companies allowing work from home

[cookiedough]

well both my company today and wife's company yesterday will allow work from home thru at least March 31st.    All 20 of my dept except us 3 in my mini-dept within the major dept. (specialized) are going to work from home except for one that must be in the office at all times.   2 of us 3 in our mini dept. either does not have internet at home (she is very old school not needing internet) and the other has way too slow of internet to allow good connection with any type of speed.  I have 10 megs which drops if 2 of us are on at same time to only 3-6 meg speed not really capable of working from home with much efficiency, plus our banking website was told will NOT work from home which is 25% of my job plus needing a printer but I guess the other 2 in my mini dept. while in the office can do the printing even though my job to do some of it.

Plus,  cheapo company not even giving us a company laptop expect us to use our own computers/laptops.  I am NOT pounding my brand new laptop keyboard keying all day long ruining it since just paid 400 bucks for it few months ago. 

I sure hope the big wigs are in the building tomorrow asking us 3 why still in the office when 75+ and more are staying home?  I will say to the big shot all my job duties are unable to do at home as well as not given a company laptop and too slow of internet speed to be effective and do not want to get yelled at for not keeping up with the workload as has been done in the past because of 1 of my slower co-workers who is near 1/2 my speed doing 1/2 of what I can do daily.  My boss keeps telling me that issue of too slow coworker is being documented but when I ask what will be done about it boss does not not say and been going on over 1 year now.   

If this virus crap working at home lasts come April 1st am going to be working from home doing 1/2 of what I can do while at work and if any grief,  F em!        They said for sure thru end of March which is only 8 more days and 1 of those days am taking off work so can deal with 7 days at work but not any longer especially since you know the other 75+ employees will not be nearly as effective at home working as in the office.

big shot in company meeting gave us a B.S. talk to all staying at home not mandatory but highly recommended this is troubling times where cash flow is very restricted and hard times for the company so we all must work diligently super hard while at home.  Basically stating the company is going down the tubes sales are minimal (as to be expected with this virus BS) and wanna bet come April or May when yearly raises come around they will make that as an excuse to give us a piddly 1% or lower raise when my boss told me for over 1 year now if I continue doing super excellent work a one time bonus is very probable.  All talk NO action 

[Savago]

I wrote about the subject (i.e. working from home) around 7 years ago:
https://savago.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/considerations-on-home-office/

My 2cs, as I have a few years of experience working from home and feel free to take it or not.

Considering that we may be entering into a recession and that quite a few folks are simply unemployed (or soon to be) as we speak right now (i.e. taxi drivers, hotel employees, restaurant workers, etc), if it was me, I would take this as an opportunity and do my best to be productive and show to the upper management that you (not mattering the other guys who are slacking) can perfectly well work from home and deliver good results.

Yeah, it sucks the company is cheap and won't provide you a work laptop. But my guess is that your monthly salary is worth more than the 400 bucks you paid on the laptop?

Good luck.
 

[Wizzard]

I worked from home for a couple of years. Its not what its cracked up to be. I have found that generally if you take care of your job, your job will take care of you.

[scooperhsd]

I have done the work at home, but when I really needed to in the last job, I had 100 Mbps cable internet. Mostly, the work I was doing at home (email admin) , with the contract / customer I was with  - even in the office was like working at home (adding softphone over PC for office use). What I really missed when I worked from home was the socialization aspect. I added my own keyboard /mouse (I've always disliked touchpads for work) and having the external keyboard made it just like the office PC (or using my laptop at the office). I also added an external monitor (2 and sometimes even 3 is what it takes in the modern office).

[Willow]

I worked from home twice per week the last several years of my employment.  The last few years I worked exclusively from home.  During that time the team with whom I worked was in Arkansas, Washington, Kansas and India.  While working exclusively from home I did miss the face to face time and socialization in the office.

Working from home saved me commuting time and expense.  It saved the company the cost of maintaining and office for me.  It was a win - win.

[cookiedough]

I wrote about the subject (i.e. working from home) around 7 years ago:
https://savago.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/considerations-on-home-office/

My 2cs, as I have a few years of experience working from home and feel free to take it or not.

if it was me, I would take this as an opportunity and do my best to be productive and show to the upper management that you (not mattering the other guys who are slacking) can perfectly well work from home and deliver good results.

