Working From Home

What's a stack? ... Where do you see me in 5 years?

lol! oh okay!

xxp That's straight up hardcore. You've changed.

We have a new “work from Hell” mandate

i’m going back in 2-3 days a week starting next week. Every Monday, then the other days kind of ad-hoc. Still very much an experiment. Kind of excited tbh!

i'm wfh into January at least, even then i'll work it to barely be in the office and if i get shit i'll bounce. i reject so many zoom meeting invites, you'd be surprised what you can get away with ; )

we have the option to wfh for 2 days a week. I have opted out cos i live 15 mins down the road and it saves on my bills etc.

I may as well be wfh though, no fucker else seems ever to be in.

(our team is 7, there is always 2 on the late shift which is always wfh anyway)

we were extended to at least nov 22, after that i will go in 1x/week. another two months to not buy any clothes or shoes.

I can count on two hands how many times I have worn my dress slacks since March 2020.

I threw all mine out, nothing fits anymore.

I have been WFH indefinitely because I switched industries in late December 2020, and now I have another side gig that is also WFH...so looks like I won't ever have to wear dress slacks ever again. Hurray!

if you're the host, zoom allows you to mute everyone, so you can totally control the discussion. i very rarely host zoom meetings, but i think you have to tinker with the settings and it may be a paid feature. it has been done in meetings i've attended, for sure

I facilitated a meeting last week -- google meets, not zoom -- it was kinda funny realizing how my previous experience doing live sound for bands helped me as a facilitator, in that whenever there was feedback or weird loud noises, I would immediately look to see whose signal was responsible and mute them.

The logical next step is to be able to put some people through a vocorder, give others some reverse delay, maybe a light flanger.

Only the most astute contributors get the T-Pain filter

there are definitely some attendees that would benefit from plate reverb

my team all went back to the office this Monday. it was intense. so many FACES. so much chatter! i'm used to having a quiet room to myself!

something i've realised is that on Zoom you can study someone's expression, study someone's face, whether they're talking or not talking, and they DON'T KNOW YOU'RE DOING IT. try doing that in the real world and you're a freak!

OTM

sunglasses

*sigh*

I really miss working from home. Two months into full time back at the office and I'm struggling to find the pros. Lots of cons and it's frustrating how my place seemingly learned NOTHING and immediately shifted back into the worst tendencies and habits of the office.

It’s going to be fun to watch people’s reactions when they have to go back in January and realize management took the opportunity to get rid of snacks and beverages.

got rid of the entire office in my case

in fact today people shared on slack the auction listing for all our office furniture

It’s going to be fun to watch people’s reactions when they have to go back in January and realize management took the opportunity to get rid of snacks and beverages.

Yup, no more free coffee. No more snacks.

our office was literally removed so someone could build out a recording studio in the space we sublet from another non-profit. There are only 2 of us that worked there so it wasn't a huge thing.

still in WFH mode, the IT folks that send equipment to new hires are still leaving major pieces out en masse.

we've improved in that we actually make the hires take pics of what they received and send it if they claim to be missing something, just to make sure they're not overlooking something (i.e. not realizing the Micro PC is their actual PC). but 10% of every class still is missing pieces.

how do the people that are packing these not have a checklist to work from. we make the people we hire perform a checklist of tasks they need to do on Day 1. we don't have one for the people actually packing equipment so they include everything?

like missing cords, missing mice, missing monitors lol

I think you’re assuming incorrectly that people are smart

just frustrating because then these folks get unfairly stressed out that they aren't able to do what the other people in class are doing on Day 1 and it's not really their fault. and some wind up getting moved to a later class if all their equipment isn't there day 2, meaning they lose out on a few weeks of pay they were expecting.

getting to the point where I just want to throw my laptop out a window and just quit, poverty be damned.

every day i am dealing with

1) tech issues which bring my classes to a standstill
2) my mother yelling at my dad and carrying on to which I have to mute my phone and yell "I AM TEACHING A CLASS, DO YOU WANT ME TO GET FIRED?"
3) learners who don't want to be here
4) me who often doesn't want to be here

tempted to start checking open opportunities again. but as my entire 17 years here has been in customer care, the only department I could think to go to is the one I came from, which was so toxic that I basically had a mental breakdown in 2015 that I have never recovered from.

thank christ my department is full of great understanding people because my patience is at an end.

there was one day where I told my boss "I'm in a mental health crisis and I can't work today" and just peaced out. was refreshing to not have that questioned at fucking all. if i'd have tried that in my old dept....lord.

