Working From Home

Hey man Santa always needs the last minute temp help.

sarah a work phone might help mitigate some of that

I have not taken more than 3 days in a row off work since 2015. I don't want to get bitchy with clients I generally like, but ...

Clients aren't necessarily over-pushy but don't understand the expected etiquette. Mitigation would be an email autoreply that sets out what your vacation game rules are (do you want to leave them an opportunity for them to contact you in an emergency only?), and maybe a work phone message that does the same.

In this case, it probably just needs an email that says 'Absolutely fine. Let's fix an appointment when I'm back from vacation which is ...Look forward to discussing it then'. 45 seconds work - plus set a reminder in your diary for when you get back.

these are all very helpful suggestions! <3

Yeah, I basically told the agency I work through that I was "off the boards" until January 18th, but that they could call me to see about jobs that begin after that date.

because everybody is virtual these days and we're having a big issue with people who are completely technically incompetent (when this job requires the ability to use computers pretty well), I suggested to my boss today to start sending recruiters to Twitch to find new talent.

then found out apparently other companies are already doing this. wonder why we weren't!?

Question: I am starting a new WFH gig imminently, and when I say "imminently" it's because I have to wait for the company to send me a laptop, which is the only way I'll be able to access the software I need to use to do the work, and even to access the corporate email account they've created for me. They're so tight about security they don't even have a webmail portal I can use. So...anyone else had experience with this in the past? Will they want the laptop back at the end of the contract? Just wondering what I can expect with this. Normally I just use my own computer to do whatever for whoever, so this is a surprising new twist.

They will want it back.

Yeah, they’ll want it back. The drive is probably encrypted, will probably have a VPN client on it, and the laptop probably has to meet certain criteria to maintain access (stuff like requiring a password to unlock the screen)

yup. some companies are doing more cloud-based e-mail but even then they’d want some two-factor authentication to get into it that you might not be able to set up without a trusted device

sounds like most legacy corps

Not sure if you would also have gleaned this but youd be able to do little or nothing beyond whatever work apps were preinstalled also as a rule

Not sure if you would also have gleaned this but youd be able to do little or nothing beyond whatever work apps were preinstalled also as a rule

Yeah, that part I'm good with — this is very much a part-time gig, only 10-20 hours a week, so if I'm doing just their work on this one laptop and running the rest of my life on my main computer, that actually makes me happier; whatever kind of creepy keystroke monitor they install won't have much to chew on...

does anybody know what the industry average % of computer monitors that are shipped cracked by computer companies/big box stores?

I did a back of the napkin calculation a few months ago using data from 3 or 4 classes that determined that about 10% of the monitors our IT department sends out are damaged on arrival. that seems high, no?

they keep insisting they are shipping them in the box they arrived it when we purchased them, and making the excuse that "well these packages are touched by us, then the shipper, etc", but I responded "yeah, the same is true for literally every company that ships computers - do they damage 10% of our monitors"?

and I know for a fact they weren't shipping 'brand new' equipment a little while ago, taht they were packing it themselves. and I'm pretty sure they were doing it wrong.

anybody else have a company that ships computers to WFH employees and almost all of them wind up damaged?

*their monitors

I sent a message to my friend who previously worked in corporate hardware acquisition, we'll see what he says

I asked if they saw any number of cracked monitors

"No, never. Prob mishandling them every step of the way"

Yeah my spouse, who has managed hardware for multiple orgs, says this is def not the norm

Both of the large displays I've ordered online in the last few years were cracked/damaged when I received them. The replacements weren't. I don't understand how this level of loss is acceptable. I'd live with a slightly thicker/heavier display if they weren't so fragile. My OLED TV is ridiculous. Most of it is like 2mm thick!

Def gonna tell my bosses TWO EXPERTS I KNOW SAY THIS IS BULLSHIT.

I won't tell them I got it from ILX

I asked spouse what he would do with this level of equipment arriving damaged and he said there would be a new shipping vendor in place by the end of the week, period.

