How do you feel about telecommuting? | Page 2 | The Boneyard

How do you feel about telecommuting?

joober jones

joober jones

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From the very first time I heard of it, it was something I always thought would be the greatest thing in the world. Going to work with all the comforts of home - how could that not be ideal? 4 weeks in and I'm finding I absolutely hate it. It was nice for maybe 3 days, but now I can't wait to get back to the office. Don't get me wrong, I love the extra time with my wife, kids, niece, nephew, and pets, but the work side of it has serious drawbacks. Everything is far more stressful, it's tougher to concentrate, and you never really feel like the work day is over.

Is working from home losing its luster for anyone else?
 
I miss my 10 minute bike commute to work and my office. Home with 2 little kids and my wife is extremely difficult. But I'm happy to be employed and getting paid. I feel for everyone in the service industry that is completely screwed right now.
 
I generally have the option to do it whenever I want anyways. In the pre-COVID world it was a great option when I had a light day and didn’t need to be particularly productive, but I don’t like being forced to because I know I’m not as productive. I also live in a 700 square foot one bedroom in NYC with a wife that is also working from home, so there’s that...
 
Dream Jobbed 2.0 said:
They are doing packets that can be picked up for kids that don’t have internet/tech at home. What about the families that don’t also have a car to go pick it up?
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Her school offered that too. I played delivery man and drove my wife around to eight student's homes about two weeks back. Unfortunately those eight students are only a drop in the bucket. Hopefully other teachers offered to step up and drop off some packets.
 
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Lefty2one said:
Her school offered that too. I played delivery man and drove my wife around to eight student's homes about two weeks back. Unfortunately those eight students are only a drop in the bucket. Hopefully other teachers offered to step up and drop off some packets.
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My school forbade such stuff. These kids are already so far behind won’t get any schooling for 6 months.
 
CL82 said:
They’re kind of stupid to mention, but the two things I find myself missing is getting a haircut and taking my shirts to the cleaners. I typically keep my hair pretty short but for whatever reason I hadn’t had a chance to go for a haircut before the travel moratorium. So though it’s not that bad, I’m feeling a little bit like Billy Ray Cyrus. Business in the front, party in the back.

I’m still going into work, but there are far less meetings.
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Me too.

I forsee a thread on hair about to chrystalize. Got to dig out a few pix of me in the day w LONG hair.
 
UConnRock said:
My wife is set up in the office. I am in the dining room. We extracted our son from college and he is finishing up the semester remotely. Daughter is finishing up her junior year in HS remotely also. Having all 4 working from home is a challenge. There was a novelty the first week or so, but that has worn off. I truly enjoy the separation of work and home and like the transition time of the 20-30 minute ride home. I find weekends less relaxing as it is just another day at home. Going from 5 days in the office to 5 days at home has been tough, especially from a management standpoint. That being said, I think a 3 days in office and 2 at home is something I will consider when things calm down
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We have an office, but it's loaded w crap. So when we had to work at home, I set up shop in the dining room. My wife thought that was cool, so she moved in. She set the dining room table up as a partners' desk (arrggg!!!). However, she must make confidential tel calls, so I was booted out. Of course, this escalated, and this point, I've landed on my butt from being pushed off the end of the bench. (boom!). So I'm cleaning out the office so I can 'isolate' myself.
 
I like it, but have really always had the luxury to work from home if and when I wanted to.

I just started a new gig and it was a bit odd meeting with the President for the first time post interview over zoom, but it's fine.

I'd like to have a cable internet connection - we live in a very rural area and only have wifi via verizon and while it's actually pretty good it can lag a bit if my wife and I happen to hop on the same wifi device.

She's a freelance creative director who has worked from home for years and has her own office with a stand-up or sit down desk which is actually pretty sweet. I thought I was going to be in an on-site office which puts me at the dining room table and that's not ideal, but there is absolutely no way I'm converting my fly tying bench into an office.

I feel very fortunate that I"m in a position to be doing it, others are not so lucky
 
Just had a team happy hour (1/2 hour) on zoom with 17 ppl - wasn’t nearly as weird as I thought it would be. I think the need to socialize outweighs the awkwardness.
 
