Coronavirus prep

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  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
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    missysippy930 wrote: »
    There are people vacationing/spring breaking, besides college age. A 9 year old Minnesota boy was attacked in 2 feet of water, by a shark, the other day, while on vacation with his family, near Miami.

    I haven’t noticed any particular signaling out of young people only. It’s pretty much just people vacationing and guidelines by health care professionals, not recommending this behavior due to covid. The college age group are a big group though, and congregating in big groups. This behavior is nothing that some haven’t been doing, pretty much since last summer, when restrictions were eased after the shut down. Coming up, Easter. More of the same?

    Most shark attacks occur in 3 feet of water (or less).
  • lokihen
    lokihen Posts: 382 Member
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    South Dakota has identified the UK, California and South African variants in the state.
  • busyPK
    busyPK Posts: 3,788 Member
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    I work for a manufacturing company (engineering design all the way through completion of mostly aircraft parts that are very labor intensive) and we've been working on-site all along. We are lucky that we have a small number of staff at just 42 employees and can spread out. I work in a separate building of just 6 of us and we all have offices with doors. I never felt the need to work from home, and I'm sure a lot of smaller companies are similar. Very different types of work places out there, but I know bigger more congested ones are a totally different story.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
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    MikePfirrman wrote: »
    Many of the companies I personally deal with believe it will be a hybrid, where employees might have more flex days at home, but many are expecting everyone to be working soon in the office.

    This seems pretty right for what we are planning and what I know other firms in my field are planning -- everyone back in the office on a regular basis, but more flexibility for people choosing to work a couple days a week from home if they prefer. I think in my job it isn't the same with people mostly working remotely all the time, and I don't think that's likely to be the norm in the industry, but I do think there is more openness to flexibility and working from home sometimes on a regular basis, as that seems definitely possible. It will be interesting to see how much travel (which basically hasn't happened for the last year but used to be common) will be reduced for me. I have heard a lot from people over the past few months (and agree) that although Zoom initially seemed like a great option and alternative to doing things in person it is really not the same, and I think a lot of people will be happy to not have to do things through that nearly as much once this is over (although once it isn't so common I think it will still be a useful tool).

    I think we are going to start transitioning into back in the office on a more regular basis in June, although it may be somewhat gradual and may depend on whether everyone is then vaccinated (which we think they all will be). Right now people are free to come in if they want/need (we did have a sign-up schedule to keep numbers down, but that hasn't been needed as the numbers haven't ever been too high on any individual day). Some of us come in pretty regularly, some people actually come in most days, as they find it hard for one reason or another to work from home (someone I know who is in another firm, for example, goes in since his wife is a teacher and they don't really have two good work areas, so it's less distracting for him to work from his office).

    The big thing for me is that we've had parking paid for if we go in, so I've been able to go in, when I do, without taking the L. I don't plan on getting back on the L until I've been fully vaccinated, at least not to commute to and from work. (It's weird that I actually do kind of miss the L, though.)
  • 33gail33
    33gail33 Posts: 1,155 Member
    edited March 2021
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    They are also talking in my area about continuing to offer remote schooling. I wonder what everyone else thinks about that. At first I thought it would be OK, but then I started thinking about how sedentary I am when I am working from home. I have a step counter on my watch and when I work from home I am lucky to get in 1500 steps (not including my actual walks and exercise). When I go into the office I am usually closer to 4- 5000, even though I drive, just from walking around the office and such. I feel like kids are sedentary enough having them stay home all day, no walking to school or around during lunch and breaks, can't be great for their health.
    (Edit: I don't have any kids in school so it doesn't affect me directly I was just thinking about it in a general way.)
  • hipari
    hipari Posts: 1,367 Member
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    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    Right now people are free to come in if they want/need (we did have a sign-up schedule to keep numbers down, but that hasn't been needed as the numbers haven't ever been too high on any individual day). Some of us come in pretty regularly, some people actually come in most days, as they find it hard for one reason or another to work from home (someone I know who is in another firm, for example, goes in since his wife is a teacher and they don't really have two good work areas, so it's less distracting for him to work from his office).

