Coronavirus prep
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Our governor (Minnesota) just announced that, beginning Tuesday (3/30) all Minnesotans, 16 and older, are eligible for covid vaccine.9
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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.)
IMO, continuing to offer remote schooling as an *option* could be a good thing, even when no longer required for public health reasons.
As I mentioned earlier, some local systems have found that a certain minority of students - some of those with particular learning disabilities or psychosocial challenges - are doing *better* with remote learning than in-person. If this were a long-run option, I'd hope their might be some screening or precautions in place to ensure that families weren't doing it for parental convenience in some way, and to put some precautions in place against that small number who might be using the remote option to conceal child abuse.
I think whether kids get enough activity in their day is kind of a separate issue. Some kids would be getting outside and doing things (or even being active indoors) if schooling remotely, others would be minimizing movement even in an in-person school setting.6 -
The_Enginerd wrote: »I'm hesitantly elated because I don't know how long it will take once the surge in demand hits. On one hand I am excited to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but also somewhat sad to see the return to the office coming.
Has your workplace signaled they will start requiring on-site presence again? I personally find it absurd that any company would be able to force their staff to return to 100% on-site office work again, at least not without significant amounts of personnel leaving for more flexible employers or without very compelling reasons why being physically present is an absolute necessity.
Yes, I know I’m probably biased (my workplace has always been very flexible about time and place), but I can’t think of any good reason for regular office jobs to require on-site presence unless there’s a task-related need or a team-building/social interaction perspective to some event. Even before covid, my workplace (an IT company) only required on-site attendance for customer meetings when customers requested it and we sometimes had an office day with company meetings and the idea that everyone will be there on the same day so people can chat freely and get to know each other. People have been doing things like jetting off to Spain to work from there for a month, and we’ve been cool with people working from wherever they want as long as three criteria are met: they stay within the EU (due to data protection laws), have an internet connection and don’t make their time zone a problem.
I’ve been chatting with colleagues lately to hear their thoughts on what they want to do when we return back to ”normal” and most say they will continue working mostly remotely and will only come to the office when they see some extra value in it (like social interactions, brainstorming with colleagues, company events or meetings where in-person presence adds value). The only people who say they want to return 100% to office are the ones who go there daily for some personal reason even now.
From this perspective, large-scale return to requiring on-site office work seems very absurd, especially as people have proven in the last year that they can work remotely just fine.
This is not disagreement in any way, I'm just using your post as a taking off point since it seems to have started a sub-thread on the workplace topic.
There's a range of things that could apply to this choice rationally (nature of the work, for example), and IMO aspects of management practice, workplace culture, and even the surrounding socio-cultural milieu that could influence this.
Short form, way oversimplified, and somewhat speculative:
Some companies have bad (suspicious, authoritarian, etc.) management. Some of them have been angered at forced "let people work remotely" orders, and suspicious that employees are screwing them over and slacking off, even in the absence of the slightest evidence. (No, I wouldn't want to work there, either.)
Some managers & companies that have been on the fence about remote work will have observed good results, and will be more willing to continue it going forward.
Some companies (via either poor management or poor local culture) have a "stick it to the man" attitude among employees, i.e., poor workplace culture that values minimum productivity via interpersonal cues at the worker level. In those cases, the results of remote work may not have been positive at all, and it would be rational for management to want people to come back under closer supervision. I would hope those cases would be uncommon, but I'd bet they exist. (I've run across workgroup-sized pockets of that sort of thing in my past.)
Where there's good management (up and down the line), and the results have been acceptable to perhaps even improved, I would hope this pandemic period would foster some new and more flexible approaches to work. I'd further hope there may also be an understanding of the need for new and better systems (not necessarily computer systems, but approaches to coordinating/performing work) to help people be more productive in a more flexible, less in-person setting.
In practice, I'd be betting on a mix of the above, and more, in the world at large. (Truth in advertising: I have no workplace, because now retired. I spent time in multiple workplace cultures, including some years in first-line and middle management, in the 30 years or so when I was working, as well as a good bit of relevant formal education, so I don't think I'm waaaaay out in speculation-ville to talk about this.