Yeah, it sucks the company is cheap and won't provide you a work laptop. But my guess is that your monthly salary is worth more than the 400 bucks you paid on the laptop?

Good luck.
 

shoot,   I could be as productive at home working as my co-worker who shares same jobs daily sitting reclined in my lazyboy recliner, feet up,  watching TV, drinking a wine cooler with one hand and keying on my laptop with the other.  boss and bosses boss and all know I do near 2x's the workload daily yet boss admits it but does nothing about it the last year.  co-worker is older, set in her ways, cannot multi-task, and has to talk the numbers she has to  10-key OUT LOUD to herself but if you walk by her you would think she is talking to someone but with numbers not words.  I know she has a mental disorder of some sort causing this but yet she is still employed somehow at 50% capacity of most others.   Even now in our newly formed 1 on 1 mtg with boss each month I have the past 1 month put down in writing me doing 70% workload every single day as accomplishments and can be proven by all that we file away daily with my writing on it all vs. hers.   All my boss says in reply the past 1 year is she knows it has been going on forever (coworker there 3 years now near 2's longer than me) and is being dealt with and documented to higher ups, but when I ask her what will be done about it,  she says nothing in return, meaning to me nothing EVER will be done all talk NO action.

As far as social interaction in the office being missed,  think again...        A good day in the office is when I do not have to hear my useless to me boss talk to us or hear her voice at all speak        Or my slower co-worker ask me the same stupid questions over and over and over again telling her the same thing again and again on how to do stuff even telling her, as my boss suggested to me,   'see your notes'  of which she has the notes since we went over the same things dozens of times.  How hard is it to FILE/SAVE AS/  to the G: DRIVE, etc, etc, extension that she has written down word for word in her notes?      

As far as monthly salary worth more than my 400 laptop,  think again....     Found out in the past 1 year there was 3 others prior to me doing my job none lasted more than 6 months stated same things I just said: lack of pay for all workload done while slower co-worker gets away with it.   

Prior to this job,  I had 12 years at prior job dealing with similar co-worker, except at least the one I have now actually tries to do work but is just plain slow impossible to pick up speed.  The lady prior job was on internet and on her cell phone 5 of the 8 hour day EVERY day and ALL knew about it including our bosses and guess who got her workload done for her since yet again,  we shared same job duties.   One night I finally blew up literally had enough emailed both my bosses/mgr. said you all know she has a rap sheet 6 inches tall on complaints and we need a meeting.  Came in the next day,  talked to both bosses told them both what happened prior night and said I give my 2 weeks notice NOW unless very soon that worthless P.O.S. is out of our office after her being there 20 years or so getting away with murder.  BOTH bosses knew I was not fibbing knowing they needed me,  so within 1 month that useless lady was out of our office and guess what,  the new boss she had fired her for same goofing off few months later her out on the street as she deserved 20 years ago.   

[Wizzard]

I worked from home twice per week the last several years of my employment.  The last few years I worked exclusively from home.  During that time the team with whom I worked was in Arkansas, Washington, Kansas and India.  While working exclusively from home I did miss the face to face time and socialization in the office.

Working from home saved me commuting time and expense.  It saved the company the cost of maintaining and office for me.  It was a win - win.

No doubt there are situations where it works. But its being used to widely in my opinion.

[Wizzard]

I wrote about the subject (i.e. working from home) around 7 years ago:
https://savago.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/considerations-on-home-office/

My 2cs, as I have a few years of experience working from home and feel free to take it or not.

if it was me, I would take this as an opportunity and do my best to be productive and show to the upper management that you (not mattering the other guys who are slacking) can perfectly well work from home and deliver good results.

Yeah, it sucks the company is cheap and won't provide you a work laptop. But my guess is that your monthly salary is worth more than the 400 bucks you paid on the laptop?

Good luck.
 

shoot,   I could be as productive as my co-worker who shares same jobs daily sitting reclined in my lazyboy recliner, feet up,  watching TV, drinking a wine cooler with one hand and keying on my laptop with the other.  boss and bosses boss and all know I do near 2x's the workload daily yet boss admits it but does nothing about it the last year.  co-worker is older, set in her ways, cannot multi-task, and has to talk the numbers she has to  10-key OUT LOUD to herself but if you walk by her you would think she is talking to someone but with numbers not words.  I know she has a mental disorder of some sort causing this but yet she is still employed somehow at 50% capacity of most others.