    Our office has been open like this since last summer. There are currently 2 people (out of 30ish) who use the office daily, and they’re both young people who live in small apartments within walking distance from the office. One more person uses the office regularly every week to escape his overly loud children (at least one of them has a disability that causes the extra loudness). Everyone else only uses the office occasionally, like when they need to print something, take an online exam (common in my field and requires a clean room many don’t have at home) or have some other business to run downtown near the office. We only introduced a sign-up schedule about a month ago when the government issued a ban of more than 6 non-household member adults congregating for any non-essential reason, and we had sometimes had 6 people in the office this winter.

    ythannah wrote: »
    I need too many basic office resources like printing/faxing/scanning that I couldn't do from home. One woman in a similar role to mine had to put in a day at home because of childcare needs and said it took her more than half a day to pre-prepare a day's work that she could actually do outside the office. That's horrendously inefficient.

    Until last month I visited the office every week or two partly because I needed to print stuff and check the company mail. With my pregnancy (hello, nausea) and the current restrictions that hasn’t been an option and the mail is becoming a problem, because there’s some mail that relates to our employee’s private matters and non-managers like the two who use the office daily can’t open it because of confidentiality issues. Current solution is that they get the mail, tell me who is written as sender on the envelope, and if I deem it potentially confidential they put the unopened letters in a larger envelope and send it to my home. Not very efficient, but at least it’s a solution. For non-confidential mail, they just open it, take a picture with their phones, and send me the pictures.

    Another reason I need to sometimes visit the office is recruiting. We’ve recruited 10-15 new employees during the pandemic, and everyone still needs laptops, phones, office keys etc. Last spring the starters mostly preferred not visiting the office downtown, and instead came up with some creative solutions like driving to a park near my home (I don’t have a car) and meeting me at a pre-designated park bench to get their stuff I had picked up from the office earlier. People have gotten so tired and used to the situation now, though, that lately new staff has preferred a ”proper reason” like the new job to actually go downtown and visit the office on their first day. That means I have to go in whenever a new person starts, too, but even with all these exceptions visiting the office is still a specifically task-based need, not something mandated by management.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    edited March 2021
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    33gail33 wrote: »
    They are also talking in my area about continuing to offer remote schooling. I wonder what everyone else thinks about that. At first I thought it would be OK, but then I started thinking about how sedentary I am when I am working from home. I have a step counter on my watch and when I work from home I am lucky to get in 1500 steps (not including my actual walks and exercise). When I go into the office I am usually closer to 4- 5000, even though I drive, just from walking around the office and such. I feel like kids are sedentary enough having them stay home all day, no walking to school or around during lunch and breaks, can't be great for their health.
    (Edit: I don't have any kids in school so it doesn't affect me directly I was just thinking about it in a general way.)

    In the long run, to me, it won't make that much difference. We have kids on both sides of my house. The one side, even though I know they have kids and how old they are, you NEVER see them. You might hear them in the pool a few times a year in the Summer. On the other side, they are constantly outside and playing.

    Kids, in general, aren't very active compared to the past. My parents would be arrested if I were a kid now, going around on my bike until dark, riding like 6 miles a day, all over the neighborhood and surrounding area, just playing over at various friends houses. They never knew where I was. My mom worked second shift. And I wasn't that unusual back then. Now, you'd be considered a "free range parent" or whatever. Part of it for good reason -- we now know that many would prey on kids if given the chance -- not that they didn't back in my day, it just wasn't understood or talked about. But most of it is video games and phones have taken the place of physical activity, outside of organized sports. And that's a shame.

    The social challenges have been seriously tough on many (including my own family), but in some ways, having technology and phones, Zoom, etc. have allowed kids/teens to keep in touch.

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