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Still no Covid here in my region of North QLD. I have no idea how we were spared but glad of it of course. I am so sorry to hear what so many have gone through. I really hope it's all over or close to over soon. I can't wait to do some proper travelling again. Looks like all the guys I work with will be getting the vaccine shortly as we do some work at the hospital. Staff there go first though and in the process of getting it.6
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We are to maintain minimal campus operations through June 30.
For a large college campus, where I work, we are trying to figure things out. Equity regarding time on campus and remote work is important and they will set guidelines for us as a whole so schedules are set based on job functions and business needs, or who is the manager’s favorite in a particular department.
Some of our classes will be online next academic year and some will be in-person. We don’t have the facilities to have a 400-450 person class in-person while keeping everyone six feet apart. And we have a lot of classes that size. My guess is those will be online and the smaller discussion sections taken along with them could be in-person. However, classroom space was already at a premium. It will be even worse now, especially with many faculty wanting their classes to meet between 10am-2pm. 🙄
It’ll be interesting. My department has maintained on-site operations the whole time, and we’ve figured out how to make things work for us. Some of our folks are fully remote, some fully on-site, and some a hybrid (me). And I can’t always plan when I have to be on-site. Facilities emergencies (water main break, power outage) and student crises (counseling for sexual assault or suicide ideation are more effective in person than via Zoom) require me to come in whenever needed, as does managing the needs for the quarantine/isolation students. They need things they forgot in their rooms, they need packages and medication dropped off ...
There are lots of things to consider for who comes back on site and what our “new normal” is. For one thing, parking is super expensive and the folks having the “must be” on-site jobs generally have the lower paying jobs on campus (custodial, maintenance, food service). Parking fees have been suspended since April 2020, they’ll resume July 1 of this year. If some people are fully remote or hybrid, meetings seem like they would stay on Zoom as it doesn’t seem feasible to coordinate a meeting for a day and time when everyone is on campus. I don’t see people being able to call in and participate to an in-person meeting; it never worked well before.
Some people seem to like remote work because they can avoid interacting with the students/parents/public. It has been frustrating to hear from students/parents they can’t reach anyone when they have concerns or questions and ask a fully remote office for help. I get that things were chaotic last spring, and there’s no excuse for that now. I hear from my past students as well as my current ones about never getting a response back. And when they forward emails dating back to last summer they sent to their academic advisor for which they have never received a response, it completely irritates me. Some problems I can fix myself (such as registration eligibility for a required course). And others I can’t, which makes me reach out on campus to get the student the help they deserve. I can be very motivating. 😈6 -
The_Enginerd wrote: »I'm hesitantly elated because I don't know how long it will take once the surge in demand hits. On one hand I am excited to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but also somewhat sad to see the return to the office coming.
Has your workplace signaled they will start requiring on-site presence again? I personally find it absurd that any company would be able to force their staff to return to 100% on-site office work again, at least not without significant amounts of personnel leaving for more flexible employers or without very compelling reasons why being physically present is an absolute necessity.
Yes, I know I’m probably biased (my workplace has always been very flexible about time and place), but I can’t think of any good reason for regular office jobs to require on-site presence unless there’s a task-related need or a team-building/social interaction perspective to some event. Even before covid, my workplace (an IT company) only required on-site attendance for customer meetings when customers requested it and we sometimes had an office day with company meetings and the idea that everyone will be there on the same day so people can chat freely and get to know each other. People have been doing things like jetting off to Spain to work from there for a month, and we’ve been cool with people working from wherever they want as long as three criteria are met: they stay within the EU (due to data protection laws), have an internet connection and don’t make their time zone a problem.
I’ve been chatting with colleagues lately to hear their thoughts on what they want to do when we return back to ”normal” and most say they will continue working mostly remotely and will only come to the office when they see some extra value in it (like social interactions, brainstorming with colleagues, company events or meetings where in-person presence adds value). The only people who say they want to return 100% to office are the ones who go there daily for some personal reason even now.