They disabled our cameras since it was using too much bandwidth lol. Not complaining though.
 
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Robertelamin said:
They disabled our cameras since it was using too much bandwidth lol. Not complaining though.
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Gamechanger.

I was always envious of what seemed like everyone in town working from home, making their own schedule. Definite benefits, but right now since everyone is, the pressure to respond to someone immediately is high. Not to mention the wife and kids.
 
CL82 said:
They’re kind of stupid to mention, but the two things I find myself missing is getting a haircut and taking my shirts to the cleaners. I typically keep my hair pretty short but for whatever reason I hadn’t had a chance to go for a haircut before the travel moratorium. So though it’s not that bad, I’m feeling a little bit like Billy Ray Cyrus. Business in the front, party in the back.

I’m still going into work, but there are far less meetings.
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I got a haircut yesterday. Neighbors’ daughter is a hairdresser. Cut it on my deck.

As for working from home, I already did it every Friday. But I find there is less closure to being home vs being at work when home is work. So I end up starting earlier and working longer. I took a random day off yesterday just to reset then concept that I can stop working when home. The other change for me is video calls on Zoom. That’s now the norm and it challenges my ability to multitask.
 
I love it. Only one in my apartment all day and I get so much more work done
 
I don't like it. I've never done it before besides a few days here and there for snow days and 7 years ago after the Boston Marathon bombings when they closed down most of the Back Bay for a few days. Most of my day at work is interaction with other people in the office. So that's been tough to keep that up. Talking on the phone and things like Zoom just aren't the same. I miss the interaction.

It's hard to keep a good schedule at home but part of that problem right now is my sons are home from school now so almost everyday they want to do something in the afternoon. Which is great but it's tough juggling trying to do work and trying to pay attention to your family.

I don't miss the commute! Although I will say I miss the ride home listening to sports radio because it's a good wind down from work.
 
joober jones said:
From the very first time I heard of it, it was something I always thought would be the greatest thing in the world. Going to work with all the comforts of home - how could that not be ideal? 4 weeks in and I'm finding I absolutely hate it. It was nice for maybe 3 days, but now I can't wait to get back to the office. Don't get me wrong, I love the extra time with my wife, kids, niece, nephew, and pets, but the work side of it has serious drawbacks. Everything is far more stressful, it's tougher to concentrate, and you never really feel like the work day is over.

Is working from home losing its luster for anyone else?
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I have been working from home for 12 years and love it. You are right that the work day is extended but like in the office you must be disciplined about picking your time to work. I average 20 hours a week and that is pretty steady. I have always been an early riser so am up at 530 and will work either until my 7 pm tee time (takes me 5 minutes to get to the course of until my wife gets up at 9 . When I am not playing golf ( I play Tuesday, Thursday Saturday) I have breakfast with my wife then work until 10-11 when I either go for a run or a bike. I come home and work from 2-4 or 5 and then either cocktail hour or spin class.
 
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Dream Jobbed 2.0 said:
As a special ed teacher, this is a goshdarn nightmare. Kids don’t have tech, parents are non responsive and district/department/school can not give us a common vision and the expectations are all over the place. On top of that, we have to deal with gen ed teachers and related service who are just as confused as us. I can assure you I am not on vacation by any stretch.
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My daughter is a special Ed. teacher in Ct and she has been working 8AM to 8PM
That job is a challenge under normal conditions remotely it’s a nightmare.
Hopefully your efforts are appreciated.
 
I work in manufacturing so haven't really ever been able to work remote until recently, but I still never do. Never feel like I'm as productive so this has been rough for me...but my company is considered essential for our bacteria/virus reducing product line so we've stayed open with a skeleton crew.

Always been a little put off by people who spend a large portion of time working remote. If I see they're crushing it and getting stuff done I'm more ok with it, but rarely is that the case in my experience
 
This is my first time ever telecommuting and I have a pretty easy environment. It's just my wife and I in the house and I already had my dedicated office/man cave, so I don't have to deal with the distractions some of you have. So far, I like it, but definitely find myself working more hours. I work in IT and my teams are responsible for providing a lot of the work from home technologies so we've been really taxed with extra work to get the systems upgraded to support thousands of users. Hopefully once we settle in, it will get easier and I can get back to regular work hours.

