How do you work from home?

[HCCForever]

Seriously, as a former manager and supervisor, before telecommuting was a common thing one of the great benefits of an office environment was that it lent itself to informal brain picking and collegiality (ok, the occasional fist fight). That has to disappear to a large degree in telework. yes or no? Is there any such thing any more as the office softball or card leagues?

I'm so glad that my time spent in corporate America began in the 80s. I was in all types of sports leagues for softball, volleyball, bowling, etc. I'm sure participation in those have taken a hit due to the move to offshore and remote work but I aged out. Moving to remote work was a no brainer since I was working with people from India, CO and TN anyways. We rarely saw each other except for quarterly meetings that they discontinued when COVID hit.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Work with a small group that is basically detached from everyone else at my company. Only four of us.
I know they can and do monitor us but no one has ever said anything about our online habits.


Those that need know how to find me on MS Teams, by email or ony cell phone.

We have an office I go to a couple of times a month.

We started remote a few months before covid and have just kept it going.

I'm customer facing and if our customers are happy my boss is happy.

 

[Letsgohuskies11]

Either you are in a customer service role where they are paying you an hourly rate or you need to find a new job. It should be about getting your work done not about if you are on your computer every second. That just sounds like a miserable company.

 

[Icehawk]

I work in IT and we don’t monitor activity as an organization. I have heard some managers check Teams status is green but that’s pretty worthless when you are in meetings all day, for example.

 

[Rico444]

Unfortunately I never used the punch and then we got bought by a bigger company and the rule was eliminated. Not that it was in our employee handbook but we assumed that was one of the things that would not be grandfathered in like seniority and vacation time.

There's only one way to find out.

 

[Mr. French]

Id leave it alone until you find her in someone else's sweatpants.

Frankly, I dig the sweats and tee look on a bird.

 

[DCHuskyFan]

I’m a Government attorney, so return to office has been 3 days per week, Tuesday-Thursday. I make it a point to close my door on those 3 days, do my work, and not speak with anyone, so leadership‘s belief that on-site work is conducive for communication and collaboration has not proven out for me, and most of my colleagues, which have the same attitude. Our clients are all over the place, so we are advising them over TEAMS 90% of the time regardless of work location. Admittedly, I’m far more pleasant and accessible to my colleagues on Mondays and Fridays over TEAMS. I’m also far more productive on Mondays and Fridays, when I don’t have to do anything but wake up, and I’m at my computer working. The on-site network is also inexplicably slow and unreliable compared to my FIOS home network.

 

[brihman]

Unique users here increases every year, but since Covid traffic is down about 40%. Used to be people got to work, logged into the 'yard at 9 am, then off at 5pm, with dozens of visits all day. With more and more people working from home, they visit less.

All y'all need to get yur asses back to work!

The Boneyard solves the mouse click issue

 

[tiger paw]

Being home all day is similar to being under house arrest. What's next ? An ankle monitor ? People that are detached from human interaction tend to fit the profile of mass shooters.

 

[cohenzone]

I’m a Government attorney, so return to office has been 3 days per week, Tuesday-Thursday. I make it a point to close my door on those 3 days, do my work, and not speak with anyone, so leadership‘s belief that on-site work is conducive for communication and collaboration has not proven out for me, and most of my colleagues, which have the same attitude. Our clients are all over the place, so we are advising them over TEAMS 90% of the time regardless of work location. Admittedly, I’m far more pleasant and accessible to my colleagues on Mondays and Fridays over TEAMS. I’m also far more productive on Mondays and Fridays, when I don’t have to do anything but wake up, and I’m at my computer working. The on-site network is also inexplicably slow and unreliable compared to my FIOS home network.

I was a fed lawyer. But our clients - other non lawyer fed staff were on site and in person discussions and meetings were daily and easy to set up. The other lawyers on staff had it easy to brain pick and otherwise share experience. The people we dealt with from the public we could have and did for the most part do by phone and at the end do by zoom sort of conferencing. I guess office morale is a thing of the past for better or worse.