From this perspective, large-scale return to requiring on-site office work seems very absurd, especially as people have proven in the last year that they can work remotely just fine.
No regular onsite presence has been required thus far, although there is a plan in place to gradually increase the amount of office time versus remote, up to a maximum of 50% occupancy. For the past year, folks have only been going into the office as needed, and some that needed to be at the facility continued to go regularly with precautions in place once the initial lockdown was over (e.g. the mechanics that cannot do their job remotely).
I am hoping that this experience helps reframe the remote work policy to allow for more in the future. We had telework available before, but it was on a much more limited basis. They have been very flexible during this time and people are still getting the work done. If anything, I end up working more hours because of the hour plus I save not having to commute and prepare for the office. I can do a vast majority of my work remotely and have only needed to go about half a dozen times. Once we exit this, I would be fine going in once or twice a week to help with camaraderie and coordination with our team and customers.5 -
The_Enginerd wrote: »If anything, I end up working more hours because of the hour plus I save not having to commute and prepare for the office. I can do a vast majority of my work remotely and have only needed to go about half a dozen times. Once we exit this, I would be fine going in once or twice a week to help with camaraderie and coordination with our team and customers.
Yep. I save so much time in the mornings, just bringing my breakfast to my desk and eating it while starting the day. I usually end up working through what would be an office day’s morning commute, lunch hour, and evening commute, so I work more hours in the day while spending the same total time to complete the day. As a result of this, I have so many extra hours ”saved” I’m now taking Friday off once a month just to burn some of those hours off. In the past, my social schedule also kept my workdays in check, as I usually had someplace to be after work and couldn’t work late even if I had something I could have easily focused on.
The 1-2 times per week camaraderie-and-coordination idea is something my colleagues frequently bring up as the ideal, and I agree with them. For me, personally, it might require organizing tasks since I do recruiting and candidates might wish to return to in-person interviews, but I’d love to set it up so I have some ”meeting days” at the office and some focused work days at home every week.
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The_Enginerd wrote: »I'm hesitantly elated because I don't know how long it will take once the surge in demand hits. On one hand I am excited to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but also somewhat sad to see the return to the office coming.
Has your workplace signaled they will start requiring on-site presence again? I personally find it absurd that any company would be able to force their staff to return to 100% on-site office work again, at least not without significant amounts of personnel leaving for more flexible employers or without very compelling reasons why being physically present is an absolute necessity.
Yes, I know I’m probably biased (my workplace has always been very flexible about time and place), but I can’t think of any good reason for regular office jobs to require on-site presence unless there’s a task-related need or a team-building/social interaction perspective to some event. Even before covid, my workplace (an IT company) only required on-site attendance for customer meetings when customers requested it and we sometimes had an office day with company meetings and the idea that everyone will be there on the same day so people can chat freely and get to know each other. People have been doing things like jetting off to Spain to work from there for a month, and we’ve been cool with people working from wherever they want as long as three criteria are met: they stay within the EU (due to data protection laws), have an internet connection and don’t make their time zone a problem.
I’ve been chatting with colleagues lately to hear their thoughts on what they want to do when we return back to ”normal” and most say they will continue working mostly remotely and will only come to the office when they see some extra value in it (like social interactions, brainstorming with colleagues, company events or meetings where in-person presence adds value). The only people who say they want to return 100% to office are the ones who go there daily for some personal reason even now.
From this perspective, large-scale return to requiring on-site office work seems very absurd, especially as people have proven in the last year that they can work remotely just fine.
This is not disagreement in any way, I'm just using your post as a taking off point since it seems to have started a sub-thread on the workplace topic.
There's a range of things that could apply to this choice rationally (nature of the work, for example), and IMO aspects of management practice, workplace culture, and even the surrounding socio-cultural milieu that could influence this.
