The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

[Oblomov Boblomov]

Caught up with a few friends over the weekend and one of them remarked how I was the only person they'd spoken to who enjoyed working from home.

I also caught the end of a Sunday Morning Live debate (yesterday morning, obviously) where the majority seemed to be suggesting that everyone needs to get back to work and that working from home is no good.

This has come up before about management being paranoid of not having their 'eye on things', and that people will slack off if not under constant panoptic surveillance, that every employee is out to undermine them (also possibly justifying their own role which consists purely of doing that).

I wonder if it's a reaction to the almost flagellatory pride of suffering an awful commute, working long hours in the office etc, that it somehow makes what you're doing more valid and worthy of praise.

More cynically, I suspect some are extraordinarily dull people who have no personal hobbies or few conversation topics apart from work.

I guess the obvious answer is that there are different circumstances everywhere, for everyone. Some will lead to working from home being more viable and/or desirable and some the opposite. Probably like one of those quadrant flowchart type thingies (can't remember if they have a proper name). I just happen to sit right at the top corner of the viable and desirable quadrant, for which I should be grateful.

The friend I was speaking to does live alone. I think that would be a major factor in where you fall on the quadrant. I'd go utterly insane if I didn't have my wife here with me, even though I spend quite a lot of time in different Teams video calls of various sizes.

The idea of getting back on the train again, twice a day...

[Qikz]

Caught up with a few friends over the weekend and one of them remarked how I was the only person they'd spoken to who enjoyed working from home.

I also caught the end of a Sunday Morning Live debate (yesterday morning, obviously) where the majority seemed to be suggesting that everyone needs to get back to work and that working from home is no good.

This has come up before about management being paranoid of not having their 'eye on things', and that people will slack off if not under constant panoptic surveillance, that every employee is out to undermine them (also possibly justifying their own role which consists purely of doing that).

I wonder if it's a reaction to the almost flagellatory pride of suffering an awful commute, working long hours in the office etc, that it somehow makes what you're doing more valid and worthy of praise.

More cynically, I suspect some are extraordinarily dull people who have no personal hobbies or few conversation topics apart from work.

I guess the obvious answer is that there are different circumstances everywhere, for everyone. Some will lead to working from home being more viable and/or desirable and some the opposite. Probably like one of those quadrant flowchart type thingies (can't remember if they have a proper name). I just happen to sit right at the top corner of the viable and desirable quadrant, for which I should be grateful.

The friend I was speaking to does live alone. I think that would be a major factor in where you fall on the quadrant. I'd go utterly insane if I didn't have my wife here with me, even though I spend quite a lot of time in different Teams video calls of various sizes.

The idea of getting back on the train again, twice a day...

I think I must be weird, because living alone working from home is strawberry floating heaven, no need to deal with anyone.

[Jenuall]

Caught up with a few friends over the weekend and one of them remarked how I was the only person they'd spoken to who enjoyed working from home.

I also caught the end of a Sunday Morning Live debate (yesterday morning, obviously) where the majority seemed to be suggesting that everyone needs to get back to work and that working from home is no good.

This has come up before about management being paranoid of not having their 'eye on things', and that people will slack off if not under constant panoptic surveillance, that every employee is out to undermine them (also possibly justifying their own role which consists purely of doing that).

I wonder if it's a reaction to the almost flagellatory pride of suffering an awful commute, working long hours in the office etc, that it somehow makes what you're doing more valid and worthy of praise.

More cynically, I suspect some are extraordinarily dull people who have no personal hobbies or few conversation topics apart from work.

I guess the obvious answer is that there are different circumstances everywhere, for everyone. Some will lead to working from home being more viable and/or desirable and some the opposite. Probably like one of those quadrant flowchart type thingies (can't remember if they have a proper name). I just happen to sit right at the top corner of the viable and desirable quadrant, for which I should be grateful.

The friend I was speaking to does live alone. I think that would be a major factor in where you fall on the quadrant. I'd go utterly insane if I didn't have my wife here with me, even though I spend quite a lot of time in different Teams video calls of various sizes.

The idea of getting back on the train again, twice a day...

I think I must be weird, because living alone working from home is strawberry floating heaven, no need to deal with anyone.

In one sense this would be the dream for me as well - I've done a couple of days working from home recently and with the wife and kids around it's basically impossible to get anything done!

But saying that I know that if I were alone I would find motivating myself hard and probably waste a hell of a lot of time doing other gooseberry fool as well!

[<]:^D]

im a teacher so while i have enjoyed sitting the in the garden on the laptop, i didnt get into this job to do that
i am concerned about September though; we will be inside with hundreds of children without masks for 5-6 hours a day

[Moggy]

Caught up with a few friends over the weekend and one of them remarked how I was the only person they'd spoken to who enjoyed working from home.

I also caught the end of a Sunday Morning Live debate (yesterday morning, obviously) where the majority seemed to be suggesting that everyone needs to get back to work and that working from home is no good.

Are we (GRcade) in the minority here? Even people in my team at work, when the subject comes up, a lot of them are actually getting quite desperate to go back.

I'm going in as a one-off on Wednesday and the thought of having to pay to travel on a train and actually lose hours I could be doing work instead, meaning I'll fall behind, and the general inconvenience of it all is really quite annoying!

I fully support people WFH but I don't like personally.

