Working from home again

[rajncajn]

Starting next week we're going back on a max telework schedule again for the rest of January. Since I'm waterfront support I'll still be coming into the office two days a week for now, but it's possible they shut that down as well and even so, there'll be very few people in the office with me if any at all. I'm both looking forward to it and dreading it. It's really nice being able to roll outta bed in my PJs, crank up the PC, pour a cup of coffee and get to work. It's also nice not having constant distractions all throughout the day that make it difficult to get things done and stay on task. It's also very beneficial timewise with no commute and great for fuel savings since my 5.4L has a severe drinking problem. However, what I don't like is not being physically connected with what is going on in the shipyard and I always felt left out of the loop while I was working it before. I also don't think it's really beneficial to my health basically being a hermit with a regular paycheck.

 

Anybody else still working from home? What's your experience with it, likes & dislikes.

[League_Champion]

34 minutes ago, rajncajn said:

 

Anybody else still working from home? What's your experience with it, likes & dislikes

 

Unless I'm traveling I'm working from home which I find very difficult. I have a detached office which helps but the distractions are always there. 

[stevegrab]

I have been working from home for almost 2 years now (since March 2020 when things were closing down). We moved to a permanent work from home setup, just 2 people in the office (IT team) all day, with a couple other (admins) going in to check on mail etc. 

 

There are definite benefits, no time spent commuting = more sleep. No costs for that commute, including 150 miles less a week on my car. (Dead battery last year, common for many I heard.)  Sometimes for lunch I can cook or prepare something I would not usually do at work, or prepare the night before. 

 

But also lots of negatives, for me the biggest part is the pure absence of people, and the collaboration (sometimes just in passing, or over hearing some discussion). Since I have been there 30+ years, and quite a few others with 20-25 years at the company, they were more than co-workers, but friends. I was kind of used to remote collaboration, since we had one member of our team working remotely for many years now. But now we do that with everybody, for all projects. Less distractions from co-workers and such is good, but there are other distractions here and nobody around to watch what you do. While I save on the commute costs, there are additional expense since I am at home, including heat/AC (set to run less while at work), coffee, etc.

I don't just roll out of bed and turn the PC on, sit in my clothes I slept in. I get up shower and pretty much as I would for work (casual with jeans, shorts in summer which I would rarely do at the office). I realized something the other day, I'm not sure I could go back to working in an office. As I've gotten used to some of the benefits. (If say I had to look for a new job, it would need to be remote.)

 

Overall I think its a bad thing for society in general, I already knew people that basically live in a bubble sitting in front of a machine all day, and now they do more of it, and have less human interaction. I know it has impacted me in negative ways. 

[League_Champion]

3 minutes ago, stevegrab said:

live in a bubble sitting in front of a machine all day, and now they do more of it, and have less human interaction. I know it has impacted me in negative ways. 

 

That explains a lot. I'm sorry that I was mean. 

[Big Country]

I haven't been to my actual office in almost two years, in fact the only reason I've been in was to have my computer replaced. Prior I was about 70% from home with my boss basically saying only come in if you have a physical meeting to be at. Since my AOR covers our entire service area, most of my meetings were conference calls anyway.

 

We've had a massive spike in cases of Covid in employees in the last couple months (I work in safety so see the data first hand), vast majority not contracted at work, so the date when they are going to start rolling our return to the office keeps getting pushed. I work for a utility, so we have had people in offices, in the field, etc. throughout, with the vast majority of office workers at home. At this point it looks like teams that were already fairly spread out will be more of a hybrid approach (maybe 1-2 days in the office, or teams like ours more likely no actual office, but 1-2 in person meeting per month) with a phased return coming.

 

My wife is now permanent work from home as well, so we've made it work.

[stevegrab]

As I understood it relating to my company, the cost savings of work from home combined with recent new ownership makes the bottom line the deciding factor. Combine that with reduced risk of illness, many younger employees who already wanted WFH setup.  We are a software company, about half the employees in support (phone, email etc) of customers, and the other half split between developers and other jobs. Most of that work can be done remotely. Well when our phone system (Mitel) is working that is....

 

Funny thing was the week we went home, the 2nd in command (now the big boss) said "I don't know how I'm going to get people to come back to the office after this". Then some period with surveys about "did you want to return to the office, why, what would you need etc." But once they could move out, save some $$$ and pretty much still get things done it was no going back. I feel bad for the few people still stuck going to the office. 

