Working from Home

[Graham Ritchie]

A "Flight Attendant Works From Home" .

[Steve Klare]

Working from home is a whole new world!

-I might go entire days without putting shoes on, but I've noticed that all these little repairs around the house that used to be ty-raps and duct tape are actually, really getting fixed! That dead ceiling lamp over the kitchen counter lights again and the persistent drip down in the basement gave up its bucket over a year ago!

For the first time in my life, I don't pack a lunch, sometimes I barbecue it!

What's odd is I keep sitting down in my own car and re-learning the dashboard...
(I've driven it 2,500 miles in the same time I'd normally drive about 15,000.)

[Graham Ritchie]

Steve..... are you looking forward to the day where you can return to making a pack lunch and going to work as before? I was thinking, that as with most jobs I would miss the human contact.

[Lincoln Thorn]

I worked from my home for three months at the start of the pandemic which was an adventure! There are certain things I miss about WFH (not wearing shoes all day and taking walks around my neighborhood), but it is nice to be back working in the library again with all my co-workers. I truly missed them during that time and all the great fun we had together.

[Steve Klare]

Actually, the whole thing will work out in kind of a compromise. There are a lot fewer reasons I have to be at my job than two years ago. Meetings are all on zoom and we can monitor operations remotely very well.

I have a friend who works at a software firm and his company let the lease run out on their offices over a year ago, he'll be working at home as long as he has that job. My job actually involves a physical system in a specific place: I have to interact with it in person some times, but the administrative and document work can happen anywhere. I used to go to work and sit in my office all day and react to the phone and E-mail, that part of it hasn't changed at all since I sat down to a desk in my back room!

Right now a lot of us are working on joining a plan to physically be at work several days per week and be at home several days. Work is 32 miles away: I go far enough I have to change radio stations when I'm most of the way there! Every weekday I'm scheduled at home saves me about 3,000 miles of driving per year.

In case something seriously fails and I'm needed to help straighten it out, I'll get in the car and go. My job has always been that way anyway. The classic is a phone call 3AM, maybe 3 hours before consciousness has even a chance!

Interesting: my department hired a young engineer fresh out of college during the lockiest part of the lockdown. We kept him busy, but he worked for us a good six months before he was even in our time zone!

[Brian Fretwell]

The sounds like a semi-joking idea we had at British Telecom. To test if someone is OK with working night shifts - wake them up at 3am and ask them what their name is. If they can answer they are capable.