That's because of my circumstances though. We don't have the space in my flat to have a proper desk and dual monitor set up. Which means I am working from a small laptop screen that's a massive pain in the arse.

My commute to work is less than a 10 minute walk, so I am not really benefiting from extra time away from traffic jams and things like that.

If I ever manage to get a house with a spare room (a large cupboard would do!) then I'd love to WFH permanently.

[Drumstick]

If I ever manage to get a house with a spare room (a large cupboard would do!) then I'd love to WFH permanently.

Just be sure that the spare room doesn't have a leasehold.

[Moggy]

If I ever manage to get a house with a spare room (a large cupboard would do!) then I'd love to WFH permanently.

Just be sure that the spare room doesn't have a leasehold.

Just be sure your strawberry floating face.

[Errkal]

We have 8 desks now for people that want to go back to the office from our part of the business (IT Delivery is about 150 people).

Anyone that wants to go back has to effectively apply to HR that review the whys and stuff and if approved you are assigned a desk, slightly extreme maybe but they want to make sure those the “need” to be in the office for health or other reasons can and it isn’t just people that would rather it but don’t need to be that get to come back.

Building has a one way system, you must clear desk as all desks are fully cleaned each night, laser temperature checks in arrival and any time to leave and enter the building.

I’m happy at home but I have space to have a “work area”, only annoyance at the moment is that twice a week I am also looking after the little’un which is a bloody nightmare as I then only have a laptop and not multiple screens and have moo constantly distracting me.

Work is now expecting return to the office won’t be until next year now and won’t be full time unless we want to. I’ve asked and been oked to be a home for 3 days a week so for whenever we do go back.

I can totally see how people would want to go back I know a few people at work that are struggling as they live at home and work was one of the main points of human contact for them so to be isolated like this must be very very hard.

[SEP]

We've now switched to a 4-shift rotation, with the early shift and the late shift, as well as weekends, working from home. The middle shifts are in the office.

I honestly don't see the point. Things were working fine with us being at home.

[Qikz]

Our biggest client are planning on getting everyone (including us) back into their office at the start of september. I don't understand it at all, thankfully our bosses gave us the choice and I said I'm not going back there until there's a vaccine, but all that's going to happen is they'll be closing their office after a few weeks again. It makes no sense to go back, especially as we get closer to a second wave. If everyone wasn't forced back to normality maybe there wouldn't even be a second wave to begin with.

[Zilnad]

I really don't understand why people are now starting to push more for "returning to normal" when all the warning signs point to a second wave during the winter months. It really baffles me. Not heard anything for a few weeks from my employer so I'm just happily continuing to WFH.

[Errkal]

I really don't understand why people are now starting to push more for "returning to normal" when all the warning signs point to a second wave during the winter months. It really baffles me. Not heard anything for a few weeks from my employer so I'm just happily continuing to WFH.

People are sick of being at home and not being able to do stuff. The crave “something” normal.

[Qikz]

I really don't understand why people are now starting to push more for "returning to normal" when all the warning signs point to a second wave during the winter months. It really baffles me. Not heard anything for a few weeks from my employer so I'm just happily continuing to WFH.

The second wave will happen BECAUSE people are pushing for a return to normal now. People are strawberry floating morons.

[Jenuall]

The bullshit counter argument that the government will be backing is that the second wave would be happening regardless so lets get as many people back to work as we can now.


Got my promotion interview today, slightly bricking it at this point!

[Drumstick]

Got my promotion interview today, slightly bricking it at this point!

Me too, good luck.

Also GL to Tomous who has one soon (this week?)

[Jenuall]

Got my promotion interview today, slightly bricking it at this point!

Me too, good luck.

Also GL to Tomous who has one soon (this week?)

Right back at you (and Tomous)

Team GR climbing the greasy corporate pole together

[Qikz]

Work just pissed me off again. I got told off for my call numbers being low (picking up calls) because I've been calling out closing tickets all morning and another thing I got called out for was being on a call trying to fix an issue for 40 minutes because I could've been answering calls instead. I could literally not stop what I was doing because a customer couldn't work. What do they want me to do, leave him without any way of working? This is strawberry floating ridiculous.

[Jenuall]

Had my promotion interview, it went okay but I'm leaning toward it being a no. Not entirely sure on the timeframe of when I found out the outcome at this point!

I'm not too bothered if it doesn't pan out because it wasn't something I was desperately hammering on the door for or anything, but progression and recognition is still nice I guess!

[Corazon de Leon]

We're still very much on the working from home train, and I genuinely can't imagine being in the office every day now.

Even when teaching starts back up again in September, it looks like the majority of my role will be spent doing online lectures and tutorials, or supporting senior lecturers in chat while they do theirs. This would be ideal, and will mean more hours for me. What would be the most ideal, of course, would be if the uni would give me a permanent contract...

[Errkal]

Work just pissed me off again. I got told off for my call numbers being low (picking up calls) because I've been calling out closing tickets all morning and another thing I got called out for was being on a call trying to fix an issue for 40 minutes because I could've been answering calls instead. I could literally not stop what I was doing because a customer couldn't work. What do they want me to do, leave him without any way of working? This is strawberry floating ridiculous.

Was it something that took 40 minutes of constant attention or was it something that you start, wait a bit, check on and complete that takes 40 minutes?

Basically could you have dropped the call said you would ring them back when done and taken calls whilst sorting it.