10% is just not sustainable

Especially given the razor-thing margins for displays.

razor-thing!

Admittedly that was a back of napkin calc but based on yesterday seems to be valid

I am broaching how to drop this 'outside feedback' into conversation with the right people. I did share with a co-worker today, who laughed and said "yeah I didn't think that was normal".

BTW, in addition to the monitor problem, we usually have 1-3 people every class who are missing equipment from their shipment. Like clockwork - a charger is missing, keyboard missing, mouse missing - sometimes things that will still allow them to carry on, sometimes not (i.e. charger).

Been happening for two years without improvement. Every time we're told "guys, they are given a very short window of time to pack these packages before class starts, mistakes will happen", and then we're told they have a checklist that gets vetted twice by two different people for each package. and yet....still....this happens and we just have to accept it as a 'necessity'.

I mean - to be clear, it doesn't impact me, my job performance, or my performance review, but it is a really shitty experience for the people who are on the receiving end of it, which is why it bugs me so. I feel like maybe we're trying to sabotage working from home so we can resume hiring only office bound people again when pandemic recedes.

I kind of wonder if the turnover is high enough that outgoing employees are shipping the hardware back, an overtasked group on-site that's not used to dealing with shipping is barely glancing at the hardware other than to possibly reinstall the standard software, and then they just slap new labels on stuff and ship it over to the new hires

that makes sense, turnover is huge right now. also there is next to no governance on equipment loaned/shipped out. I think they have difficulty recovering equipment from people who quit, and if you are issued equipment, they don't keep record of what you have.

I remember being given a monitor once to attach to my laptop when the LED screen was cracked, and I absent-mindedly left it in a meeting room after I no longer needed it, never returned it, and they never asked about it. it's as if it didn't exist.

these folks who get broken equipment or no equipment miss 1-3 days of class, and then leaders ask us if we can 'catch them up' rather than move them to another class where they can start fresh. these learners get frustrated and quit, and we get grilled about attrition.

nothing happens cos LOL our leaders are toothless and after 17 years I do not care about their whining. but I do feel bad about people that come here excited about a new job and we fail them from day 1. and are told "it is what it is" when we ask about, idk, getting competent at shipping equipment.

so today, I was supposed to lead a 90 minute demo, then have the rest of my day to observe a few classes and do admin stuff, so I told mom "no problem, go to your doc's appointment, I'll watch dad".

Of course one facilitator has explosive diarrhea (not what he said, but he gave context clues that suggested that), so my partner took over his class as I was doing my demo, but they said she had half a voice, so asked if I could take over in afternoon if they couldn't find someone else. I said sure, figuring I'd creatively give learners things to read periodically so I could check on dad in the other room.

then, most of Puerto Rico lost power, which is where a lot of our facilitators/learners are located. two facilitators lost power, one of whom asked if I could take HIS class, whereas someone else had to take over for the other's class. I said "look, I can, but I have to feed my father lunch, and I haven't done that yet because I'd been waiting for a final confirmation if you needed me for the afternoon class. if someone else can get it started, I will join after I feed dad."

I feed dad and myself in record time, come back to find 5 people have sent me PMs in the 15 minutes I was away, all wanting my attention.

this is the one thing I hate about working at home, is a power outage doesn't always knock out our offices, but they knock out agents/trainers at home all of the time, and then because we're horribly understaffed, it's a mad dash to mitigate.

I still prefer it to working in an office, but just this one piece. obviously the diarrhea had nothing to do with working from home.

So you say.

hey one of my big fears is seeing a trainee on the shitter and not knowing how to tell them that I see them on teh shitter.

and fearing that...they know that I know...and this was on purpose.

