OT: Work From Home

[InTheRed]

So prior to Covid you didn’t have any co workers who were full time remote or in a field office?

We had one. He lived 4 hours away and still felt it was so important to be in the office that he spent one week per month up in CT in the office. That was his choice but he saw how valuable it was.

 

[UCSouth]

The rage issue is that she gets to work from home and I don't.

You're slow.

I'm going to avoid any type of attack, based on your reply. I'll just consider the source.

 

[M.S.G.]

Any concern that remote teaching allows for consolidation of jobs? If most of the teaching is going to be remote, does it make sense to have one highly qualified, highly skilled, and highly paid individual to teach multiple classes across multiple districts, who are absorb his or her salary? Personal instruction can be supplemented by lower paid individuals.

I feel like a remote learning has the potential to eliminate teaching jobs and homogenize curriculums. That’s probably a good result if you are in a low performing district, but perhaps not if you’re in a high-performing district.

HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE fear... I totally feel like they've opened Pandora's Box, and will realize that a remote teacher can teach 3-4 classrooms with aides or paras in the room.

Still needing to put in about 15 years has me terrified to be honest.

 

[Yardigan]

HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE fear... I totally feel like they've opened Pandora's Box, and will realize that a remote teacher can teach 3-4 classrooms with aides or paras in the room.

Still needing to put in about 15 years has me terrified to be honest.

Then, just hafta make sure you ARE that teacher leading 3-4 rooms - even better, surface the concept and get out in front of it, be a leader of it. How much do you like teaching? Ever considered being a corporate trainer? Our daughter is a teacher and I've told her she could probably make a lot more as a corporate trainer but, bless her heart, she wants to teach kids.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

Any concern that remote teaching allows for consolidation of jobs? If most of the teaching is going to be remote, does it make sense to have one highly qualified, highly skilled, and highly paid individual to teach multiple classes across multiple districts, who are absorb his or her salary? Personal instruction can be supplemented by lower paid individuals.

I feel like a remote learning has the potential to eliminate teaching jobs and homogenize curriculums. That’s probably a good result if you are in a low performing district, but perhaps not if you’re in a high-performing district.

It's hard to agree with your second paragraph. I just can't see parents from wealthier districts being OK with that. Remote learning is an adaptation of the times, but I do not see it carrying on as a preference after Covid.

However, it's excellent for tutoring. It's also an excellent solution for scheduling conflicts for major cases of differentiation. We have a fifth grader who is doing a dual 8th grade algebra 1/Geometry course. Previous years he caused us a scheduling nightmare (how the heck can a fourth grader join a 7th grade math class???), but now it's easy to just put him in a workroom anywhere in the school and connect through Zoom. He can learn the material without being an awkward classroom management issue.

 

[superjohn]

HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE fear... I totally feel like they've opened Pandora's Box, and will realize that a remote teacher can teach 3-4 classrooms with aides or paras in the room.

Still needing to put in about 15 years has me terrified to be honest.

Why on earth would that be a thing?

 

[Fishy]

Remote teaching is a complete and utter disaster.

You have no worries.

 

[ZenConn]

Essential worker. Apart from a few weeks, I've been going to the office - a disaster recovery center.

Management thought it would be wise to split up the essential teams up so if one person gets sick, they don't infect the people around them. If anyone is at a higher risk, they have the option to work from home.

We have weekly testing for a while now and we have been taking temperature scans since Jan.

 

[Excalibur]

Cities, remote work, offices, etc -- this stuff is cyclical. People will still want to live in cities, particularly young people. Declaring them dead is being too intellectually lazy to look beyond the next 3 years.

Same with work from home. It's probably fine for those who do nothing but email and push paper (like most of the insurance company people in this state), and many of those companies have been moving that way anyway while making the office a less inviting space to visit with things like bench seating and "open offices" with no assigned spaces. Companies that develop actual stuff will suffer if they go full work from home. Something is lost when there is not at least occasional face to face contact, and my observation is that cooperation across functions is poorer in the WFH environment.

Also, eventually people will figure out that WFH is not necessarily a benefit, it's a way to push the cost of your employment back onto you.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Cities, remote work, offices, etc -- this stuff is cyclical. People will still want to live in cities, particularly young people. Declaring them dead is being too intellectually lazy to look beyond the next 3 years.

Same with work from home. It's probably fine for those who do nothing but email and push paper (like most of the insurance company people in this state), and many of those companies have been moving that way anyway while making the office a less inviting space to visit with things like bench seating and "open offices" with no assigned spaces. Companies that develop actual stuff will suffer if they go full work from home. Something is lost when there is not at least occasional face to face contact, and my observation is that cooperation across functions is poorer in the WFH environment.

Also, eventually people will figure out that WFH is not necessarily a benefit, it's a way to push the cost of your employment back onto you.

Will you and @superjohn stop with that “declaring them dead“? Nobody is declaring them dead. But this is a real shift that was already expected and which was accelerated by the virus. The massive increase in bandwidth the last five years is what made it more viable. Functional video conferencing from home is relatively newly available.

I agree that collaborative development benefits from in person work. No question. But this isn’t a temporary shift. Most office workers are indeed email and web based application users. There is a cost savings. But there are certainly real benefits for workers too. Flexible hours, savings on wardrobe, fuel or transit costs, miles on the car, hours saved etc.