One thing I can suggest: I have a really close friend who has telecommuted for years and she shared with me really great tips about not getting stuck in a funk. Get up every morning like you are going to work, shower, dress, get coffee - whatever you would normally do to go into the office before you sit down and start your work day. Leave your work area and eat lunch like a normal person. Try to actually sign out and leave your work area again at the end of the day. Those things make a huge difference and you won't find yourself in three day old clothes, unshowered with dishes and glasses spread around your work area.
 
Loving it.

I've had some level of working remote for past decade but this is my longest full time.
Like @Waquoit I had a longer commute so the extra sleep in the morning is a joy.
Currently have 2 HS kids taking classes via Zoom. They love it too.
I have a desk and a second monitor to simulate a decent work environment.
Often times while I'm at my desk at work I'm surfing the net so this is no big change.
We use Skype for Business for group meetings. I tried to video call someone last week and couldn't figure out how to do it. Called our IT guy and he calmly explained my computer doesn't even have a camera. I didn't feel bad. I've been with company for about 1 1/2 years and never needed the camera.
The team I work with provides training and customer support and we are using this time to update our material from power point to Adobe Captivate. Captivate blows.
Definitely eating too much but I do getup throughout the day and have been doing yard work sporadically.
To save network bandwidth we are supposed to get online in he morning, get files off sharepoints, check mail/messages and get off network and work offline. I listen to some tunes during the day. If anyone on the team needs to get in touch we talk over phone and get back online if needed.
I'm hoping this work situation opens up more teleworking for my group. I'd settle for one day a week from or one week a month. We can easily manage within our team and there is no loss of productivity.
 
Love it, we're both working from home, 100 percent remote. It beats the drive to and from work, the lunch process, everything.

You tend to work more hours at times, but if you have a good manager and get work done, they don't give you a hard time when your not logged in

Everyone on my team is remote, south, midwest, central and west coast.

I don't want to ever go back to work in an office building
 
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BigErnMcCracken said:
This made me laugh out loud. I had this exact conversation with one of our IT guys about a year ago.
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I just figured every laptop had a camera. With my previous job we had an unofficial put a post it note over it if you aren't using the camera policy.
Really odd was me being almost positive I had done video chats in my current job.
 
I’ve always worked at least one day a week at home. In the past it was a super productive day to get a lot of heads down work done. The issue is now everyone is home. My wife and I both work, manage teams and have two young kids (under 3). A lot to juggle. I feel for working parents with young kids. Not easy.
 
True story today.

Co-worker sends a text message to me and a buddy asking if we have any pictures of a piece of a newer piece of test equipment.

I texted back I had some on my computer and to give me 5-10 minutes to log on and send it to him.

I log on and send him some pics.

He IM's me back and says the pics I sent weren't what he was looking for. He also included a picture of the test kit with the whole kit laid out on a table and each piece of equipment labeled.

I was confused. So, I messaged him back asking what else did he expect us to have since he had the whole kit, each individual piece shown, and part numbers and part ID's visible.

He took a few minutes to say he was all good.
 
Edward Sargent said:
I have been working from home for 12 years and love it. You are right that the work day is extended but like in the office you must be disciplined about picking your time to work. I average 20 hours a week and that is pretty steady. I have always been an early riser so am up at 530 and will work either until my 7 pm tee time (takes me 5 minutes to get to the course of until my wife gets up at 9 . When I am not playing golf ( I play Tuesday, Thursday Saturday) I have breakfast with my wife then work until 10-11 when I either go for a run or a bike. I come home and work from 2-4 or 5 and then either cocktail hour or spin class.
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'cocktail hour or and spin class.'
ftfy. lol.
 
mauconnfan said:
Not you 68? Yes it is admit it. But not worth it ya know!

Hope you're well pal stay safe!
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I hit a bucket around the 1st of March (whenever it was 55-60), and signed up for a pro shop side game the next weekend, but chickened out. I check too many boxes in the at risk group. My wife and I are ok, and we are mostly just staying home.
Hang in there buddy, it will be golf soon enough. Sorry you have to work through this.
 
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