Tag: remote work

Work Attire

This is more a reminder to myself than anything else.

My company’s hybrid work schedule currently has us working in the office once a week, and working from home four days a week. It’s going to change to two days in the office in March, but that is not relevant today.

Part of the agreement is that if you have something important going on, like a meeting or a training or something, that requires you to be in person, then you may have to be in the office more than once for that week. That’s happening to me this week. I have a meeting tomorrow that requires me to be in the office for the full day. I have another meeting on Wednesday that will require me to be in the office at least half of the day, and I have still another meeting and a training on Thursday that will require me to be in for at least half of that day too.

The thing is… after losing 200 pounds in the last year and a half I have needed to rebuild my wardrobe and… well… I only own two work-appropriate collared shirts. Two shirts… three days… This post is a reminder to myself that I need to do laundry as soon as I get home from work tomorrow, or else I won’t have a shirt to wear on Thursday. I hang dry all of my shirts now so that they won’t shrink, and it usually takes a full day to completely dry. So I need to have tomorrow’s shirt hanging before I go to sleep tomorrow so that it will be thoroughly dry before I leave for work on Thursday.

Damn it. I suppose I could just go buy a third shirt… but I don’t wanna.

Just call me spoiled rotten, I guess.

Hybrid Work Environment

We had an announcement at work today. Starting in March our hybrid work environment is going to be slightly less than the current hybrid. Something like that, at least.

We’re going from four days at home and one day in the office each week to three days at home and two days in the office.

None of us are happy. We’ve been seeing the writing on the wall for a while, but now that the announcement has been made, it’s a huge bummer. We have plenty of time to work out the details (I’m thankful for that, at least) but I would much rather not have to deal with it. If it were up to me we’d be 100% remote.

Oh well.

Packed

I’m in the office today. Not my office but another of my company’s buildings that is 35 miles further from home. The first 10-15 miles of the commute was brutal. After that it was just a matter of trying to go fast enough to make up for some of the lost time. I got to the parking lot with a couple of minutes to spare.

Speaking of the parking lot, I have never seen it this full. Even pre-pandemic, I never saw this place packed the way it is. There is a conference here today. We are not going to it, but we are involved in a couple of things that are sort of related to it. I’m the guy hiding in a conference room, sitting as far away from everyone else, and only removing my mask to consume sustenance.

I really want to go home now.

2.5 Years

I haven’t written one of these in a while. Today is September 13, 2022. Exactly 2.5 years ago we worked in the office. It was a Friday. The following Monday was the first day the whole company worked from home. That makes today the 2.5 year anniversary of the symbolic end of the pre-pandemic era.

2.5 years. Two and a half trips around the sun. Given that we were expecting it to last a couple of weeks, I would say that our expectations were off by a smidgen. We still have not had a case of Covid-19 in the house. We are still also mostly locked down. Coincidence? I have to go in to the office tomorrow afternoon, and all day on Thursday. Thursday is going to include an event with a pretty huge number of people. I am going to mask up and try to stay away from people. Hopefully that will be enough.

Working from home was something that I was pretty unsure of pre-pandemic. I heard of companies that had their staff 100% remote and I thought that was something that wouldn’t work for me. I had a day or two at home at various times in the past, but full time at home? That wasn’t for me.

Now? Now it’s indispensable. Now it’s a requirement. I have to spend a day and a half in the office this week? Outrageous (not really, I’m just being dramatic)! Working without wearing a t-shirt and sneakers? Blasphemy!

Full time(ish) remote hasn’t been without it’s difficulties though. One of the arms on Jen’s super swanky office chair broke today and now we may have to get another one. I gave her my super swanky office chair (which used to be hers anyway) and I am in a less than super swanky chair that is still perfectly fine. The point is, a new chair is an expense that we wouldn’t have to worry about if we were working in our respective company’s offices. That and, you know, electricity and ISP bills and stuff.

Still… working from home is pretty freakin’ sweet and I want to do it for the rest of my career. One upside of the lockdown, I guess.

Now if we could just get rid of the damn virus. We’ll be getting the Omicron specific vaccine as soon as we can.

In the Office

We’re in the office today. I’ve already had two meetings (successfully). Only five more to go today.

Traffic was okay. It took a little more than an hour to go 40 miles. Not as bad as it often is. We’ll see how things look on the way home this evening.

Fingers crossed for a quiet day. I want to get home and see my love. We’re so used to remote work meaning that we can just walk to the next room and say hi that it really blows when that’s not possible.

Oh well. Happy Tuesday.

Monitor Stand

I bought a nice little monitor stand for my desk at work. I’ll be bringing it there tomorrow.

Just after it was delivered we found out we are probably going to be giving up assigned desks in the name of working remotely.

Figures.