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The working from home thread

second day back in the office today, all a bit wierd, particularly as was expecting more to be in than are in atm - about 8 out of 25-30ish total.

we've been given the option of hybrid working (home and office combo) and asked to request the pattern we want (some requested to not come back yet / at all / only one day a week in office). because we didn't have any guidelines about it (or rather apparently the admin / office manager was supposed to discuss it with everyone in advance but skipped me for some reason) i assumed they'd be expecting 2/3 days a week in office and requested accordly.

initially plan is to let everyone work their requested days but i expect in a couple of months a few people will be politely asked to change at least one day as the current schedule has some people in the same team never meeting, i.e. i requested mon/wed/fri and my colleague requested tues/thurs.

there's half-arsed social distancing going on in the office / building (at your own risk etc) but by fluke no-one i sit near is in the office at the same time (yet) and our desks are large and reasonably well spread-out so no-one is on top of anyone else.

a strange adjustment but i don't mind going into the office. thankfully. just a different list of niggles compared with at home. having to pack my lunch in advance rather than wander into the kitchen is the oddest thing.
 
The blue screen function on Teams is an imperfect technology. I was on a meeting with someone today who had an image of a local park in the background. Every so often you saw a brief flash of part of someone, a colleague or family member, flicking into shot.
 
stavros said:
The blue screen function on Teams is an imperfect technology. I was on a meeting with someone today who had an image of a local park in the background. Every so often you saw a brief flash of part of someone, a colleague or family member, flicking into shot.
Click to expand...
I have never worked out how to get it to work, there’s only a blank wall behind me at home so I don’t bother with it anyway.
 
Just select background in settings.

I need to pull the plaster off and actually go into the office as I said I'll do a couple of days a week working there. Hope I can remember how to work without taking a break every hour!
 
Expect to continue to work at home for much of the rest of the year. Not had any issue with connectivity like others have reported in the thread, although the network has fallen over now and again - but that happened in the olden times too. I think they hugely ramped up the capacity of the remote servers to handle the load so it all held together.

I'd much rather limit being in the office to as little as possible (i.e. never) - get far more done at home without all the pointless distractions you get because of annoying colleagues. Plus, I can work in my undies which is always a bonus.
 
With my patio doors wide open, I'll be interested to know what any of my neighbours who might've been outside thought of me playing Autechre at high volume today.
 
I had no meetings today, but I did resolve to get out on my bike, if only for twenty minutes or so. It may not have been direct human interaction, but it broke up the day.

I also took the bins out, which was another highlight.
 
We were told today that we are due to be back in the office gradually from September, one day a week minimum to allow us to “see colleagues face to face and improve our morale.”

Although it seems that it’s likely we won’t see all the team as there are more people than there are desks allocated, we have to socially distance in the office so can only use 50% of the desks, and at least one person can only do a particular day due to childcare / dog care reasons.

So in reality at least one person a day is wanted in the office to do the post and do various bits of printing, and the people currently in the office are fed up of doing it all the time.

2 people in the office last week are now positive for covid.

I am off next week, and will be making it clear to my line manager that I can’t work in the office as I find it difficult to walk the 500m from the carpark to my desk (unless I get in very early this is how far I normally have to walk). I’d much rather stay at home. It looks like the covid numbers may make the case for me anyway.
 
I was going to go back in this week for the first time. They want us in but they don’t want to tell us to come in. Talking to a colleague last week who was in, though, it became apparent that nobody was actually there — he showed me on FaceTime and it was like a ghost town. So I didn’t bother going in this week after all. Glad I didn’t — out of everybody in the big management meeting on Monday, I would have been the only one actually in the office. I am going to go in on Thursday, though. It’s a day with a meeting that if anybody turns up for, that’ll be the one. And I’m curious to see if they do. Only my second time in the office since early March 2020! (The last time was a day last October when I went for a job interview).
 
As I'm pretty sure I mentioned upthread, for my place of work most of us will be WFH/blended forever now.
Realised that whilst I had knocked up a cheap standup desk from Ikea legs and the top of an old chest of drawers I was about to throw out, I'm still looking down at my laptop, which ain't good for posture.
Then I remembered that one of my colleagues who has a laser cutter and CNC machinery in his shed (yay for nerds of all kinds) had knocked up ten of the below (we paid for the materials and his time). Grabbed one from the office last week. It's ace!

IMG_20210825_124745.jpg
 
Elpenor said:
We were told today that we are due to be back in the office gradually from September, one day a week minimum to allow us to “see colleagues face to face and improve our morale.”

Although it seems that it’s likely we won’t see all the team as there are more people than there are desks allocated, we have to socially distance in the office so can only use 50% of the desks, and at least one person can only do a particular day due to childcare / dog care reasons.

So in reality at least one person a day is wanted in the office to do the post and do various bits of printing, and the people currently in the office are fed up of doing it all the time.

2 people in the office last week are now positive for covid.

I am off next week, and will be making it clear to my line manager that I can’t work in the office as I find it difficult to walk the 500m from the carpark to my desk (unless I get in very early this is how far I normally have to walk). I’d much rather stay at home. It looks like the covid numbers may make the case for me anyway.
Click to expand...

Liked in support.
 
We're supposed be back in on the 6th. I will attempt to resist this, largely due to the England-India cricket series which will still be going on. I doubt I can drink a can of stella at my desk while shouting at the screen.

I also missed the 'styling' session they arranged to get us looking half decent for the return so I think I will look a bit straggly, at best. I've not bought any new clothes in 18 months.

I'm going to get sacked, but luckily the job market appears buoyant.
 