As far as monthly salary worth more than my 400 laptop,  think again....

Sounds like you need to change jobs.

[Serk]

It's been around a decade now since I had to work in an office with other people; I've gone mostly feral, not so sure I could handle that again...

Although with the kids all home with school closed, I'm getting close to this point:

[Jess from VA]

My G job authorized work from home some years before I retired. (3 of 5 days)

My job was always boring, very tedious and stressful, and usually distasteful.

I did not want that in my home, so I kept the bad mojo at work, and left it behind at the end of the day.

Even saving on the commute time and expense did not make it worth it.

We affectionately called our workplace the penitentiary. (and it was worse inside)

[Bighead]

Damn tough to do surgery from home. Just sayin

[Willow]

Damn tough to do surgery from home. Just sayin

True.  Practicality depends entirely upon the job.  I was I.T. support at the operating system level.  I could do my surgery remotely.   

[Serk]

Damn tough to do surgery from home. Just sayin

It's getting closer with the likes of Da Vinci and friends.....

And.....

[Bighead]

Damn tough to do surgery from home. Just sayin

It's getting closer with the likes of Da Vinci and friends.....

And.....

Not as close as you think.

[cookiedough]

[/quote]

Sounds like you need to change jobs.
[/quote]

nah,  I like my job darn good at it and like keeping busy each 8 hour day feels like 3-4 hours there time flies, really too busy daily though.  No need to change job, just get new boss and bosses boss and co-worker and all new mgmt. is all.   

I get along with everyone else I deal with in our dept. they are mostly long term employees and most know what they are doing and very responsive to anything needed in a timely manner.       

[cookiedough]

It's been around a decade now since I had to work in an office with other people; I've gone mostly feral, not so sure I could handle that again...

Although with the kids all home with school closed, I'm getting close to this point:

yah agree,  not so sure I could work from home with younger kids at home now that most schools are closed due to the virus.  I do not see how anyone really could especially say ages 10 and under.   Depending on the child,  age 11-12 they can pretty much take care of themselves, right?  In theory anyways...   

[cookiedough]

I worked from home twice per week the last several years of my employment.  The last few years I worked exclusively from home.  During that time the team with whom I worked was in Arkansas, Washington, Kansas and India.  While working exclusively from home I did miss the face to face time and socialization in the office.

Working from home saved me commuting time and expense.  It saved the company the cost of maintaining and office for me.  It was a win - win.

No doubt there are situations where it works. But its being used to widely in my opinion.

I think working from home is a great idea as long as the company supports the employee providing the necessary tools to do the jobs needed to get done,  saving company costs of maintaining an office space which is so limited most places nowadays being cramped in like sardines.  I also think if not necessary to work say 8-5 normal business hours,  employers should be more flexible as in my job working say from home a full 8  hour day but not necessarily 8-5 hours as long as the work gets done and honest about working 8 full hours. 

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next 2 weeks since bosses boss said to all working from home the times logged in will be monitored for all and if not logged in (timed out) for say 45 minutes to do laundry or whatever will be dealt with (meaning fired)  You know for sure some will abuse it and just use a few keystrokes every 5 minutes or so just to keep logged in not timed out.  As far as me,  I can key very, very slowly at home doing exact same workload as my slower co-worker and technically we fall way behind in our dept. in one week and technically they cannot say a word about it right since we are equals, right?   

[baldo]

[NewValker]

Hey Bob, they let you bring work home huh?   

Craig

[Skinhead]

Looks like you need to make more coffee...

[cookiedough]

Looks like you need to make more coffee...

yah,  unfortunately a lot of jobs cannot work from home if needed in the warehouse or some office settings or going outside on the job to places to do work.     What you going to do for deliveries from UPS/FED EX like my other previous job?  Put a sign out at the delivery dock stating sorry,  come back later working from home due to virus?  You cannot do inventory and receive product in without having the product delivered and sitting on the dock now can you?  

Am sure my Accounts Receivable dept. calling customers up is loving it.  The customers all call in mostly to the front desk where I work and then get transferred to AR dept.  If NO ONE in AR dept,  then they mostly do not make or take collection calls and from what I get out of a few of them working from home since NO company phone,  they are NOT going to use or giving out their cell phone numbers to collection customers since like said, our company is too darn cheap to do the right thing giving people company paid phones.   I have to print out about 100 sheets of paper per day on average and without a printer at home provided by my company,   how long do you think the ink in my 30 dollar inkjet at home will last?  Yah,  our company wants us to work from home, but idiots in charge including my boss and bosses boss who do not do the actual work and do not know how to do it yet somehow became our bosses, expects us to all work from home.    