 

[cohenzone]

Being home all day is similar to being under house arrest. What's next ? An ankle monitor ? People that are detached from human interaction tend to fit the profile of mass shooters.

A little over stated, but i agree, it is all part of the trend toward isolation and diminished social interaction. Some people handle it better than others. The original idea was to allow people to balance home responsibilities, especially child care, with work. That doesn’t figure in any more and the golf courses are way busier than they used to be.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Just curious. I spoke with a neighbor yesterday and he said his employer installed software that tracks mouse clicks. If he doesn't click the mouse at least every four minutes, he'll get a call or email.

Nothing about productivity, just mouse clicks.

If an employer has micromanaging policies like this I would never agree to work with them in the first place. And believe me, that's very much their loss.

 

[aceboon]

If my company put in some type of policy like that I'd find a new company to work for ASAP, that sounds like hell. I work from home 3x a week and we have Teams to see who is active and signed on, if I need to do errands or I'm tied up I just my set status as "be right back".

 

[DCHuskyFan]

I was a fed lawyer. But our clients - other non lawyer fed staff were on site and in person discussions and meetings were daily and easy to set up. The other lawyers on staff had it easy to brain pick and otherwise share experience. The people we dealt with from the public we could have and did for the most part do by phone and at the end do by zoom sort of conferencing. I guess office morale is a thing of the past for better or worse.

I don’t work for a public facing organization, and our clients are located all over the world due to the nature of the organization. My speciality, Government contracts, has clients that have not returned to work and will never return to work, contracting officers and financial managers. There is an abundance of these jobs (open and available) across the Government, so agency leadership makes exception to the return to work policy for them so as to retain and attract talent. Agency leadership would make an exception for us as well, if attorney leadership would allow it.

 

[Marat]

I didn't read the whole thread in detail yet.... but this reminded me of Lost TV series when someone had to keep pressing a button to keep the world going.

Anyway I work from home several days a week and no they don't monitor that. They only monitor that you do come into the office 3 days a week. I think they do that thru badge swipes and or thru connecting to their network in office.

 

[JMick]

Being home all day is similar to being under house arrest. What's next ? An ankle monitor ? People that are detached from human interaction tend to fit the profile of mass shooters.

I've had several 2-3 month stints of pure wfh and you find other ways to interact with people. Do you really want to talk to Becky from accounting while you're heating up your lunch in the break room? Or would you rather meet your friend that also wfh for lunch once or twice a week?

Oh no I'm at work and I need to buy this thing for the weekend. Better buy it on Amazon. Oh wait I'm home I can just run to walmart.

 

[HCCForever]

I've had several 2-3 month stints of pure wfh and you find other ways to interact with people. Do you really want to talk to Becky from accounting while you're heating up your lunch in the break room? Or would you rather meet your friend that also wfh for lunch once or twice a week?

Oh no I'm at work and I need to buy this thing for the weekend. Better buy it on Amazon. Oh wait I'm home I can just run to walmart.

Or do what I do and head to happy hour once a week and chat somebody up at the bar.

 

[willie99]

I can't, I'm too easily distracted. Just let me suffer at my desk

 

[businesslawyer]

I’ve been not working from home for a few decades. Retirement is a great way to work from home.

Seriously, as a former manager and supervisor, before telecommuting was a common thing one of the great benefits of an office environment was that it lent itself to informal brain picking and collegiality (ok, the occasional fist fight). That has to disappear to a large degree in telework. yes or no? Is there any such thing any more as the office softball or card leagues? BTW, i retired when we moved from a 15 minute commute to a 45 minute commute ti be closer to my wife’s new job. I was spoiled and hated it. Now I get to spend every waking or sleepless moment on the BY

When we first started telework just before i retired, our only rule was getting work done on time and correctly.

The answer is there is zero chance people who were just starting their careers when Covid and telecommuting hit will be mentored as much as prior generations, and thus will be as good as senior leaders in 30 ways as prior generations. If you don’t need leaders, and everyone doing their job is enough in a business, great, but most companies need not just workers but leaders. Law firms certainly do.