Short form, way oversimplified, and somewhat speculative:
Some companies have bad (suspicious, authoritarian, etc.) management. Some of them have been angered at forced "let people work remotely" orders, and suspicious that employees are screwing them over and slacking off, even in the absence of the slightest evidence. (No, I wouldn't want to work there, either.)
Some managers & companies that have been on the fence about remote work will have observed good results, and will be more willing to continue it going forward.
Some companies (via either poor management or poor local culture) have a "stick it to the man" attitude among employees, i.e., poor workplace culture that values minimum productivity via interpersonal cues at the worker level. In those cases, the results of remote work may not have been positive at all, and it would be rational for management to want people to come back under closer supervision. I would hope those cases would be uncommon, but I'd bet they exist. (I've run across workgroup-sized pockets of that sort of thing in my past.)
Where there's good management (up and down the line), and the results have been acceptable to perhaps even improved, I would hope this pandemic period would foster some new and more flexible approaches to work. I'd further hope there may also be an understanding of the need for new and better systems (not necessarily computer systems, but approaches to coordinating/performing work) to help people be more productive in a more flexible, less in-person setting.
In practice, I'd be betting on a mix of the above, and more, in the world at large. (Truth in advertising: I have no workplace, because now retired. I spent time in multiple workplace cultures, including some years in first-line and middle management, in the 30 years or so when I was working, as well as a good bit of relevant formal education, so I don't think I'm waaaaay out in speculation-ville to talk about this.
I lost my job of 12 years last year. I'd spent 9 of those years working remotely.
Previously, our CEO was of the suspicious/authoritarian management type. I started WFM in 2011 when I moved out of state. The plan was for me to quit, and I was gone for what I call my "9 month unpaid vacation," but was hired back when my replacements did not work out. We had another employee who left the US and started working remotely when his visa expired. And we had freelancers overseas who accessed our file sharing resources. Our CEO was used to some remote employees when the pandemic hit and we already had the infrastructure and experience to quickly move all of Marketing and IT to WFH.
My hope is to never have a job where I have to dress professionally and appear in an office again, especially in a cubicle setup. I adore my private home office.16 -
I’m so sorry you were treated with suspicion. It bothers me that we set rules and establish policies for the lowest common denominator of human behavior. Even if we haven’t seen it. There’s no excuse for creating more and more rules to respond to performance management issues. You respond to the people with the problem, not over legislate and punish all employees for what a few are doing.
I trust my people to do the work. And almost all my remote staff are salaried, not paid hourly (like me) and we’re used to working the hours it takes to get the job done. We get paid for a full day regardless of how many hours we work. Which you’d think would be prone to abuse, and I’m sure some do, but I haven’t seen that. Time and again, I have seen my staff go above and beyond.
I think this crisis has opened up new doors for remote work for roles where it previously wouldn’t have been considered. I hope you find something that works for you soon! 💖5 -
My wife and I got the Pfizer shot on Friday afternoon. Woke up on Saturday AM feeling a little cruddy with a very sore arm. By Saturday night, we were both fine. A bit tired during Sat day. Second shot scheduled already.
Related to office versus remote -- I think we'll see more shared spaces, like sharing desks/cubicles, so that not everyone has to come in every day. There are certain occupations where it can't be helped. One area is high level construction design, for instance -- so much collaboration, changes, working on things together that many in that area want to get back to the office. Project Management has been working fine from home.
I think you'll have companies come up with some creative solutions, like individual keyboards, keyboard covers, perhaps even individual chairs. I can see some blowback on this, though. I wouldn't want to share a personal space like a cubicle with a slob. If companies don't require people to come in every day, they sure aren't going to spend money on the same amount of floor space.3 -
Here in Belgium, the third wave is hitting hard and we are in almost full lockdown again as from today for a period of four weeks. Employers need to have (and prove) a very good reason to call in personnel and the government is doing random checks to make sure that everyone who is capable to work from home actually does so. To give you an idea: our R-value is at 1,12 and 7,7% of tests are positives - only 13% of 18+ people have had a least one shot.
All schools are closed again as are the hairdressers, beauty salons, etc, and non-essentials stores can only accept people inside with an appointment.
