work during the pandemic - where are you at, mentally?

Doesn't count if that bit was posted for that very purpose imo.

it were an accident i swear

I was working from home for a couple of years pre pandemic so it wasn’t so much a change of routine. Same blend of productivity and procrastination. The differences have been moving from contract to permanent, which has changed things little and how I interact with other people, which has changed a lot.

The whole company went to home working last year and that has forced people to communicate better. I was previously the only person in my city so I’d miss out on a lot of what was going on in the Sydney and Brisbane offices. Now going on happens on slack. even though we still have offices people aren’t really using them as a place to go and work on a daily basis, they are using them as a place to do specific collaborations with others. We also hired a lot over the last year and neither of our offices are big enough to hold everyone on those cities simultaneously. We’re trying to work out what to do but it almost certainly be a place where everyone has their own desk. Most people are happy to keep working from home most of the week.

The exception has been some of the younger staff who have smaller apartments, roomates etc. They have also suffered the most from the lack of casual interaction, hearing the general buzz of what going on and the opportunities for learning that goes on in an office. I’ve been making sure that I spend more time with them on zoom, bring them into more meetings, drawing attention to stuff on slack etc.

As for me the bit that’s been getting me down is I haven’t seen any of my colleagues in person for a year. Typically we’d meet once a quarter as a team to plan out the next quarter and then individuals more adhoc so I’d probably see someone on average once a month. I really miss this and we’re the poorer for it.

We still have snap lockdowns, sporadic border closures and quarantine orders so travelling interstate is a bit of a minefield. I also have no real desire to visit an airport right now, but as quarantine workers get vaccinated, the outbreaks will hopefully diminish.

I've not done an honest day's work since 2011 but have started smoking again recently. I just have one cigarette every evening but I can feel the creeping nicotine addiction coming back again, it will only be a matter of time when I'm back to 10-20 a day if I don't nip in it in the bud while it is not too difficult. A friend has suggested I should take up vaping but it seems quite ridiculous.

My wife switched to vaping a few years ago and she's never looked back. It hasn't helped her quit, at least not yet, but it's the next best thing.

I'm almost tempted to try it, lol you can never have enough portable electronic devices to mess about with!

i've been working in an office around others for the entire duration of this pandemic and i've been numb to any anxiety or emotions in general for months now, feeling great

We never closed so I’ve been working onsite virtually the entire time & it’s stayed super busy (ito workload I mean, number of ppl around has gone up & down)

I’m used to it at this point, I’m sure workplace safety could be better but I don’t feel horribly unsafe (it was another story in the summer when we had a load of temps milling about). My immediate team has 3 other people in it, we are spread across several large labs tho and we wear masks when we have to work closely (a policy that was adopted very gradually lol). In the break room there might be 10 ppl unmasked (because eating) but spaced out. I get the bus in the morning & there are 2 other ppl onboard, and I walk the 4 miles back which takes me a little over an hour

Mentally idk, absolutely worn down like most ppl - it’s not the job really, which honestly just feels normal, but the fact that there’s nothing else *except* work (and being alone in my flat and sometimes going to the supermarket). I think this exacerbates what’s shit about work in general, being overworked and underpaid and how much of your life it takes up. I get in from work and am just shattered, eat dinner do a bit of reading and crash and then suddenly the alarm is going off again. I’m used to this being the case from harvest time to around March but at least in a normal year I occasionally go to the pub as well lol

So... other? I guess my productivity is about the same tbf

I'm at "working at home - I just am too worn down to care right now and am phoning it in" but that's mainly because I am really sick of my own job, if I liked it more I would be more engaged regardless of whether I'm in the office or not. I've spent most of the past two months applying for new jobs and interviewing, which has been tiresome and draining as well (seven hours of zoom interviews at this last place and they passed on me, almost completely killing my self confidence and esteem; but I have another interview somewhere else tomorrow). Financially the pandemic has been insanely good to us so I'm not complaining about that; spending less money, unemployment funds for my wife have allowed us to have a savings for the first time in a while.

The only thing I like about working from home is it makes it easier to hold down even a part-time job with chronic migraines. On days when I couldn't possibly go in to actual work I can still roll out of bed and power through the length of a class.

This is more or less where I'm at, except I haven't yet started applying to new jobs, for reasons

xp

that level of interview is just insane to me akm, sympathies on that for an ordeal

Yeah, that sounds brutal akm, I'm sorry. Good luck with your interview.

I've got to start applying for jobs very soon as well, because the subject I'm teaching is being phased out at the school I'm at. It was insanely hard last year because they canceled the job fairs, but now at least I have a toehold in the district I want to be in, so I'm hoping it will be slightly easier.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

what if you were at 4) before the pandemic

what if you were at 4) before the pandemic

I'm taking this as a purely hypothetical question. my take would be there's nowhere to go but 'up' or 'out' and both options have the potential to be a positive outcome.

nb: 4) = "I do zero work and it's a matter of time before I'm discovered"

11) trying to ignore the ledge

I took this week off and my gooood it felt good

"working in office/around other people - I do zero work and somehow nobody has noticed," but my impostor syndrome has been telling me this since I was 14.

i have found myself looking forward to weekends / bank holidays more than i used to, even if i do nothing with them.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

11) trying to ignore the ledge

Rude.

It's been hell year and a half working in the bowels of the information technology industry. Other than a few days here and there, I have been still on-site. It's always weird to see people who have not seen the office come in for the first time, they still have that "just out of the bubble" vision that I lost probably second week of April last year.

In general, my feelings on the past year is that the human race is mostly a bunch of a$$holes and I have wished many days for the sun to go supernova and blot this grease spot of a planet out of the heavens. I would rather spend a year detassaling corn in an endless July than re-live my last work year. At least when I had that gig the people I worked for seemed to have some regard that I was a human being and cared that I did not overheat and die in the fields.