Today, I was told not to expect to return to my NYC office for 4-5 months...

[brooklynite]

...by which time it might be recommended to work at home again.

[First Speaker]

1. ...yeah...just in time for the Second Wave...

...that sounds like the title of a bad 60s sci-fi film, doesn't it? Oh well...this whole year 2020 has been like living in a bad sci-fi film...

[BatteriesNotNeeded]

2. do you get to work from home?

[brooklynite]

8. For the past two months, yes.

[lunatica]

3. Everyone I know who has been working from home because of the virus

Is happy with it and hopes it will continue.

They don’t miss their cubicles at all.

[Coventina]

11. I miss my office like a missing limb.

I had a strict work/home split.

All my work stuff was at work.

I have a tiny home of less than 1000 sq. ft.

My husband and I are both working from home now, and we are almost to the point of divorce, because we have very different working styles and have to share a tiny space and very limited bandwidth.

I'm miserable and can't wait to get back.

on edit: typo

[Tipperary]

13. You are not on a ventilator fighting for your life.

Perspective is everything.

[Coventina]

15. WTAF? I was replying to a comment that the paradigm shift should be permanent.

Of course I am fine with doing the right thing for public health and safety right now. I wouldn't dream of doing anything else.

Good grief!

[The Magistrate]

22. Some People Just Enjoy Being Outraged, Ma'am

Can't live without it, and fabricate it for themselves if at some given moment the world doesn't seem to provide cause in sufficient supply....

[Coventina]

24. Thank you, sir!

You're good people!

[Hortensis]

25. I can certainly at least somewhat imagine your problems

and really sympathize.

Far, far, FAR less cause related to the location of my otherwise functional home work space once bothered me immoderately, and no amount of trying to "be-sensible" it away made me happy to be there. And that's without your genuinely serious complicating factors. At least I got to be alone there and my work took me out and about a good part of the time.

Occurs to me that divorce would be more expensive than, what? Renting a neighbor's extra bedroom?

[lunatica]

14. I can see why it's hard for you

But if you have a solid marriage I hope it all works out! This pandemic is testing everybody.

[Coventina]

16. Yeah, I was overstating it a bit to say we're on the verge of divorce.

But, it was pretty rough going, at first, until we did some serious boundary negotiation.

We're both very fortunate to be still working.

We just don't have enough money to go out and buy a larger house to do it in.

[lunatica]

18. Well there had to be a downside to tiny houses

It looks like you found it!

I think there might be some major changes in housing due to the economic situation from the Coronavirus. The value of real estate might plummet drastically because of the millions of job losses. I don’t think banks are going to benefit from any foreclosures because who wants to suddenly own millions of houses with everyone out of a job? Mortgage modifications and housing prices are going to change. People may be able to afford houses because who’s going to go into dept anymore? No one will be able to afford carrying big debts.

I see big changes coming.

[Coventina]

20. I heartily agree with you on the big changes coming.

It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

And by "interesting" I mean in the Chinese sense of the their adage/curse: "May you live in interesting times."

[lunatica]

21. Well if this isn't ground zero of interesting times

I truly fear finding out what is!

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Maybe, just maybe society as a whole, will realize the benefits of working from home now.

Most businesses opposed work at home efforts for they feel like employees needed to be monitored to ensure that in fact, they are working (and sadly there are some that ruin this work at home concept and instead goof off and not actually work). Because of literally a few bad apples, working at home was/is ruined for a majority of workers. Workarounds can be developed such as weekly show up in person meetings at the office (or somewhere else if needed, etc.).

Being in IT for a long time, it was nice. The bad part was the constant 24x7 computer siren call in case of a system or job failure, especially if you had online and/or batch responsibilities. But it was nice to be able to log in from home, fix the problem(s) (missing file, etc., whatever, and rerun the failed job(s)).

I hope that work at home becomes more prevalent, it is worth it, truly. Just make sure that the 'bad apples' are picked through first, this is a privilege that needs to be earned.

[Skittles]

5. I hate working from home

would be OK if I could do it with one laptop but I have two laptops, four monitors and a hard drive.....and the multiple connections I need are nowhere near as stable at home as they are at work

[ProfessorGAC]

7. I Didn't Like It

At one point a building demo & rebuild cost me an office until the new one was built.
Since I was corporate, not on staff for that site, I was among those asked to work at home.
I'd go in for meetings, and if room was available I'd hang out there.
I needed to be there, IMO.
I needed to see the product, check lab numbers, talk with operators helping on process redesign.
Phone & email wasn't the same.
On top of that, when they moved 2 people into my office, the stuff I boxed got tossed instead of stored.
18 advanced textbooks, 3 diplomas, 14 company awards, & 5 pictures of my wife, gone!
Maybe that clouds my recollection of working from home.

[lunatica]

19. The fix for that would be that your company would

Pay for the equipment you need. They won’t be paying for office space anymore. It’s what usually happens with telecommuting. You use their equipment so they pay.

[SWBTATTReg]

23. And including updating and paying for the data link, that is, make sure that the line/access is...

robust enough to handle the anticipated traffic, and make sure that there are enough adequate port(s) to get into, good response time, handle video calls (for conferences) etc. If you need to have multiple links/multiple devices (I had two devices linked in, one for doing regular IT stuff I did, and the other for getting into client databases that I need to view, to check data or check if online was up aok.

[Coventina]

12. Ugh. I'm miserable and want my office back.

[honest.abe]

6. We were just told to plan to work from home until at least Sept 1.

That was a bit shocking. This is really going to drag out for a long long time.

[SWBTATTReg]

10. Hopefully they'll craft it (the work at home process) where it works as desired. As you can see ...

from the comments, there are a few that didn't like the work at home routine. I certainly can understand the one comment that they needed to be more hands on w/ regard to some of the work product/work processes, an understandable excuse, this would have told me when implementing a work at home process that that particular work product/process wouldn't have been a good candidate for work at home. Not all processes or products are easily transferable to a work at home environment (or at least, more was needed to enhance the home environment to more suitable suit that particular task to be worked on at home.

Good luck, I hope it turns out good for you (the work at home). I was in IT for many years and loved it of course (work at home), I didn't have to get changed into work clothes etc., drive into the data center etc., and fix whatever issues came up. I could do it from home. Of course my original negative (the work computer is always there at home, always!...you do have to break yourself away from it occasionally).

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. It won't be safe while GOPers are in positions of power.

Republicans are hazardous to your health.

The first disease we have to overcome is the Republican disinformation disease.

[kpete]

17. true