It isn‘t a coincidence that I have to wait four months to get a rowing machine. Webcams were all sold out for awhile. Laptops are taking many weeks for delivery.

 

[Chin Diesel]

HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE fear... I totally feel like they've opened Pandora's Box, and will realize that a remote teacher can teach 3-4 classrooms with aides or paras in the room.

Still needing to put in about 15 years has me terrified to be honest.

It's definitely happening and not sure if people should be afraid of it.

If it turns out to be a better model for student learning we are better off for it.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Then, just hafta make sure you ARE that teacher leading 3-4 rooms - even better, surface the concept and get out in front of it, be a leader of it. How much do you like teaching? Ever considered being a corporate trainer? Our daughter is a teacher and I've told her she could probably make a lot more as a corporate trainer but, bless her heart, she wants to teach kids.

Corporate training definitely can pay well. Engineering services (training) pays even better.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Cities, remote work, offices, etc -- this stuff is cyclical. People will still want to live in cities, particularly young people. Declaring them dead is being too intellectually lazy to look beyond the next 3 years.

Same with work from home. It's probably fine for those who do nothing but email and push paper (like most of the insurance company people in this state), and many of those companies have been moving that way anyway while making the office a less inviting space to visit with things like bench seating and "open offices" with no assigned spaces. Companies that develop actual stuff will suffer if they go full work from home. Something is lost when there is not at least occasional face to face contact, and my observation is that cooperation across functions is poorer in the WFH environment.

Also, eventually people will figure out that WFH is not necessarily a benefit, it's a way to push the cost of your employment back onto you.

Those who actually make the actual stuff will definitely be working on site for the foreseeable future. Staff who support those workers can work from home at least part time.

 

[sledog]

I think a major factor in determing 'success' of WFH is how many times your hairy butt passes thru your wife's ZOOM conferences.

 

[Deepster]

We had one. He lived 4 hours away and still felt it was so important to be in the office that he spent one week per month up in CT in the office. That was his choice but he saw how valuable it was.

Interesting. I have three managers. One in CT, the two in other states. Each manager has a mix of employees from the three offices. I see the other two managers in person 2-3 times a year and it runs like clockwork. Maybe we’re just more progressive.

 

[Excalibur]

Those who actually make the actual stuff will definitely be working on site for the foreseeable future. Staff who support those workers can work from home at least part time.

I'm talking about the engineers and designers. Those people don't need to be on site all of the time, but they certainly do for some of it.

 

[Chin Diesel]

I'm talking about the engineers and designers. Those people don't need to be on site all of the time, but they certainly do for some of it.

Absolutely. My company had about a two week break in March where they sent everyone home and then started bringing back the workers to the plants where stuff is made. At first is was one week on, one week off with two separate crews. I think it was somewhere around July when we went back to full on shifts for those in manufacturing. Keeping 6' distance wasn't much of an issue and in a manufacturing environment many workers already were required to wear PPE like masks and gloves. Ventilation was also always good prior to corona.

 

[NJHusky]

I'm talking about the engineers and designers. Those people don't need to be on site all of the time, but they certainly do for some of it.

Depends what type of engineer. Software def not but others prob need to be on site more frequently. Hard to prototype “stuff” at home

 

[glastonbury50]

I got a new job during the pandemic where I was trained from home. I was concerned about the learning curve at the beginning but it ended up working just fine. Really enjoying skipping the commute through Hartford.

 

[Zanzman]

My wife got the work from home orders until June 2021.. There's nothing more infuriating with having to get up and go teach, she's still sleeping when I leave - and when I come home she's in sweats watching Family Feud. Rage level has been very high lately.
[/QUOTEfwel sorry for your spouse

 

[uconnfan68]

My team has been virtual since we started. I was talking to a lawyer at a big firm in NYC and he said they did a survey and 85% of the people want to work at home going forward. In the past it was only partners that could do that and staff had to be in every day...now they know they can function with staff at home.

I would not want to be a commercial landlord in NYC as leases expire.

What do people think will be the future of NYC? Is the exodus temporary or has the city changed permanently?

Not just NYC... everywhere.

 

[Battasbaby]

We did a completely virtual 8 week training for 5 new hires. We had adobe boards with video and screen sharing capability, so you could see everyone in real time, read their facial expressions and connect with them as you were presenting. Feedback was it was no different than physical class room training.

They are new hires, how would they know what your normal training is like?

 

[navery12]

They are new hires, how would they know what your normal training is like?

Unless they were being hired straight out of college I assume they've had training at other jobs before

 

[Deepster]

They are new hires, how would they know what your normal training is like?

We took weekly assessments on the curriculum and compared it with previous classes. We use prior members of the training program as facilitators and get feedback. Since the class has ended, we perform quality management reviews of their work and compare them with prior class results.

 

[huskypantz]

Hey on another note, is anyone who is NOT a business owner looking to deduct monthly internet fees or any other incurred costs from 2020 taxes? I understand that itemizing is not likely possible but I'm reading that we can probably deduct a percentage (looks like 25% is the sweet spot) based on work done at home using personal internet.