The main reason behind the surge is the higher contagion rate of the variants who make patients more sick, especially the younger ones. This is something that is happening all over Europe.
These new restrictions hit hard, as we had thought restaurants would be able to reopen on May 1st, that was our shimmer of hope of getting back to a more normal way of life in a near future. Instead it is just the opposite and we are stranded again.
On the bright side: we know it is for a few more months, we are resilient and we will get through it all. Come summer, we will be in a much better place !
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Antiopelle wrote: »Here in Belgium, the third wave is hitting hard and we are in almost full lockdown again as from today for a period of four weeks. Employers need to have (and prove) a very good reason to call in personnel and the government is doing random checks to make sure that everyone who is capable to work from home actually does so. To give you an idea: our R-value is at 1,12 and 7,7% of tests are positives - only 13% of 18+ people have had a least one shot.
All schools are closed again as are the hairdressers, beauty salons, etc, and non-essentials stores can only accept people inside with an appointment.
The main reason behind the surge is the higher contagion rate of the variants who make patients more sick, especially the younger ones. This is something that is happening all over Europe.
These new restrictions hit hard, as we had thought restaurants would be able to reopen on May 1st, that was our shimmer of hope of getting back to a more normal way of life in a near future. Instead it is just the opposite and we are stranded again.
On the bright side: we know it is for a few more months, we are resilient and we will get through it all. Come summer, we will be in a much better place !
We're seeing pretty much the same in Italy. It seems like an accordian---open and close...open and close...
We are so sick of it all.13 -
snowflake954 wrote: »Antiopelle wrote: »Here in Belgium, the third wave is hitting hard and we are in almost full lockdown again as from today for a period of four weeks. Employers need to have (and prove) a very good reason to call in personnel and the government is doing random checks to make sure that everyone who is capable to work from home actually does so. To give you an idea: our R-value is at 1,12 and 7,7% of tests are positives - only 13% of 18+ people have had a least one shot.
All schools are closed again as are the hairdressers, beauty salons, etc, and non-essentials stores can only accept people inside with an appointment.
The main reason behind the surge is the higher contagion rate of the variants who make patients more sick, especially the younger ones. This is something that is happening all over Europe.
These new restrictions hit hard, as we had thought restaurants would be able to reopen on May 1st, that was our shimmer of hope of getting back to a more normal way of life in a near future. Instead it is just the opposite and we are stranded again.
On the bright side: we know it is for a few more months, we are resilient and we will get through it all. Come summer, we will be in a much better place !
We're seeing pretty much the same in Italy. It seems like an accordian---open and close...open and close...
We are so sick of it all.
That's a very challenging part of it all. It seems like right now, schools, nursing homes and correctional centers(locally) are the biggest places of increasing numbers. Just yesterday our high school announced 4 more cases and they're deliberating whether to go remote or not. The elementary schools are always announcing another grade or two that are remote temporarily. I almost want to say 'close it all up for the rest of the school year' instead of the roller coaster affect.
IDK There definitely is no easy answer to this except having patience and faith that vaccines will eventually slow things down.9 -
snowflake954 wrote: »Antiopelle wrote: »Here in Belgium, the third wave is hitting hard and we are in almost full lockdown again as from today for a period of four weeks. Employers need to have (and prove) a very good reason to call in personnel and the government is doing random checks to make sure that everyone who is capable to work from home actually does so. To give you an idea: our R-value is at 1,12 and 7,7% of tests are positives - only 13% of 18+ people have had a least one shot.
All schools are closed again as are the hairdressers, beauty salons, etc, and non-essentials stores can only accept people inside with an appointment.
The main reason behind the surge is the higher contagion rate of the variants who make patients more sick, especially the younger ones. This is something that is happening all over Europe.
These new restrictions hit hard, as we had thought restaurants would be able to reopen on May 1st, that was our shimmer of hope of getting back to a more normal way of life in a near future. Instead it is just the opposite and we are stranded again.
