Working from home advice

[rafletcher]

Looks like I'll be mostly wfh after next week (year end). My workspace will be our back "bedroom". Reasonable desk space (if I clear it up) is a plus. My wife's computer is a minus (it's not keen on the wifi for some reason, so is hardwired to the router in the room), but she can generally use the iPad and leave me alone. More worringly the room also contains the airing cupboard, and she's always washing!

Also, the cat won't like not being able to sleep all day on the office chair.

[ian]

I'm noting from the drop-off in my inbox content that a lot of people seem to have transitioned to not-working from home.

[ElyDave]

I've been seeing a few client's living rooms and listening to their dogs in the background

[telstarbox]

It's going OK so far. Our other office will be sent home today so we'll all be in the same boat at least.

[ElyDave]

It's going OK so far. Our other office will be sent home today so we'll all be in the same boat at least.

Does that comply with social distancing requirements? How big is the boat?

[Regulator]

We had our wider team monthly Zoom meeting today. Usually most of the team are in our head office conference room and it's the usual homeworkers Zooming in.  Today everyone was working from home. 32 people on a Zoom call.

[phantasmagoriana]

We had our wider team monthly Zoom meeting today. Usually most of the team are in our head office conference room and it's the usual homeworkers Zooming in.  Today everyone was working from home. 32 people on a Zoom call.

My university did a sort of test/showing people how it works meeting on Zoom earlier in the week. Turns out only 500 people can join one meeting at a time...(we all got asked to turn our cameras off, too, as the bandwidth couldn't cope).

[mrcharly-YHT]

One of our offices has a thing called an owl. It's not an actual owl (contain your disappointment), it's a magic conference webcam thing that points at whoever is speaking in a conference room.

I want to know what it does if the entire meeting erupts spontaneously into Bohemian Rhapsody.

Do you really expect us to believe you don't know?

All of our meeting rooms have these. Some have two (they are also manually steerable). Plus the laptop webcams do the same thing.

If you want to point the laptop webcam at a whiteboard (so the schmuck at home can see the fancy doodling) then it is a pain when the cam pans whenever someone moves.

In one meeting, this resulted in me crouching below the whiteboard doing jazz hands to keep the attention of the laptop.

Laptops with ADHD.

[Pingu]

We had our wider team monthly Zoom meeting today. Usually most of the team are in our head office conference room and it's the usual homeworkers Zooming in.  Today everyone was working from home. 32 people on a Zoom call.

My university did a sort of test/showing people how it works meeting on Zoom earlier in the week. Turns out only 500 people can join one meeting at a time...(we all got asked to turn our cameras off, too, as the bandwidth couldn't cope).

Story seen on that Facebook:

The entire office is working from home. We decided to have a virtual meeting with the entire office - mostly to test the limits of our systems.

59 people in a videocall, and Someone shouted "Alexa! Play heavy metal!"

There was an utter cacophony, only partly drowned out by the multiple pleas for Alexa to stop.

[rafletcher]

Well, that didn't go so well.  The VPN - which I installed and tested a couple of weeks ago - resolutely refused to let  me in this morning. Bah. So, I'm now back in the office awaiting the scorn of our IT "help" person.

ETA: “Delete it, reboot, reinstall, then after 20 seconds, while it’s still installing, reboot”.

[matthew]

Similar here, the client has two vpn systems; one for staff with client laptops and one for the contractors and staff without laptops. I fall into the latter category, so far today I have been trying to log in for 2 hours as a system intended for ~50 staff using in short occasional bursts has >250 staff trying to work remotely via it.

[Ham]

Don't forget if you are working for a global company, and having difficulty connecting to the VPN in the morning, you may be able to choose a different region such as North America (where they haven't woken up)  to connect.

[Jaded]

Zoom have removed to 40 minute limit on calls for free accounts.

I know of a zoom call made on Sunday where there were 3,000 participants. Once it reached that many, no one else could log in.

[aidan.f]

Had a conference call on homeworking this afternoon. After several minutes of the host telling us not to overload extension leads cos he connected a wallpaper steamer and heater to the same wound up reel and picked up a plug attached to molten plastic I didn't think I would learn anything useful and left.

[Jaded]

Had a conference call on homeworking this afternoon. After several minutes of the host telling us not to overload extension leads cos he connected a wallpaper steamer and heater to the same wound up reel and picked up a plug attached to molten plastic I didn't think I would learn anything useful and left.

I'm not sure I'd steam wallpaper in a cold room and teleconference at the same time!!

[citoyen]

Had a conference call on homeworking this afternoon. After several minutes of the host telling us not to overload extension leads cos he connected a wallpaper steamer and heater to the same wound up reel and picked up a plug attached to molten plastic I didn't think I would learn anything useful and left.

I'm not sure I'd steam wallpaper in a cold room and teleconference at the same time!!

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t.

[madcow]

We are using MS Teams and Zoom . Teams was part of the grand plan but became THE thing as we were alll sent home. I usually work from home but spend time on the road. Travelling around gives you an opportunity to be off the radar but confined to home and with Teams , you are almost tethered to the laptop. If someone sends you a chat message or email, you feel compelled to answer asap.
I get the impression that many of our partners in research work are just doing essential stuff and everyone else has packed in.
Using the phone actually is the best method of communication as everyone is stuck at home desperate to talk to someone.
Our CEO has a team cuddle/decompression session everyday at 4.30 , so no sneaking out on the bike early.
Attendance is optional so no pressure , but I am aware that missing too many makes you look like a miserable git and nota team player.