They've finally replaced my ancient laptop (about a year since they said they would ) . I'm going in for 2 days this week (I don't have to but want to) . Still being vague about a return to work , but the office we are supposed to work in has about 7 desks reserved for about 22 staff on 2 teams 🤔
 
I've committed myself to going into work Tuesday, mental health has been feeling a bit ropey last couple of weeks and think this is best decision for it.

It's been nigh on 18 months at this point since I worked outside of home and fuck me I need a change. Also trying to commit to few initiatives on what the future looks like both at work and at home so this will help.

It should be a nice and quiet trip given the bank holiday week traditionally has most people off but we'll see.
 
When I was in the office yesterday I saw a work mate being confused at the entrance turnstiles which are still the same as pre-pandemic. He was asking the security if his card still worked as he hadn't been in the building since March last year. I think he was pretty senior, I'm sure I've seen his picture on the management list on our website.
 
My pass didn’t work yesterday because I hadn’t been in for 10 months.

I won’t be rushing back too often — the office was almost entirely empty. I may as well have been at home, with just a few conversations that made it just about worth it to go in every now and then.

I went home after lunch because fuck it. Did some more from home instead.
 
kabbes said:
My pass didn’t work yesterday because I hadn’t been in for 10 months.

I won’t be rushing back too often — the office was almost entirely empty. I may as well have been at home, with just a few conversations that made it just about worth it to go in every now and then.

I went home after lunch because fuck it. Did some more from home instead.
Click to expand...
That’s my view about being one of the very few in the office. May as well be at home. It’s the same experience using Teams etc
 
I have been in to the office the last couple of days , there were 5 people in my bit , practically empty elsewhere. Part of our job is to visit folk , this has obviously not been happening much since March last year , one of the senior Managers was in today, he was surprised I'd just been to see a tenant as there are dozens of people in my role (there are about 80 of us) who haven't left their homes for work since March 2020.

Typical work view atm . In normal times every desk would be occupied.
20210827_154027.jpg
 
I've just started a new job and the office is open if you want to go in but you need to book a desk. Saying that, they're not actually expecting anyone to be back in until January and even then, it's going to pretty much optional from what I can gather and most people are going to be doing a mix of the two (they did a survey recently apparently and that was the feedback). So that's all good. They're also making a monthly payment to everyone to go towards utilities etc while folk are working from home. Which is nice.

(This is all the complete opposite of my last job where they've been putting serious pressure on folk to go back in for the last six months.)
 
First day back in the office for me, probably go back every couple of weeks or so - more if they do staff breakfasts again. It was ok, pretty nervous but the office was very quiet. Just a bit of strain keeping the work face on all day I think which is partly why I wanted to go in, very easy to forget your employed wfh.

Was good to physically see three of the new staff who’ve joined since covid even if one was a bit to fond of getting close up.
 
I went back to our head office yesterday for the first time since January. Pre-covid times I worked from home / on the road so the switch to home working was easy but before I still went to the office quite regularly just to catch up with everyone.

Anyway, I was having a meeting with a couple of colleagues which could have been done remotely but they were both in the office and now everything is back to normal and we're all living happily alongside covid I thought I'd venture into the office.

I got there to start at 8am and found a desk next to a new colleague. Chatted a bit and got down to some work. Within two hours he was requesting the company's stock of lateral flow tests as he'd had a phone call saying his niece (who he had seen over the weekend) had returned a positive lateral flow test.

He went off to do the test and sat in the kitchen area for 20 minutes. It came back negative and everything went back to normal and carried on.

I was only there for two hours before that happened. No mitigation factors and 100% reliance on lateral flow tests. This will end well... I'm going to stay at home I think in the future.

This would appear to be the system that is coming to a school near you soon. Hold onto to your hats people this is going to be one hell of a ride.
 
we've had an announcement from management today.
no longer accepting proof of vaccination to enter the building. you have to have a negative test within the last 48 hours, regardless of how many jabs you've had. justified on the basis of rising case numbers and the delta variant breaking through to infect so many vaccinated people.

that's turning against the official government advice isn't it?
oh well. I'll be sticking to the permanent WFH for a bit longer.
 
I'm in the office now for the first time since Mar 2020. There's two other people in.

We all have new shiny laptops and docking stations for wfh but we have to bring our docking stations with us to the office and scrabble around under the desk for ten minutes connecting wires before we can hook up the laptops to the screens. That'll get old quickly.
 
A lovely team member is leaving soon so they were trying to organise a day for whole team in the office but unfortunately the day most people could do was next Tuesday, which is Rosh Hashanah, so I'm not around. One other person can't make it as well.

I'm going out in town next Friday evening so thinking about booking into office for the day but tbh I imagine it will just be like when I went in on a Friday in July and there was no one there so it was pretty pointless, and I won't have much on so it'll just be thumb twiddling in the office.
 
If I was in the office there's no way I'd have been able to listen to all 4 hours of Arkology back to back at my desk. I may be wrong, but I suspect my colleagues' appreciation of dub is less than mine.
 
Does anyone else have rubbish vacant/engaged manual signs on their staff toilets? We do at my place, where we're only meant to have one person relieving themselves at a time. Lots of people switch it to "engaged" as they go in, but barely anyone flips it back to "vacant".
 
WFH Monday and yesterday - both stressful as fuck (online meeting software not working, unable to log in to retrieve files etc.)

WOH Tuesday and will do so today and tomorrow. Tuesday was lovely, I got so much done and got to hang out with colleagues too.

I am so over routinely WFH.
 
About to start a new job, in the interview they said they have a new CEO who has stated he want everyone hybrid working when originally it was to be a full time in the office job, so now its only in the office 2 days a week, which suits me just fine.
 
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