On the bright side: we know it is for a few more months, we are resilient and we will get through it all. Come summer, we will be in a much better place !
We're seeing pretty much the same in Italy. It seems like an accordian---open and close...open and close...
We are so sick of it all.
That's a very challenging part of it all. It seems like right now, schools, nursing homes and correctional centers(locally) are the biggest places of increasing numbers. Just yesterday our high school announced 4 more cases and they're deliberating whether to go remote or not. The elementary schools are always announcing another grade or two that are remote temporarily. I almost want to say 'close it all up for the rest of the school year' instead of the roller coaster affect.
IDK There definitely is no easy answer to this except having patience and faith that vaccines will eventually slow things down.
What we see here is that with the vaccination of almost the complete nursing home population, there are no more Covid deaths in that segment. Almost all of the hospitalizations (normal and ICU) are with "younger" people now (45-70 bracket). Which in itself is a very good indication that the vaccines work as they should.
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That's a very challenging part of it all. It seems like right now, schools, nursing homes and correctional centers(locally) are the biggest places of increasing numbers. Just yesterday our high school announced 4 more cases and they're deliberating whether to go remote or not. The elementary schools are always announcing another grade or two that are remote temporarily. I almost want to say 'close it all up for the rest of the school year' instead of the roller coaster affect.
IDK There definitely is no easy answer to this except having patience and faith that vaccines will eventually slow things down.
I feel you on wanting to avoid the rollercoaster and just closing up for the rest of the school year. However, I think it’s imortant to keep schools open as long as it’s safe, for the grades and groups that can be safe at any given moment, at least elementary schools. I have several reasons for this opinion:
1) School is not just classes, school also plays a big role in social services. In my corner of the world, kids get a free warm lunch at school (regardless of income) and majority of child abuse cases and other cases that need social services attention are brought to light at school.
2) School is not just classes on the subjects, it’s also critically important in learning social skills and working with others. I run a scouting group, and my current group is 10 2nd graders. This is my 4th group in the same age bracket, so I have some experience and something to compare this group to. These 8-year-olds missed 2 months of school last spring and then spent the summer in different kinds of semi-lockdown instead of seeing their friends like they would have in ”normal” summers. In the fall, it showed and their social skills and group interaction skills were significantly lacking compared to the other same-aged groups that came before them. They still haven’t quite caught up the gap in social skills.
3) Children, especially younger ones, in remote learning need constant adult help supervision at home and that makes working from home really difficult for the adults. I recently talked to someone in my field and he said last spring his team ended up having their team meetings at 10PM because that was the time most suitable for everyone: remote school day over, kids in bed etc. My colleagues with daycare- and school-aged children were exhausted last spring and couldn’t do their work properly because of the constant interruptions.
With all this said, I do not think we should keep schools open if it means the epidemic will blow up. I just think closing schools should be a last resort and non-essential businesses, hobbies etc. should close before schools do. I think it’s still better to be on the roller coaster and switch to temporary remote learning whenever a single class/grade needs to quarantine and keep the rest in school as long as it’s safe. I do hope that we can vaccinate enough people before next semester so we can retire this exhausting remote rollercoaster and maybe, just maybe, go on a real rollercoaster and have some fun.9 -
snowflake954 wrote: »Antiopelle wrote: »Here in Belgium, the third wave is hitting hard and we are in almost full lockdown again as from today for a period of four weeks. Employers need to have (and prove) a very good reason to call in personnel and the government is doing random checks to make sure that everyone who is capable to work from home actually does so. To give you an idea: our R-value is at 1,12 and 7,7% of tests are positives - only 13% of 18+ people have had a least one shot.
All schools are closed again as are the hairdressers, beauty salons, etc, and non-essentials stores can only accept people inside with an appointment.
The main reason behind the surge is the higher contagion rate of the variants who make patients more sick, especially the younger ones. This is something that is happening all over Europe.
These new restrictions hit hard, as we had thought restaurants would be able to reopen on May 1st, that was our shimmer of hope of getting back to a more normal way of life in a near future. Instead it is just the opposite and we are stranded again.