[Trojanmojo]

4 hours ago, rajncajn said:

Starting next week we're going back on a max telework schedule again for the rest of January. Since I'm waterfront support I'll still be coming into the office two days a week for now, but it's possible they shut that down as well and even so, there'll be very few people in the office with me if any at all. I'm both looking forward to it and dreading it. It's really nice being able to roll outta bed in my PJs, crank up the PC, pour a cup of coffee and get to work. It's also nice not having constant distractions all throughout the day that make it difficult to get things done and stay on task. It's also very beneficial timewise with no commute and great for fuel savings since my 5.4L has a severe drinking problem. However, what I don't like is not being physically connected with what is going on in the shipyard and I always felt left out of the loop while I was working it before. I also don't think it's really beneficial to my health basically being a hermit with a regular paycheck.

 

Anybody else still working from home? What's your experience with it, likes & dislikes.

i love working from home but it takes a lot of work to keep up my mental health. Gotta make sure to take walks and get out as much as you can. I feel like I’m on a submarine sometimes and find myself going days without leaving the house. Not good. But I sure don’t miss the 50-60 hours a month I used to spend in my car going back and forth to work. Plus, I get to actually see my family which has been nice 😉.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Trojanmojo

[stevegrab]

1 hour ago, Trojanmojo said:

i love working from home but it takes a lot of work to keep up my mental health. Gotta make sure to take walks and get out as much as you can. I feel like I’m on a submarine sometimes and find myself going days without leaving the house. Not good. But I sure don’t miss the 50-60 hours a month I used to spend in my car going back and forth to work. Plus, I get to actually see my family which has been nice 😉.

 

I agree with this, but its easier to do for you and rajn and others who don't live in a cold climate. Last year I went for frequent lunch time walks, hikes after work and on weekends. Today I won't even leave the house with temps barely reaching 20. If I feel better (battling a cold since after Christmas) this weekend I'll try to get out to the park for a hike. Some sunshine would be nice, don't mind the cold or snow too much, but the dreary cloudy days of winter really suck. 

 

SoCal commutes suck, I had a brother who refused to take a job that required more than a 10-15 minute drive after some years of commuting longer. My commute was 30min tops, and thru mostly park like setting with light traffic, not bad compared to some co-workers who would sit in traffic on the highways nearly every day to go the same distance. 

 

PS  GO RAMS!

[rajncajn]

48 minutes ago, stevegrab said:

I agree with this, but its easier to do for you and rajn and others who don't live in a cold climate.

You've never experienced a summer here or deer fly season.

[chester]

I work in a call center and have been at home for 2 years and am now permanently

 

I was just talking to a colleague yesterday about this. I've been doing it for 9 years and have great relationships with people in different departments. I used to walk down the hall and shoot the sh** with everybody, so now when I have a problem, I have friends to contact. New employees do not have that option. 

[rajncajn]

16 minutes ago, chester said:

I work in a call center and have been at home for 2 years and am now permanently

 

I was just talking to a colleague yesterday about this. I've been doing it for 9 years and have great relationships with people in different departments. I used to walk down the hall and shoot the sh** with everybody, so now when I have a problem, I have friends to contact. New employees do not have that option. 

On a related note,  that's a pro/con for me as well. There's some folks whom I would consider good friends and also a great resource in my day-to-day tasks. I can always call them or email,  but that's not nearly the same as having them sit in the same space or being able to just walk in their office or vice versa. Prime example, one of my coworkers came to me yesterday and said he thinks that we need to add a test for one of our systems based a space being moved. What was considered a legacy test on the last hull would need to be resurrected because of the supposed reconfiguration. It took us all of 5 minutes to sit down together at my desk and go over the data to determine it wouldn't require adding the test. Trying to do that over the phone or by email would have taken a lot longer. 

 

On the flip side of that,  there are those that I'd be perfectly happy if I never had to see or even hear them talk again.

[irish]

7 hours ago, LordOpie said:

I'd prefer to work at home since my local office is just three of us with one usually out of the office and the other isn't social. I could work from home, especially since my home computer is way more powerful than my work one, but my boss wants me in the office. 

Your boss is a weiner!

[irish]

Oh and I'm a teacher so I'm considered an essential worker because I'm basically glorified daycare. 

[Big Country]

4 hours ago, stevegrab said:

 

I agree with this, but its easier to do for you and rajn and others who don't live in a cold climate. Last year I went for frequent lunch time walks, hikes after work and on weekends. Today I won't even leave the house with temps barely reaching 20. If I feel better (battling a cold since after Christmas) this weekend I'll try to get out to the park for a hike. Some sunshine would be nice, don't mind the cold or snow too much, but the dreary cloudy days of winter really suck. 

