speak about, haircare?

oh shit, did El Tomboto used to be Deric W. Haircare? I did not know this

I had to present to a community planning group from home on Tuesday, which was even worse than a normal community planning group presentation because even though it's still 100% old angry white people, old angry white people on Zoom are apparently even less inhibited and even more likely to screech THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!!! at you when you're trying to show them what bike lane designs look like

No, he just has hair

Important: keep penis in pants, keep job

I guest-spoke on being a veteran, a bureaucrat and an experienced interagency authorities-knower

Plus, hair. Having seen its luxuriousness in person I can confirm.

We do a weekly all hands (40 people) zoom meeting. The topic of baking came up and the boss just said "I'm making huge brown loaves now".

hahaha

A month ago, without feeling obligated, I started working from my uni office on the days I teach. With the exception of the program manager down the hall, I've got the office suite to myself; I can close my door and not hear a peep for hours. To shower, dress, drive to campus, park, and walk to my building keeps a most welcome sense of normality.

stay on topic, man

I've barely been at my work computer for 30 minutes and I already feel mentally and emotionally depleted.

have been experiencing massive Zoom inflation lately. everything little thing gets its own meeting. it is cuh-razy making

Small victory today - my team has decided to start every meeting 5 minutes 'late' and end every meeting 5 minutes 'early' so that we get at least 5 minutes break between Zooms

i'm probably too ill to go into the office today, but the laptop's here so i'm working (albeit not very hard)

I am housesitting for my friend and his adorable tiny lil dog is keeping me company. i can dig this.

also first time not having to train anybody in a month.

meanwhile I got asked if I could swap a PTO day in Dec. our fresh hell will last at least through March, one solid year of no lull period, and being two people understaffed. at least the good thing about training is, there's no way to 'get weeded' on it. you only can teach one class at a time.

who in their right mind creates a tool that ONLY WORKS IN INTERNET EXPLORER I mean WHO THE FUCK

In 2020!!

yeah, was just using one. have to open this web-based database in IE only to fill in certain fields that occasionally come up because you have to type in it to make it search for a code and in chrome the fields will not populate. it's so STUPID. also pdfs that have several files inside them will open in IE but not chrome.

yes! and I don't mean in Microsoft Edge because it doesn't work in that, you have to pull up INTERNET EXPLORER

xpost that sounds like a kind of Hell

I agreed to sub for a coworker on my day off this week, thinking, "No big deal, it can't be as hard as normal subbing," and found that going through sub plans over Teams with groups I've never met for a full day was so exhausting I couldn't do anything else for the day and ended up falling behind on my own plans and teaching a crappy class the next day. I guess I'm still not used to how much online meetings take out of me.

my WFH complaint of the day is people should not email "hey do you have a minute for a quick call" and then when i answer yes, instead of calling immediately like the question implies wait a half hour while i ruminate over whether i can go to the bathroom or if they are finally going to decide to call while i am peeing

haha I fucking hate that.

my usual tack

"I tried calling, you weren't available"

"I *had* a minute. it expired."

I never have a minute for a quick call, all calls must be calendar invites

i usually demand to know what it's about. I got ambushed too many times in the past to let people blindly call me.

lawyers love to ambush people. i hate phone calls but i double hate it when opposing counsel wants to schedule a call about [vague topic] because it just means "i'm going to gain the upper hand by not telling you what we're going to talk about." i will then have the upper, upper hand by saying as little as possible on this call.

xpost the entire reason I stopped being a project manager was the micromanagement of meetings. I was good at leading them and only scheduled them when necessary and generally tried to only invite those people that needed to be there.

but people would micro-manage. like I had a director of a project who demanded we adhere to a cap on how many of our own employees we invited to a client meeting (it was something ridiculously small, like 6, one of which would be eaten up by me, another two by the director and the implementation manager). her belief was that this would make for better meetings and that if there were people who I couldn't invite due to the 'cap' that really needed to be briefed on what I discussed, that I could just do that on my own time. So actually holding a one hour meeting, then disseminating the same message to the remainder who got left off. Who sometimes would then ask questions that I couldn't answer and would have been best asked in the meeting. This happened over and over again - and I loudly complained about how stupid it was to set an arbitrary cap, rather than to just ask that we keep meetings to necessary parties rather than indiscriminately inviting the entire world (which I wasn't doing).

She also demanded we not call meetings on Fridays (why - are we not working on Fridays)? So then I'd struggle to schedule them because how we had an entire day unavailable, so everybody's calendars filled up the other four days.

eventually, I decided I was leaving that post and at that point, did whatever the fuck I wanted for my last two months in the job.

xpost I always wondered if lawyers did that. now I have my answer.

they do and this particular attorney really faked me out this time because this definitely could have been an email. you set up a conference line to tell me you are emailing me something. thanks for that.

my WFH complaint of the day is people should not email "hey do you have a minute for a quick call" and then when i answer yes, instead of calling immediately like the question implies wait a half hour while i ruminate over whether i can go to the bathroom or if they are finally going to decide to call while i am peeing

― superdeep borehole (harbl), Wednesday, 18 November 2020 15:55 (five hours ago)

If I get asked that and I do have a minute I dial them immediately. If they don't answer then I no longer have a minute.

i accidentally did this today. said hey can i call u in 10 mins and they’re like sure, and then i get caught up in something, call like an hour later, they decline the call and text immediately saying “i can’t talk”. i’m like, fair enough. c’est la vie. everybody’s just doing the best they can. except the people who aren’t. and cmon don’t we all deserve to just take our foot off the gas a little?? fucks sake

My stock phrase for non-urgent stuff is "at your convenience," meaning "call me when you can," but not promising that I'll wait by the phone or computer or whatever.

instead of calling immediately like the question implies wait a half hour while i ruminate over whether i can go to the bathroom or if they are finally going to decide to call while i am peeing

seriously! this is annoying as fuck! I end up either immediately calling the person (if it's something on my list of things I want to deal with now) or just assuming it's a theoretical minute, that may or may not align with the minute they attempt to actually call me, and if I happen to be making an 'ilarious post to me ilxor chums' at the time the person calls and stare at the phone next to my laptop until it shows "missed call" ... well that is just the nature of the universe.

also, idk if it's a feature of airbuds or whatever those wireless white things people put in their ears to talk on the phone are called -- but i swear, whenever my co-worker is using them when he calls me, it sounds like there is a fancy espresso machine operating in the background and I envision he is drinking very fancy coffee, whereas I am not, but that's okay, but it still reminds me of fancy coffee drinks from cafes near the office.

Maybe he's like one of my former colleagues, who worked at my company out of the coffee shop she owned