Working From Home

My coworker has birds and when that feature rolled out he was the first one I notified.

I once insulted a client contact (who was a legit sociopath who once complained when one of our Florida-based colleagues left a meeting early to PREPARE FOR HURRICANE IRMA which was on our doorstep) and some idiot forwarded the email to her (not on purpose, he just didn't read).

Client contact never saw it cos she couldn't be bothered to read that far into a thread

I have a USB mic that I use with my desktop, and it has a little mute/unmute switch on it, and a red light that helpfully lights up when its unmuted. But it turns out even when muted its not really muted, it just turns the volume down to a low but still audible level. It took me a little while to discover this. Fortunately I never really said anything too embarrassing but I once yawned loudly when one of the senior managers was talking in a meeting, and he paused and was like "Did someone say something?"

Welp after 19 months I accidentally shared in a public (MS Teams) meeting my Spotify instead of the document I wanted to share.

I was complimented on my taste by one attendee.

anyone else get paranoid about playing other audio during a meeting - like somehow everyone's going to hear your youtube video?? lol, i can't get over it. probably for the best.

― Nedlene Grendel as Basenji Holmo (map), Monday, November 22, 2021 12:31 PM bookmarkflaglink

Ha, all the time. I'm not sure I see it as paranoia though. The way Windows is these days the oddest things can happen, and sods law and all, just best to be safe I think.

right, it's like trying to accelerate too fast in a shitty car, you just don't need the extra trouble.

Today I taught a class while:

Cleaners were in the house making a fuck ton of noise

Mom got like 700 phone calls which were loud

Repairman came in to fix dryer LOUDLY

All without missing a beat.

And the head of customer care was attending too.

Headsets really dampen the outside sound well

I have two weeks off forthcoming thank god

it has a little mute/unmute switch on it, and a red light that helpfully lights up when its unmuted. But it turns out even when muted its not really muted, it just turns the volume down to a low but still audible level

i'm WFH full time now. i've spent the last 20 years of my life either studying or working on a university campus. i still work for a university but it is across the country and most of my immediate colleagues also WFH full time. this is the first time that my work is not really tied to a physical campus and it feels super super weird.

yeah wfh is one thing but if the physical office is in another state that’s pretty wild.

one of our team leads was presenting during a meeting and started having issues with Teams, he froze up for a while and then you could hear him go "fuck...aww, fuck...damnit"...then he came back and apologized, seeming not quite sure if anyone actually heard him say that. obviously no one was gonna tell him. it was awesome

does anyone use webex often? i would like to know why when i share my screen i do not see the screen in front of me in the webex window. is there a setting for this? i would like to be able to see the progress of the video i am playing without looking to the other monitor where the shared window is.

Oh, I've been WFH for companies in another city for most of 2021— I've never met any of these people in real life, have no idea what the office looks like, and tbh, don't care!

I have made a rep for myself in the slack, tho, for being an enormous music nerd.

yeah wfh is one thing but if the physical office is in another state that’s pretty wild.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, November 23, 2021 1:04 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I heard a lot of stories that as employers opened up this Spring they found that their employees had moved to other states/countries. This was causing myriad of issues, not the least of which is tax issues, because one of the main ways a state gets to tax a company is if the company has employees working in that state. So you might have a private school or university with all locations in a single state suddenly realizing they have employees on the other side of the country and uh oh, CA wants some.

yes. in europe a lot of people had the idea that, hey, why not live in a cheap rental in, say, andalucia, keep making that london wage, and rent out your flat for an exorbitant fee? some people did that. nice life. my company won’t let us though because the tax situation is muy complicado

Imagine telling yr employer that youd done that, literal idiot tax

lots of people moved to different states in my company, as most of us work from home. we have locations all over north america and i've been encouraged to move to the US. my VPN goes through various US states so it's weird getting geolocated in different states depending on my connection

i'm actually seriously considering seattle but that means i would technically be forced to participate in mandatory (a few times a year) meetings in california

coincidentally, i've just got a company-wide email from HR saying there's a pilot scheme to allow us to work from another country for up to 10 working days WITHOUT SHAME

fuck off, the shame is the best part

Our work forbids us from working from another country for data security and tax reasons, alas (?)

