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Post by Seven on Jul 30, 2020 15:22:21 GMT -6
I've been working from home since mid-March and my company just announced today that we will be working from home for at least the rest of the year. Prior to CV-19, I used to work from home 1 day per week so i was equipped to do so. In fact, the company has been actively pushing a WFH initiative for a while and that's not cheap when you have 1000+ employees. I've really grown to appreciate the flexibility it affords and I save at least 1.5 hours a day commuting.
I have some mixed feelings about this since my department is a pretty close group of people and my immediate circle and I ate lunch together daily, including $0.35 wings every Monday. I miss the social aspect but love my new found time.
Anyone else also working from home for the immediate future?
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Post by shaggaroo on Jul 30, 2020 15:28:18 GMT -6
As a university professor, I worked from home and transitioned everything to online also from about mid-March. Our admin gave us a choice as to whether or not we wanted to teach face to face in the Fall, or all online. Being a 60-year old male, the choice was easy. My general chemistry course of 96 students will be all online for the Fall semester. I do have lab one day a week that my wife is not happy about having me go in for. I just don't see all of the walking germ factories doing what's required of them to keep us all safe.  |
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Post by Ken on Jul 30, 2020 18:32:29 GMT -6
Been WFHing for 30+ years. I am ruined. I was self-employed all those years and one of my customers just "bought" me so I am now an employee for the first time since I was 24 years old! But I still get to WFH and I like it. I can take care of some laundry, cut the grass, prepare dinner, even brew a batch of beer! Love it.
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Post by jimdkc on Jul 30, 2020 22:34:30 GMT -6
I was working from home for several years, Initially 2 days a week, then later 3 days a week. Then last year, for no apparent reason, they suddenly said, "No more WFH!"
But, since mid-March, I've been working from home every day. I love it. I actually put in more hours because I start earlier and work later. I actually get a lot more work done. I'd be OK with never going back in! I'm not a "people person", so I don't miss the "gang at the office". At all!
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deerslyr
Full Member
Cheesehead
Posts: 158
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Post by deerslyr on Aug 3, 2020 7:01:07 GMT -6
I have been WFH for 7 years now. Initially I was working remotely for a law firm in San Francisco. I live in Madison, WI. Easy enough to do. Boss gives me the contracts to work on and sets me loose. Had a few national retail clients that occupied most of my time. In February, I went back "in-house" to work for an international retailer. They offered it to me as a remote position. Rest of the small department would be located in San Fran. Just 3 weeks into my boss getting used to manage one person remotely, the entire office of 2,000 employees was remote! Fortunately, she only had to figure out 2 more employees... but we also knew we were having a new one start in May/June.
The social aspect... yes, if you are used to the interaction with people, it takes a bit of getting used to. Not gonna lie, I'd say it took me 9 to 12 months to really become comfortable not having the immediate access to co-workers that I used to enjoy, but when I was at the firm, it was a bit different anyways. I was always an outsider. Now, we've figured out our groove. We use Zoom frequently so we can have face to face conversations on a moments notice... it integrates with MS Teams, so super easy to start a call. (I prefer Zoom video conferencing to Teams for certain reasons.) We are doing good, and for it being a new department (no one has been there longer than 2 years) we have already developed a strong level of trust.
Again... I know that doesn't replace the daily interaction, but I think this is going to be the way of office work for a long time afterwards. Companies are going to figure out that employees are happier (for a lot of the reasons you mentioned) and that they can reduce their office footprint, saving costs.
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Post by bklmt2000 on Aug 3, 2020 7:23:53 GMT -6
Been working from home/remotely for over 8 years; would be very hard-pressed to ever going back to working out of the house, in an office.
All of my coworkers WFH like me, and they're scattered all over the country, so interacting with them only by phone/email is normal for me.
For me, it's all pro and no con; I can start work as early as I want, and get lots of things done during the day that I could never do if stuck in an office. Nevermind all of the money saved on lunches out, gas for the car, clothes for work, etc.
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Post by Ken on Aug 3, 2020 7:38:46 GMT -6
Been working from home/remotely for over 8 years; would be very hard-pressed to ever going back to working out of the house, in an office. All of my coworkers WFH like me, and they're scattered all over the country, so interacting with them only by phone/email is normal for me. For me, it's all pro and no con; I can start work as early as I want, and get lots of things done during the day that I could never do if stuck in an office. Nevermind all of the money saved on lunches out, gas for the car, clothes for work, etc. Very much the same for me. Just the concept of the amount of time getting showered & dressed and driving into work each day. I haven't had that kind of routine since I was on my 20s and I used to hate it. That is an unbelievable amount of wasted time especially if you had a long ride in traffic, etc. I feel like you can be so much more productive when you WFH as long as your job is conducive to it. Also, even during the past 30 years when I would visit a customer locally... there would be all kinds of "Hey, Ken is here today!" and lots of small talk, people asking me questions about whatever IT things are going on at home (Ken, my son is 17 and really needs a good laptop, can you suggest something for him that won't cost me too much?) and all of that. I could see some supervisors thinking that their employees could be screwing around at home. But you still have to get your work done. Also, my schedule doesn't fit the people I work with and work for. I worked until midnight on Friday and worked a little more on Saturday. Today I slept until 8am! No worries!  |
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Post by bklmt2000 on Aug 3, 2020 7:51:28 GMT -6
Workday brewdays might be one of the coolest benefits to being a WFH homebrewer.
As long as I get my work done, correctly and on time, no one else is the wiser.
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Post by Ken on Aug 3, 2020 8:10:56 GMT -6
Workday brewdays might be one of the coolest benefits to being a WFH homebrewer. As long as I get my work done, correctly and on time, no one else is the wiser. Agreed. It's a nice benefit. But I should mention this: My new employer (one of my customers 'bought me' and I started working with them effective June 15) sent me a "VPN appliance" which gives me a direct connection to their server and there is also a VOIP phone connected to it so they can just punch in my extension and get me. That means that if someone hits my extension they will be able to hear whatever is going on at my house, which is a little strange. They might hear my grain mill going. |
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