Tag: telecommuting

Half Day

I still have a ton of stuff going on at work, but I also have a half day today (dr. appointment in the afternoon). I’m going to have some time to kill and I want to try and fill it with something more productive than Netflix, although the second season of Black Summer* is out and the reviews are good.

I already started the laundry. I already started the dishes. I already took out the trash. I already made the bed. I already shaved off a week’s worth of facial hair and let me tell you it feels wonderful to not be itchy anymore.

I probably won’t have time for an eye exam. I don’t think I’ll have time to wait in line for a car inspection. If I could guarantee a quick turn around I could definitely do it, but if there’s a line… nope. Maybe I can sneak in a hair cut. That would help. It has been 55 days. 7.8 weeks. I am definitely due. Maybe.

Who am I kidding… I am going to watch stupid Black Summer, aren’t I.

*I watched the first season of Black Summer without knowing what it was. Had I known it was connected to Zombie Nation I would have taken a hard pass, but fortunately the tone of the show wasn’t stupid like Z Nation. Although two of the eight episodes were among the dumbest things I’ve ever subjected myself to. I swear the last two seasons of Fear the Walking Dead are a “hold my beer” response to the episode in the school and the one with the heist. The rest of the season was pretty good though, and a couple of the episodes were great.

Long Day

Didn’t I write something not long about about not writing about work anymore?

Work has been crazy for the last few days and today is no different. Lighten up, universe. So much stuff going on. All reasonable and handleable (is that a word?) but damn, gimme a break!

It’s Loki night. Harry is coming over and we’re going to have hamburgers for dinner and watch the new episode. I haven’t a clue what’s going on in the story but I’m totally into it and can’t wait for work to end so that we can all watch it together. It’s only going to be six episodes and tonight is episode three. Marvel didn’t prepare us for this. We wanted TV series and we’re really just getting movies spread out over a month or so. Okay… I’ll take it.

I really need to get my eyes checked. I don’t know if there will be time this weekend, but I have to do it soon. Jen got a pair of glasses just for use with a computer. I think that’s a good idea. I wanted to get a pair of reading glasses to go along with my progressives. Computer glasses is pretty much the same idea. I want to be able to use the whole lens when I know I’ll be doing up close viewing. I want sunglasses too, but that’s asking too much.

I really want to have a band practice.

Okay. Lunch break is over. Back to work, red head.

Say Uncle

Holy crap.

Yesterday was the work equivalent of getting run over by a bus. Today has been the work equivalent of getting run over by 10 buses. Tomorrow is probably going to be 100 buses.

It’s not bad things at all, it’s just a lot of things all piling on at once. Holy Toledo, eh?

It’s almost time to punch out. Then I have to wait an hour or so for my sister to get here. Then I fill her in on how the day went, give her the pill caddy, and head home. Jen had a pile driver of a day too so we’re probably going to do some professional venting when I get there. It’s all good. I have missed her like crazy today.

Two minutes to quittin’ time. In the immortal words of David Lee Roth, I think the clock is slow.

I forgot Something

I’m working from my parents house today. I have an absolute mountain of work to do, but fortunately I only have one meeting today and it was over by 10:30.

The pandemic sent us all home for a year and a quarter and counting which means we don’t hold meetings in person which means we’re teleconferencing like crazy. I have two tools for this process. A webcam that sits on top of my monitor and a headset mic/headphones that allows me to keep the other end of the conferences private from whoever is home with me, and cut down on ambient noise making it’s way to those on the other end of the line.

After over a year of use, the webcam is dying. It could be the cable or the USB connector, I don’t know. I just know that sometimes the image is a mess. I’ve switched to using the webcam built into my laptop. When I work from my parents house I can use the webcam built into one of the monitors I’m borrowing from my brother’s workstation.

Unlike the webcam, the headset is still firing on all cylinders. When I work at my parents house I bring it with me.

Usually.

I forgot it today.

Muthapussbucket.

I feel naked without it. How quickly we become dependent on little, seemingly insignificant things.

Half Day

I’m at my parents’ house in Tewksbury. About a 17 minute drive from my house. I logged into work about 30 minutes early and now I’m on my lunch break, roughly halfway through the business day.

Any thoughts?

I have a mask that includes a neck strap. I love it. It’s always there. I never have to stop and think about where I put it the last time I took it off. It was around my neck but not on my face when I logged in to my group’s daily meeting. My staff thought it was a bib. It kinda looks like a bib.

I’ve decided that a three monitor setup might be too much for me. I’m not sold on that yet, but I think that might be the case. At home I have a single monitor but it is gigantic. Hijacking my brother’s workspace, his three monitors definitely have more screen real estate than my single monitor, but not nearly as much as you’d think. I initially put my schedule on the left monitor, my email on the right monitor, and then worked on the middle. In theory that is perfect, but in practice I was missing emails because the screen requires me to actually move my head to see it. I moved the email back to the middle and adjusted the windows I was working on so that I could do it in front. Basically reproducing my single monitor from home. I like this.

My mother came over and talked to me as I was waiting for a meeting to start. I was on Zoom with about 10 other people. They asked me if I was trying to talk to them while I was on mute. Nope, just talking to Mom. I don’t know if she gets the telecommuting concept. She seems to, but maybe she just forgot when I told her I was on a meeting. Later, when I wasn’t on a meeting, she walked over and passed me a note. Okay, maybe she does get it. Cool. Thanks, Mom!

There is one thing that I need that I don’t have today and that is a haircut. Soon, my long, flowing red locks. Soon.

Hijack

My brother has been working from my parents house off and on for the last few months. Starting tomorrow I’m going to be doing the same. He has a workspace setup in the dining room that has not one, not two, but three monitors. I told him I was going to hijack it. He said it was okay. I’m test driving it now.

