Posted on 05/10/2020 8:16:25 AM PDT by DoodleBob
My Company is slowly opening up our clinics again, have been doing telehealth, but the patients need to be seen in person either in home or clinic. me i work on the operations side, all of us are working from home and productive. as long as i work by the schedule work i am productive. and no eta to returning to office.
I already worked from home 90-95% of the time before the Wuhan virus hit. There are accountability systems that work, and there are others that are micromanaging and oppressive.
If someone gives you a deadline, do what you can to meet it. If you’ve scheduled check-in meetings, attend them. This is standard.
The accountability systems that go nanny-state include:
* applications that take snapshots of your computer every 5-15 minutes
* apps that literally check in with you, asking questions or putting in popups to prove you’re paying attention
* bosses that constantly text, call and email to try to micro-manage remotely
Liberals are trying to use Big Tech to implement nanny state controls in the name of public health. Let us know where you are, we care about you. Let us know what you’re saying, posting, feeling, and we’ll give you warnings, feedback and then censor you for the public good.
This is what a maternal dystopia looks like - an over-bearing mother on steroids enabled by artificial intelligence and do-gooder admins.
My productivity is down, but that’s because I’m juggling work with de facto homeschooling of two kids.
I already worked from home 90-95% of the time before the Wuhan virus hit. There are accountability systems that work, and there are others that are micromanaging and oppressive.
If someone gives you a deadline, do what you can to meet it. If you’ve scheduled check-in meetings, attend them. This is standard.
The accountability systems that go nanny-state include:
* applications that take snapshots of your computer every 5-15 minutes
* apps that literally check in with you, asking questions or putting in popups to prove you’re paying attention
* bosses that constantly text, call and email to try to micro-manage remotely
Liberals are trying to use Big Tech to implement nanny state controls in the name of public health. Let us know where you are, we care about you. Let us know what you’re saying, posting, feeling, and we’ll give you warnings, feedback and then censor you for the public good.
This is what a maternal dystopia looks like - an over-bearing mother on steroids enabled by artificial intelligence and do-gooder admins
Liberals have a maternal/female bullying method. They rarely HIT you. But they shame, shun, or engage in reputation demolition. This can often be WORSE than just being slapped.
And they don’t care about the impact this has on the person, because they move on to the next target. There are no limits on modern shaming or online digital lynch mobs because there are no social constraints. Being shamed in the village was constrained because these people had to live with you afterward. They wouldn’t destroy your livelihood, because they’d have to feed you, otherwise.
Now you can have ten thousand strangers competing with each other to be as cruel and damaging as possible.
I’ve been working from home for about 18 years as a software engineer and architect.
There’s lots of aspects, both pro’s & con’s, including the type of work you’re trying to do. There’s also what it means for families.
In the world of software, I believe it is a purely positive one - 99% of what I need to do is on a keyboard, either at work or home. Even meetings aren’t on a phone anymore. We’re now using Microsoft “Teams”, similar to Zoom/WebEx/Skype, where more and more we’re all using video conferencing, not just audio. Although I think COVID-19 is encouraging the use of video as a lot of ‘first time’ customer meetings are not in person. It does mean that you need to be presentable though :) I’m sure you have an image in your minds about what some basement programmer looks like but they’re often not really customer facing. Many people *need* to see others, audio alone is too distant for them. It may not be such an issue for software engineers but many in management like video, at least they can see you’re not on the golf course :)
The ability to avoid 1-2 hrs commuting has obvious benefits, less gas usage, wear & tear on vehicles, etc., but it also enables less eating out. I’d rather put a well built sandwich together at home than drive to Subway or wherever, much cheaper and actually faster. In some State’s, like Michigan, I’ve always appreciated avoiding the ‘winter commute’ - it can be damn dangerous! I wonder how many have wished they hadn’t drove to work that day! Of course this can introduce injury (or worse), leading to loss of productivity, medical bills, etc..
For those with families, especially young children, it can be a a difficult transition. You MUST have a room with a door that you use. When the door is closed you ‘are not at home’. I don’t want to hear that the dish washer is acting up, or the car needs an oil change, or whatever while I’m working. This can take a while for everyone to adjust to.
In general, most companies already have many metrics that they’re using to understand the contributions being made by each employee. Software deadlines don’t get any easier because you’re at home. I can use modeling tools to define architecture and have review meetings with a global team. We can even simulate embedded hardware, write our code and run it in the ‘cloud device’. We often don’t even have to ship hardware around the world. At the management level Microsoft PowerPoint is king - so these aspects aren’t a problem.