I find it interesting that where I work the 4 lowest paid, lowest level workers, who actually do the most daily work being me and 3 other ladies one grade level below the rest in our dept. are actually coming into work.  The rest except for 1 are 'supposedly' going to work from home, yah right...    Would you make collection calls or take customer calls on your personal cell phone?  I would not and would expect company paid phones for all to use.

[baldo]

Hey Bob, they let you bring work home huh?   

Craig

Not yet....and I'm not sure how my wife would feel about this.....

It would just be another vehicle in the driveway......

[baldo]

Looks like you need to make more coffee...

Yes, it would certainly help...

I don't know why that guy needs a flashlight. You start to find things when you do that.....

[0leman]

In visiting with my youngest who works in a lab job for the DEA last night, the idea of working from home is interesting.   Not sure how they are going to do that kind of jobs at home.   

My oldest hubby has MS, and is working from home now.  He does IT work for the local hospital and can do most of his work from home (with his two teenage sons and wife).

The last 10 years of my 40 with the Gov, I was a IT type person.  Lots of hands on work.  Though when one of the other offices, 2 hour away, lost their IT person, I did most of the work on their system/computers while sitting at my desk.  Once a week visited that office in person.  After nearly a year they hired a new IT person.   Sure took a load off me.

[RP#62]

Looks like you need to make more coffee...

Yes, it would certainly help...

I don't know why that guy needs a flashlight. You start to find things when you do that.....

He's probably looking for his 10mm socket.

-RP

[baldo]

Looks like you need to make more coffee...

Yes, it would certainly help...

I don't know why that guy needs a flashlight. You start to find things when you do that.....

He's probably looking for his 10mm socket.

-RP

LOL....well, it IS an Airbus.....

[Crackerborn]

Not yet....and I'm not sure how my wife would feel about this.....

It would just be another vehicle in the driveway......

I'm confident I have no desire to shovel your drive after a nice fresh wave of #$#* snow falls if you can park an airbus in it.

[baldo]

Not yet....and I'm not sure how my wife would feel about this.....

It would just be another vehicle in the driveway......

I'm confident I have no desire to shovel your drive after a nice fresh wave of #$#* snow falls if you can park an airbus in it.

I couldn't agree more. We've been very lucky with minimal snow this year....

[Reb]

I've been trying to avoid the working from home, put ultimately have been pushed to start working from home come Monday.

My company is allowing us to take monitors, keyboards, headsets, home as they have encouraged the social distancing. I'm fortunate enough to do 80% of my job remotely, Our company VPN is getting overloaded so my production output has gone to hell.

Luckily I have plenty of restoration projects in the garage to maintain my sanity during quarantine 2020 

[Skinhead]

I've been trying to avoid the working from home, put ultimately have been pushed to start working from home come Monday.

My company is allowing us to take monitors, keyboards, headsets, home as they have encouraged the social distancing. I'm fortunate enough to do 80% of my job remotely, Our company VPN is getting overloaded so my production output has gone to hell.

Luckily I have plenty of restoration projects in the garage to maintain my sanity during quarantine 2020 

Yeah Reb, I'm slowly getting Lazurus back together while work/monitoring what is going on at work.  It beats just surfing facebook like I'd be doing if I actually was at work.

[Crackerborn]

Luckily I have plenty of restoration projects in the garage to maintain my sanity during quarantine 2020 

Just snagged another softail to keep me busy since I have had most of my upcoming work cancel on me. I won't keep it, strictly a flip project. I stripped the IS down to the frame (motor and trans still in the frame) again last week to chase an electrical issue that has been ongoing. It looks like I may have to copy Bon's direct wire harness for the headlights.

The big issue around here with everyone working from home, suddenly there isn't enough bandwidth.

[cookiedough]

yep,  VPN, Citrix,  bandwith, etc. is straining as well at work 1st day most stayed home.  I emailed a few and said going o.k., but slower, so productivity will decrease that is a given. 