[TheLurker]

As a seasoned layabout home worker the only suggestion I can make is that you do something to mark the end of the working day and switch the work bit of your mind off.  MrsLurker and I go for a stroll for half an hour or so, which thankfully is still permitted, and this usually does the trick.

[quixoticgeek]

Be careful. If you can, do not use your own personal laptop/computer for working from home. Some enterprise remote working tools can grant all sorts of access to your own device. This also applies to using your own android phone with some enterprise tools. I know of at least one contractor who had her personal phone remote wiped against her will through this.

Other things to bear in mind.

- If you are doing video calls, and you've chosen to only get dressed from the waist up, don't forget this and stand up to grab a book...

- Don't expect to get 100% efficacy when working from home. Try your best, but don't beat yourself up if you aren't perfect on day 1.

- If you're doing a video call, consider your background, hang up a sheet if necessary.

- Don't leave a vibrator on the shelf behind you during a video call.

- If using a wireless headset with microphone, remember to mute the mic if you nip to the loo mid call...

- If you can, get up, get dressed, go for a walk or ride round the block, then do your work. Effectively simulate the commute.

- Chocolate. Really it helps.

I've worked from home for most of the last 15 years... does it show?

J

[andrewc]

Standards are slipping.  I've not bothered getting properly dressed all week. My nice clothes, unworn,  lounging pyjamas instead.  Shaving & showering have been postponed..... if I want to test my sense of smell I can just sniff my armpit... 


I need to get out & go for a walk or something,  but I'm still feeling run down from the bug I had in January & have been having a few hours in bed after finishing work.   Not even motivated to read or watch a video. Playing music of an evening, but not during the day.

[rafletcher]

I must confess, I’ve gone through the normal morning routine of make tea-shave-take tea to wife in bed-eat breakfast-clean teeth-say “goodbye”, and have dressed for work the same as I normally would - which is to say casual trousers and a company polo shirt. Plus I have my pass clipped to my belt, but that’s only because I live 10 minutes from the office so am a prime candidate if someone has to pop in for something, and I’m terrible at remembering it! It helps me to differentiate home from work.  The only real change (well, other than the office now containing the airing cupboard) is the we have a cup of tea around 3-30 as opposed to 5-15, so the end of my work day is not punctuated. Like TheLurker we’d go for a walk in normal times, but our village - which is pretty much the definition of linear, with a road running out through fields to a canal half a mile away - has become much much more popular with walkers and runners now the gyms are closed, and family groups now the schools are closed, that we tend to avoid them. Fridays are an exception as I work a short day so we’re walking around 2pm.

There’s not a lot I can do to mix up the routine, as we’re working normal office hours, just remotely, and there are still a number of people at the factory each day working normally.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm not sure I agree with all this "keep cool at home" advice.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jun/24/ditch-the-fan-how-to-stay-cool-when-home-working-in-a-heatwave
1. Don't take your socks off. Just don't put them on!
2. Not much point closing curtains unless the sun is actively shining through that window. So if the window faces west and it's morning, east and it's afternoon, or north and it's any time at all, leave the curtains open to aid the breeze.
3. Tea is hydrating. Mint tea doubly so.
4. Salad and cold foods definitely but not exclusively.
5. Rather than a bottle of water next to a fan, a damp cloth draped over it. Ceiling fans are more effective than desk fans and in some ways more effective than air conditioning, but you haven't got one cos you don't live in a place that needs one.
6 and 7. Well, obvo. But it probably is hotter outside.
8. A  bike ride is better, of course.
9 and 10. Yes, if you can work like that.

And the photo: no, no, no! Do not keep your bike in the kitchen, it will get sticky!

[citoyen]

I moved my 'office' to a different part of the house yesterday. Previously, my desk was at the ENE-facing front of the house, so it gets the full morning sun but then gets a bit gloomy in the afternoon. Now I'm at the back of the house, with a WSW view. Yesterday afternoon, it got unbearably hot with the full sun blazing away. I did have the windows fully open but they open inwards so it's not possible to have them open with the curtains closed.

I disagree with the not getting dressed thing. It's important to maintain a distinction between 'home' and 'work', and getting up and getting dressed properly are part of helping to enforce that distinction. I've been impressed with my son, who has just started his new teacher training course this week - it was supposed to be a residential course in Leeds but is now all online. He has been getting up and getting properly dressed every morning before starting work. He's even been wearing a shirt!

My new desk position has a view over the field behind the house. There's a scarecrow in the middle of the field, and I do a double take every time I look up and it catches my eye. Quite unnerving!

On the salads thing, of course cold food is better on hot days, but don't eat too much lettuce - it will make you fall asleep, as anyone who has read Beatrix Potter will know.

10 is sound advice. Unfortunately my work requires me to be available during normal office hours.

[orienteer]

Report on teleworking harassment in Japan here:

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200624/p2a/00m/0na/015000c

Haven't heard of similar here, is it just being kept quiet?

[ian]

My office (on a mostly N-S axis) is relatively cool in the morning, the sun has already moved around the side. Where it will spend the rest of the day turning it into a small oven, because all three walls are exposed. On the plus side there's a big patio door and windows on the front. I could sit on the balcony but to be honest, it usually feels a bit cooler indoors, and I know the moment I relocate outside the never-ending-building works will start up some kind of enormous power tool or start grinding rocks. I have a desk fan and well, 32 degrees is freezing in the US.

It gets even hotter upstairs as heat rises and the Asbestos Palace is a solid 60s era chunk of brick, with cavity wall filling, a fully insulated loft, and a layer of wood cladding. That is, of course, where my wife's office is. If I were her, I'd relocate to the patio.