I was wearing my bathrobe and playing magic the gathering: arena on my phone this morning in a meeting. the vendor we are working with prefers cameras off meetings so we all follow suit. might have to go back into the office at some stage but no end in sight thus far

man. the life.

I've heard of some companies where "No Face Fridays" is considered, like, a perk. Literally, giving people the option to leave their cameras off one day a week.

in. when can i start?

I am wearing a kimono and briefs and nothing else. Just got finished doing a 32-page word-for-word where I made 109 comments, tho, so the comfort is necessary to fend off insanity.

My WFH client for 20 years, publisher of a livestock industry magazine, sold the mag last month. The new owner wants me to stay on but I am tired of the same old shit going into its third decade. I do think the new owner and I have a common goal in one respect -- he wants to stop paying me the retainer I get on top of my hourly design rate, and I want to stop doing the mind-numbing shit I do for the retainer (ad sales, billing, email blasts).

I am wearing a kimono and briefs and nothing else. Just got finished doing a 32-page word-for-word where I made 109 comments, tho, so the comfort is necessary to fend off insanity.

― I'm a sovereign jazz citizen (the table is the table), Tuesday, October 5, 2021 12:57 PM (one hour ago)

this is the life, I tell ya. for me, it's a t-shirt and leggings cut-off to be bike short length and financial documents as opposed to writing ... but so many red pencil "?"s ... no fucking way am I wearing a bra for this.

Have an exercise bike to set up on monday after which I'll be working from home gym tbh

Going to do that myself for later this winter tbh, been avoiding it because it's still nice enough to ride outside at the moment.

Have been working from the cottage for two crisp northern Ontario fall weeks. It’s lovely. A comforting place to be at when you hear the news that two key members of your team are resigning 3/4 through a huge project. Blah! But still better when braless!

goddamnit, i spaced a meeting. i went for a run and forgot the meeting was on my calendar. i apologized via group chat and told them all i i got distracted editing a video. not a good lie because my notifications still would have let me know. now i'm worried on top of being unmotivated :(.

"i turned my notifications off because they were distracting. i guess that was a bad idea."

thx

though the calendar notifications are like hard to turn off? i guess i just say i turned those off too if pressed.

anyway, thank you!

I've spaced on so many meetings even w/ notifications on. like gone to lunch with my mother and forgot I had a meeting scheduled.

hopefully they're understanding. it happens even when you're paying close attention.

yesterday I had a class completely fall apart and nobody was paying attention and everybody was asking stuff I'd already covered and I didn't know answers to some things as this is new tech and I've never used itin the wild and I felt like such a fucking useless sack of shit, my boss's boss kept stepping in, and she calls me after and I'm convinced she's gonna ream me out

and instead shes just reaching out to tell me not to worry, these things happen, and much of it wasn't my fault.

it was refreshing and it helped me rebound for today.

just a little word can make such a huge difference.

yup. she also vents to me too which makes me feel like an equal.

helps that her mother also is having health issues so she gets that I'm not at 100% due to my dad.

was excited that due to working OT, I was going to get out at 4 pm ET today.

I am still working. because they have entrusted this new training project to me and one other person on top of my other duties, and sometimes there are two sessions a day that last all but my lunch time, so I either work OT or defer to next day.

starting to think I should take ILX's advice. I have about 15 days of PTO coming up (seniority has its perks) and maybe I will use those to start shopping myself around.

if you know any place I can make six figures writing metal reviews let me know. lol.

like can I start by complaining about an antiquated sign-up sheet in Excel for a training class, one where we establish no "cutoff" time after which no new sign-ups will be accepted, one that doesn't have a macroed notification button to send us emails when new people sign up.

so I have to check the roster several times per day to see if it changed, while I'm teaching 8 hours simultaneously, or people will whine at me that they 'didn't get their invites'. at least if I got some kind of notification I'd know to look. people get added right up until the 11th hour, too. sometimes after we've all left for the day.