If anything, the really hard part is stopping work. You’re always connected. Your office is only feet away. If I have a thought, an idea, etc., I might want to trigger a team in Europe when they start work in the morning, hours ahead of me. If I wait until my morning, it’s their afternoon already. My boss is on the west coast, so I’ve often calls that go into my early evening. This is so distant from when I started my career in the early ‘90s. Once you leave work the day was done. No smartphones or email, besides, even if you wanted to work longer there’s nobody else around if you need to discuss something. That’s all gone, so even though you don’t have the commute, they’re getting more of your time for actual work.
Possibly the single worst aspect of working from home is getting to know people, especially if you’re new to a company. Meeting people at the lunch table, talking about totally off-topic issues having nothing to do with work builds relationships. People tend to help those they know. It’s harder to foster a good cooperative team spirit when people don’t know each other well and work from home. I think this is something they’ll need to get better at as it becomes more common.
Considering the technology is really still in its infancy there’s a lot that can be improved upon. I still think a dedicated white board tablet would help, something where the software is far more advanced than anything I’ve seen to date - and separate from my laptop or desktop - but would still be connected to them.
These changes in the office due to COVID-19 will probably last forever, not for everyone all the time but for many of us most of the time. This may also mean that air travel will never be what it was, will we go back to face-to-face customer meetings at the same level as before? I doubt it. It might also expose the climate lobby. If CO2 rates drop globally any argument, or doom & gloom prediction, they’ve had is pushed out decades. What about parking revenues for cities? Speeding tickets for the police? What will it mean for crime? Break-in rates? What about the auto industry? Will people buy cars less because they’re not wearing them out? Maybe they go from having three cars to two, or one. Then there’s how that might impact road longevity and the need for repairs (again, Michigan!). Maybe the impact won’t be so severe, I’m sure many people & bosses at many businesses will want to return to the office. Although what about the cost of that office space? Even if you believe home office productivity is only 90% of that gained in an office building, does the productivity loss become less than all the office bills? Maybe it depends on the size of the company. Maybe things will only require small adjustments, after all, anyone involved in making physical things must be next to them, along with everyone else.
Time will tell...but some changes will be permanent.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.
It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
By C.S. Lewis
My husband’s office is looking at phased in work-days, having 1/3 of the workforce in twice a week.
My brother’s firm was essential, and his technical work cannot be done remotely. The non-essential staff and those who could work from home did. 80% were not in the office. The manager forced everyone still working in the building to relocate cubicles ... with one cubicle empty between them. This was social distancing plus easy “management by walking around”.
The author of this article is grasping at straws here, supporting micromanagers.
I have worked remote for over 10 years now, and have had no complaints ever. I get more done that I ever did at an office, and I actually put in more time than I would in an office. And, I can be cheaper than an in-office employee, as I don’t have to have an office/cube, a separate desktop computer, parking space, commuting costs, work clothes, lunches out, etc.
For a lot of jobs, companies should have been doing this years ago.
Burn her alive.
“I would quit my gym if they said they were going to publish how many days a week”
I would as well, but I am old fashioned and still think that privacy is important. But the current generation of compliant drones will fall into line quickly.
Not even going to read it. Just by the title, I can tell it’s bullshit written by a moron.
Pfff... amateurs. I try seven times a week.
My job has me on the road at least 2-4 days a week. Even though I live only 35 miles from the office, I rarely darken the door.
Since the lockdown, I’ve been working on a project that I would not have been able to accomplish otherwise.
On Friday, I talked with my boss the first time in at least two months.
He’s got a couple big projects he’s managing that don’t really concern me and knows I don’t need any babysitting.
I’ve been a home office guy for 4-5 years now and don’t think I could ever go back to the office every day.
If I am self employed and working at home I am very productive but it may take 12-18 hours a day. If I work for someone else there is a loss of productivity in an 8 hour day for the majority of tele-workers. Simple as that.
...for senior management to realize the tyrant is not needed...
This. Lots of butt-covering and self-justifying going on by upper middle management. Layoffs are sure to be coming, when the numbers start coming in and companies realize just how bad things are. Middle management grows fat during good times. Upper middle (Senior directors and VPs) is very, very redundant, and a high dollar target that provides little value.
Seen it. Been there. Done that. Seeing it again, in real time.
It’s called focus and discipline.
Been working from for almost 8 years now. I live in Georgia now and the company I work for is in Massachusetts. When I lived in Mass and went into the office each day I found myself less productive than when working from home. The reason was that I had a constant stream of folks walking in to my cubicle asking questions.
Now I get two hours of my life back because of no commuting plus I get far more done. To me its a win win for both parties.
What is a “dev?” What were you kicking on the couch? Is English your second language? Are you in Bombay or Calcutta?
I’m a professional janitor, I clean up other people’s messes... Can’t do that by staying at home...
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