I guess could be worse my daughter just quit her job at Target being part time about 1 month ago got a job in a daycare facility.  At first a few weeks ago they were allowing school age kids to come in so she was buried and overloaded with kids age 3 thru grade school.  Now that most companies are allowing work from home,  most of the kids are now gone went from 9 kids to ONLY 1 kid yesterday so she is afraid she being really new might get laid off and that is NOT good when have apt. bills to pay, etc.   She went from being super happy working near 40 hour weeks to very depressed might not have a job much longer laying her off.     NOT good at all am sure is like that all over though in certain job fields.   

[The emperor has no clothes]

I wonder if I can get an Uber to deliver to the store ?

[scooperhsd]

As I stated a few days ago - PREPARE FOR INTERNET STRESS TEST.

Wife and me just spent a couple hours messing around with her work computer, the software that runs the phone system, and the Voip connected phone figuring out how it's going to work together. We think we have it going ok...

[John Schmidt]

I worked from home once back in the late 60's. She's now 51, name's Toni. I think it was supposed to be a lunch break. 

[Valkorado]

As I stated a few days ago - PREPARE FOR INTERNET STRESS TEST.

Wife and me just spent a couple hours messing around with her work computer, the software that runs the phone system, and the Voip connected phone figuring out how it's going to work together. We think we have it going ok...

Already seeing my 'net based TV buffering a bit.

[Valkorado]

As I stated a few days ago - PREPARE FOR INTERNET STRESS TEST.

Wife and me just spent a couple hours messing around with her work computer, the software that runs the phone system, and the Voip connected phone figuring out how it's going to work together. We think we have it going ok...

Already seeing my 'net based TV buffering a bit.

YouTube and Netflix to reduce streaming quality to stop internet from breaking

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-youtube-and-netflix-to-reduce-streaming-quality-to-stop-internet-from-breaking-11960725

[Oss]

I am simply impressed Bob can tell that is an airbus

[Wizzard]

you hear about the ISIS terrorist that blew himself and 10 members of his family up?
He was working from home.

[cookiedough]

Just now I was going to consider installing the citrix receiver on my new 400 laptop but decided against it.  If my company wants me to work from home I will not ruin my new laptop since I buy one new every 10 years or so (my old windows vista one still works but keys falling off, etc.).  Others are bringing eqmt. home from work,  but I am not high enough on the corporate ladder to get a laptop or docking station. 

Will see how work in office one more week goes since my boss told me to come in needed to do my job 100% vs. only able to do 50-60% tops at home after finding out certain things unable to do at home due to shitty IT dept. there of course.  MY boss also today just told me if this stay at home B.S. keeps up a few more weeks and her collections team cannot drum up cash collecting since NO ONE paying right now  (my boss called someone from California today and that person told her abruptly to F. off) ,  that mgmt. might be thinking of laying people off.   

Recession is a comin if people are not going to work soon sometime in early April at full 100% capacity ending this cluster F mess...

Where my wife works we know one lady who works in a lab doing testing full time at work only, pretty boring job.  They somehow are sending her home to work, but how and on what?   If her job requires her to be in the lab at all times testing,  what can she do at home?  Wait to get laid off?    Same way if I was employed at my former job doing receiving on the dock and warehouse unloading and receiving in FEd EX and UPS, etc. deliveries daily some 20-100 pkgs. being delivered everyday me doing it all: unloading, unpacking, labeling, counting, receiving into computer, stacking, re-boxing, transporting, scanning, and putting product up to proper locations dry, freezer, cooler, working 12 hour days daily since ONLY ONE doing it for a larger company really needing 3 full time people.  Atter I left,   I heard they hired 3 people to replace me and one good longer term employee left as well, guess they should have paid me better to begin with?     My bosses boss at that former place day before I left told me if ever want to come back do not hesitate to call him up to come back, but if so,  will be one heck of a lot more in pay knowing what I know now starting there being backlogged over 6 months on the dock piled sky high no joke was a cluster F when first started there, will see?        I may consider it depending on what develops soon since my former poddy mouth boss there finally got his butt fired long long overdue he was a piece of garbage came in daily 10 a.m. left 3 p.m. taking 1 hour lunch or more daily never worked an 8 hour day in his life all while bringing in HUGE bucks being salaried.  One of my former co-workers there still told me he somehow B.S. his way and  got a job 2 weeks after getting fired there but is now 'supposedly' working from home full time with 2 very young unruly kids at home.  LIke him working from home with 2 under age 5 kids he gets much done, bet zippo nothing done but goofing off with his kids.