What if you were also on the shitter, would you reveal, just to save their embarrassment

We are all in the shitter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Working from home

lol @ Tim

There are mechanisms for directly messaging specific people and not bringing it to wider attention, just sayin

to be clear nothing even approximating this has ever happened and if it did I would probably need a wellness day due to throwing my back out laughing, so I'm not exactly worried about it!

worst thign that happened in the last week was someone on their second day of employment accidentally saying "you need to shut your ass up" while one of our executives was presenting. he (exec) just made a casual comment of 'make sure we're muted' fortunately.

My gf had a company-wide call yesterday, an 8am start for the LA office, and one guy didn't mute his mic, dozed off and snored loudly into his headset for several mins.

I have been sent my first company laptop for WFH, and I have to say that this is really going to cramp my ability to fuck around while working. I'd have to essentially change my whole work setup/configuration in order to fit both my personal and work laptops on the same surface— maybe even get a different desk. Kind of pissed about it, tbh.

Yeah, I just switch laptops for ~3 hours in the afternoon, then put the work laptop away and go back to my usual mix of working on other stuff and fucking around.

Yeah, I am thinking I might have to just get another contraption to create a second standing desk next to my current standing desk.

Also, truly don't understand how people work on Microsoft machines, total nightmare afaic.

Boy do I miss working from home. I miss being able to have that 5-10 minutes between meetings or tasks to accomplish something small around the house - starting a load of laundry, picking up some mess, sorting something, etc. Switching back to cramming that all into the few free hours I have at home each night kinda sucks.

Also, truly don't understand how people work on Microsoft machines, total nightmare afaic.

This has stunned me. They sent me an $800 Dell Latitude, and it feels like something from Bizarro world, or a model laptop made for kids. The keys are made out of some horrible cheap plastic, the whole thing weighs about twice as much as it needs to, everything takes like a full minute from the time you hit the button to the time the machine actually responds (with plenty of wheel-spinning in between)...it's horrifying. It reminds me of texting on a flip phone. How is this acceptable in 2022?

Boy do I miss working from home. I miss being able to have that 5-10 minutes between meetings or tasks to accomplish something small around the house - starting a load of laundry, picking up some mess, sorting something, etc. Switching back to cramming that all into the few free hours I have at home each night kinda sucks.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, February 23, 2022 1:15 PM bookmarkflaglink

yeah, all that stuff is a huge help. also breaks the day up a bit so you can get more done.

i am glad I'm virtual cos I can do caretaker stuff like escorting dad to his chair even if I'm teaching a class without anybody knowing or missing a beat. I just have them read on their own for 2-3 minutes rather lecturing the material to them, or line up the caretaking with a pre-planned activity.

if i wasn't virtual, I'd have had to quit.

(weirdly, the position wasn't a virtual position when I got it, and I started buying new work shirts thinking I'd be officebound, and then they told me a week prior that since I was already virtual before role-switching, that they'd let me stay that way. the others hired in the role weren't allowed to, so they kind of resented that at first, but now all of them are thanks to the pandemic and I doubt they'll ever be office bound again).

This is an interesting article on the repercussions of the "WFH" revolution:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/work-from-home-revolution/622880/

I agree with the basic premise that office jobs are not going back to the old 5-days in-person routine any time in the foreseeable future. One of the big questions is how this will spillover to people who have jobs where WFH is not an option. "There is real resentment among workers who don’t have this cushy work-from-home deal but all their white-collar friends do." He anticipates this will lead to demands for shorter work weeks for those mandatory in-person jobs. Also the office midtown economies and public transportation systems of major cities will have to go through a major readjustment, as the numbers will not be there to support them at their current levels.

Yet another article about work that doesn't include a single quote from an actual worker. Politicians, CEOs, fucking consultants, but no one who actually has a real job in a real office.

There was survey data of presumably real office workers. Not sure what a quote from an actual office worker would have added, tbh.

Not sure what a quote from an actual office worker would have added, tbh.

The sense that this article wasn't just a bunch of rich fucks and McKinsey types rimming each other?

Thanks for your input.