 

SoCal commutes suck, I had a brother who refused to take a job that required more than a 10-15 minute drive after some years of commuting longer. My commute was 30min tops, and thru mostly park like setting with light traffic, not bad compared to some co-workers who would sit in traffic on the highways nearly every day to go the same distance. 

 

PS  GO RAMS!

 

Can confirm - I spent 10 years with a commute that was about 1 hour each way assuming normal traffic conditions - I took a lateral move in my company to get me into a position that was based about 25 minutes from my house and had me on an earlier schedule (essentially a 6:30 - 3:00ish schedule) so I had minimal traffic - then after a re-org I was located at the same spot but as my team was spread throughout our territory it went to only come in if you really needed to, and now essentially permanent work from home.

 

Absolutely the commute can wear on you - I'm not sure what the dollar amount would be that it would take to get me to take that sort of commute on the regular again would be

[gilthorp]

Rajn, as an old fu@k like me, it took many months to get used to this remote thing. But, once I got used to it, everything is immensely better with my production, mental health, and overall productivity.

 

Shower and dress every day. No sweats. Push for video calls and jump in and out of meetings as necessary. Private toilet, and expenses are way down. 

 

If you struggle with interactions, push for ways to communicate with people more than you usually would. Create reasons to get virtual facetime.

 

But, I am more of an introvert. It is easy for me. And it's about making money and being productive. I never let anyone outwork me when I was in the office so why would I allow it to happen this way?

[League_Champion]

12 hours ago, LordOpie said:

We have deerfly in Colorado

 

Are those the big green head flies? If so we just call them Green Heads. They are nasty creatures. 

[stevegrab]

17 hours ago, rajncajn said:

You've never experienced a summer here or deer fly season.

 

I was in New Orleans once in June, I remember my glasses fogging up when I walked out of the hotel. Not a fan of the excessive humidity, bad enough here in Ohio. (My brother moved here from Los Angeles and it was a massive shock to him.) Also remember hiking in summer with my brother once in Indiana getting attacked by deer fly, I'll pass on that. But I'd rather be hot than cold.

 

Have you lived in a climate where it was below freezing for much of the winter and tried to get regular some outdoor activity?  Its dark when my workday ends for much of the year, so it's hard to do anything for 5 days a week. So I try to do it on the weekend. Its sunny and clear now, but only 25 and I still feel BLAH so not sure a walk in the cold is a great plan. But I'll run some errands and sit near the window to get my suppy of sunlight. 

[stevegrab]

16 hours ago, rajncajn said:

On a related note,  that's a pro/con for me as well. There's some folks whom I would consider good friends and also a great resource in my day-to-day tasks. I can always call them or email,  but that's not nearly the same as having them sit in the same space or being able to just walk in their office or vice versa. Prime example, one of my coworkers came to me yesterday and said he thinks that we need to add a test for one of our systems based a space being moved. What was considered a legacy test on the last hull would need to be resurrected because of the supposed reconfiguration. It took us all of 5 minutes to sit down together at my desk and go over the data to determine it wouldn't require adding the test. Trying to do that over the phone or by email would have taken a lot longer. 

 

On the flip side of that,  there are those that I'd be perfectly happy if I never had to see or even hear them talk again.

 

When we were in person I could just stop by (find a convenient time for both parties) and chat with somebody quick about something. Sometimes it was after 5 when few were around and people were less busy. Now with everyone remote you don't know if people are busy or not (our phone system will show if they're on the phone) or even working that day (some don't mark themselves out), so I find I'm more likely to send an email or msg thru Teams saying "he we need to talk, when you got time" rather than play phone tag or interupt peopel in the middle of things. Even before this I was a strong believer in a short 10-15min phone call instead of exchanging a bunch of emails and still not understanding what people want. Too many people now rely on electronic communication (email, text) and that isn't conducive to many of the detail discussions we have. 

 

PS  As Gilthorp said pushing for face time is something you might have to do, some just hate showing their face ("oh no I didn't comb my hair or do my makeup"). 

[darin3]

I'm at my office twice weekly (M, W).  I absolutely have to come in for my own sanity.  We have a dog that barks incessantly and my kids get home from school around 2:30 and are always needing something.  I am Mr. Mom on Tuesdays.   I travel once a month, just overnight.