I'm freelancing for a US video production co. that's just begun to set up their EU base (i.e. myself and a handful of other folks). Have to say I love it so far. Working strictly from home until early next year and then I'll most probably be bouncing around different EU locations as work demands. I never want to do an office job (again) for as long as I live.
Majorly sucks that, yes, I have to pay taxes in my country of residence *and* US taxes as well. I don't see why the US should get a cut. Criminal, I tell ya!

do would they even check or know, vpn, etc

I was teaching a Teams class online last week and accidentally clicked on Rocket League, which my laptop can barely handle with no other applications running. Took a full five minutes before my computer calmed down enough for me to close it and resume teaching. I wonder how much of my quiet cursing my students heard

I was asked to place my phone on mute after everyone heard me rustling around in a bag of pretzels. That's not embarrassing. Sometimes you just forget.

But it was then I realized that the week before I had taken my phone into the bathroom with me for a piss and a toilet flush and I'm 99.9% sure I didn't have my phone on mute then either.

somebody give me an ILX meme-y phrase (that is still work appropriate) to insert into a sentence in the last hour of my training.

most of the ones I know aren't work safe.

is it too late?

'and then they all lezzed up?'

That's a repurposed Lee and Herring gag iirc

There are only actually three truly original ILX memes

Why is ___ so bad and hated

So not gonna happen

Bear say hi to me

Actually there are more than three

Lonely guy thinkin baout things

Orlando bloomps for presidetn

How is babby formed

Jol out

why because ___ look intersting

Most of those are just quite bad threads rather than bonafide memes imo

Jol out is...bigger than any of this

"challops" maybe prefigured the hot take tbf

I can't turn my face into a heart

Not sure why I apparently felt so strongly about this in the grip of a DIPA fugue. I am not the boss of memes

Oh, _____-paws.

How is babby formed

Yahoo answers, not ilx.

why does kanye say hen fap in gold digger?

No ______, no credibility

So and so shocker!

sonned in a beef

resumed this today. it's good to be back.

Majorly sucks that, yes, I have to pay taxes in my country of residence *and* US taxes as well. I don't see why the US should get a cut. Criminal, I tell ya!

― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, November 24, 2021 5:28 AM (four weeks ago)

you can probably get the US taxes refunded (at least in part) but you will need to file a US tax return. Did they make you get a US tax ID number?

because one of the main ways a state gets to tax a company is if the company has employees working in that state. So you might have a private school or university with all locations in a single state suddenly realizing they have employees on the other side of the country and uh oh, CA wants some.

as well they should tbh. The school or university (unless it's one of those for-profits) isn't going to be paying income tax, as most educational institutions are tax-exempt. They will have to pay payroll taxes ... like, say, unemployment, so that if the worker gets laid off, the employer is actually contributing to the benefits pool because they are the ones profiting from the worker's labor?

I wasn't opining on the wisdom of the tax rule, just that the employer could be subject to a liability they didn't even realize because the employee had moved and not told the employer while remote work was in effect.

I am really glad that I've been WFH, and also that I will probably be doing so for the foreseeable future, but for fuck's sake, I WANT TO GO ON BREAK NOW. Why oh why are all of us still working on the 23rd? These deadlines are arbitrary!

that sucks. i took yesterday and today off because i'm sick. but it's just a mild cold really, an excuse to use some sick hours. it feels weird to "take off work" when i would just be staring at a screen in my living room anyway.

The story is that one of the brands we've been working on was FDA-approved at 3pm last Friday, so now a bunch of people have to work through the holidays. I'm not one of them because I'm a freelancer, but I resent being kept at my computer right now. I want to go to the gym, walk my dogs, make a nice dinner for once.