On the bright side: we know it is for a few more months, we are resilient and we will get through it all. Come summer, we will be in a much better place !
We're seeing pretty much the same in Italy. It seems like an accordian---open and close...open and close...
We are so sick of it all.
Yeah, same here, and I think in most of Europe actually. It's tough to keep going.5 -
Looks like we will be headed for another shut down - they are suspending the Astra Zeneca vaccine in Canada for people under 55 - and cases are climbing here. I was reading yesterday that researchers have an idea as to what is causing these rare blood clot reactions, so hopefully that is resolved quickly.4
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I just got a phone call from my daughter. She visits us most Saturdays, and was here a couple days ago. She woke up with a sore throat, runny nose, achy. She has a covid test scheduled for 4:30 today. My husband and I have had our first Moderna shot, and we’re scheduled for the second one next week. We’ve been careful, doing the elbow bumps only. We haven’t hugged since February 2020. In fact, the first thing she said to me when I told her we were scheduled for the vaccine was, “now we can hug for my birthday “, it’s April 30th. She’s been a remote worker since about 2016.17
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MikePfirrman wrote: »My wife and I got the Pfizer shot on Friday afternoon. Woke up on Saturday AM feeling a little cruddy with a very sore arm. By Saturday night, we were both fine. A bit tired during Sat day. Second shot scheduled already.
Related to office versus remote -- I think we'll see more shared spaces, like sharing desks/cubicles, so that not everyone has to come in every day. There are certain occupations where it can't be helped. One area is high level construction design, for instance -- so much collaboration, changes, working on things together that many in that area want to get back to the office. Project Management has been working fine from home.
I think you'll have companies come up with some creative solutions, like individual keyboards, keyboard covers, perhaps even individual chairs. I can see some blowback on this, though. I wouldn't want to share a personal space like a cubicle with a slob. If companies don't require people to come in every day, they sure aren't going to spend money on the same amount of floor space.
We know that our office space is going to constrict because we'll be working from home more even when we go back to the office, but they're still figuring out what that will look like exactly.
I hope if we're sharing desks we get something like a locker. My team's culture was really into desk decoration and personalizing spaces, so I think it will be a weird adjustment for some. For me, even though I did have personal items on my desk it's not something that was especially meaningful for me, but I will miss not being able to leave trails of notes for myself all over my desk . . . although I've gotten much neater over the past year as I have worked from home, simply because I don't have a dedicated workspace in my apartment and I like to be able to put everything away and out of sight in the evenings.6 -
MikePfirrman wrote: »My wife and I got the Pfizer shot on Friday afternoon. Woke up on Saturday AM feeling a little cruddy with a very sore arm. By Saturday night, we were both fine. A bit tired during Sat day. Second shot scheduled already.
Related to office versus remote -- I think we'll see more shared spaces, like sharing desks/cubicles, so that not everyone has to come in every day. There are certain occupations where it can't be helped. One area is high level construction design, for instance -- so much collaboration, changes, working on things together that many in that area want to get back to the office. Project Management has been working fine from home.
I think you'll have companies come up with some creative solutions, like individual keyboards, keyboard covers, perhaps even individual chairs. I can see some blowback on this, though. I wouldn't want to share a personal space like a cubicle with a slob. If companies don't require people to come in every day, they sure aren't going to spend money on the same amount of floor space.
I think the other factor (for my place of work, at least) is workplace safety when WFH. I work at a state institution with massive safeguards in place to prevent worker’s comp injuries. Everyone who works in an office has an ergonomic evaluation (and goes through annual training) and the department pays for the recommended equipment. The supervisor receives the evaluation and equipment needs. I think one of the things we’ll struggle with is how to manage those things as a part of remote work and determining exactly what is the institution’s level of responsibility.
I don’t see us going back to the “everyone packed in the office” days, unfortunately. Zoom is here to stay (and Teams, etc.). It’s going to be a whole new world, and it will take some time to figure out.7
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