Three monitors might be the most awesomest thing ever.

He mentioned he wants to add a fourth monitor. I think that would require a bigger dining room table, but it sounds good to me! More monitors!

Now I just have to be careful and not break anything. Fingers crossed.

The Stir Crazy Files – Episode 70

This isn’t so much a stir crazy moment as it is a monthly check in. Consider it more like The State of the Lock Down.

Yesterday marked 10 months since the last time I was at my desk in Waltham. Ten. 10. 10 months. Unbelievable. So much for two or three weeks. I keep writing that same thing every month, but it’s true. Harry is half way through his senior year in high school. Bellana is a couple of weeks away from staring her fourth semester in college. Jen and I are still plugging away at working from home. Life inside the house is still going well. Life outside of the house is crashing and burning in spectacularly horrifying fashion. Jen just told me that Massachusetts is sending National Guard troops to Washington, DC. 2021 is a nightmare and it’s only two weeks old.

We binge watched The Queens Gambit and it was every bit as riveting as you’ve heard. The first Disney+ Marvel series, WandaVision, premiers tomorrow. I just read they are releasing two episodes, which means I probably won’t be caught up before work in the morning. Wonder Woman ’84 was probably not as bad as most people are saying, but it wasn’t very good. I’ve seen Pedro Pascal in three roles now. He was outstanding in Game of Thrones. He is perfect in The Mandalorian. He was horrendously awful in Wonder Woman. What the hell happened? As for Diana, wishing for her lost love? The goddess who hangs everything on some man? I don’t buy it. It’s clear what she would have wished for. She would have wished to be able to go home. Whatever. Bellana and I started watching The Stand. My favorite book by my favorite author (arguably, it’s either him or Clive Barker) has been turned into a television series and… we’re a few weeks behind now, but it’s not that good. Cobra Kai season three is out there but we haven’t started it yet. Bellana’s not interested so we’re holding off until she goes back to school at which time Jen and Harry and I will likely binge the whole season in a day.

Our Christmas decorations are down and put away. Everything except the lights outside. We had originally agreed to leave those up until inauguration day. Now we’re joining up with a little movement one of our local hospitals is pushing to leave them on for the month of January in honor of those risking their lives to fight Covid-19. Absolutely. We are on board.

One of our cars has it’s check engine light on. I am assuming it’s something to do with air leaking into the gas line, but messing with the gas cap hasn’t helped. It’s low on gas right now so hopefully it will resolve when I fill it again. Unfortunately the car also has an expired inspection sticker and I just don’t want to risk exposure for it. The other car doesn’t expire for a couple of months. That one had tire pressure warnings so I did go to a gas station to top them off. I didn’t run into anyone. It was safe.

Obligatory thank yous to folks on the ground from amazon and grubhub and instacart. You’re all helping to keep my family safe and I will never stop appreciating it.

Jen and I are still lighting candles in every room in the house for no reason at all. Amazon just delivered a big box of fresh supplies. We’ll be telecommuting by candle light for a while longer.

I’m really tired of all of this crap. The upside is that we’re about a week away from having an actual government Covid-19 response plan. It’s probably too late, but maybe it will straighten out the bullshit we’re seeing with vaccine distribution so far. Fingers crossed.

Mostly, fingers crossed that this ends soon.

The Worst Part of Telecommuting

Telecommuting is pretty great. You get to work from home. It’s nice. Covid-19 has put us onto a nine-months-and-counting telecommuting streak, but it’s cool. No traffic. Jeans and sneakers. Able to have dinner with my family every night. Sweet.

There’s only one downside. I’m dealing with it right now.

My wife is on the other side of the house getting caught up on The Mandalorian. She’s down to the last couple of episodes in season one.

The downside of telecommuting is I can hear the TV in the distance but I can’t sit and watch it with her.

I would really like to go watch it with her. I cannot though. I must work. This is the way. Damn it.

Work Week #1 – Wrap Up

I haven’t read the news yet today.  Has Massachusetts upgraded from Social Distance to Shelter in Place?  That was the rumor going around yesterday.  I don’t think it makes any real difference as far as how we’ve been riding things out goes.  The only thing they could do to mess us up is restrict traffic over the state line.  That would be a major problem for us.  We live in Massachusetts.  The kids’ dad lives in New Hampshire.  We have to be able to travel back and forth.  I’m not going to worry about that today.

So how did the first week at home go as far as work is concerned?  It went okay.  Our upper management suggested we have regular check ins with our staff, and to have the group as a whole meet as often as possible.  We already do that.  Daily check in meetings for the entire group and weekly one on one check ins have been in place for a couple of years now.  I feel like I am way ahead of that particular curve.  My manager did not have regular check ins with his directs so he set up quick, full group check ins for every other day.

It’s all about trying to make us feel connected.  As it is, there are only two days a week when my entire group is in the same building at the same time.  We all telecommute, some of the guys telecommute twice a week.  We have a guy who works in a different building a couple of days a week.  On Tuesdays I’m the only one in the building.  On Thursdays none of us are in the building.  Despite that, I never got the sense that we were disconnected.  This week?  I felt it a little.  I can’t say exactly why, but maybe it was just something in tone of everyone’s voice during the daily meetings.  Maybe it was just me and I was projecting it onto everyone else.

Productivity didn’t go down as far as I could see.  For me personally, I spent more time with my hands on the code than I have in a while.  I did have one miscommunication with another group’s supervisor, but it was a timing thing and it had nothing to do with everyone being at home.  One quick email resolved it and all was well.  No worries at all.  I did have to shoot down a request from another group.  I brought my manager into the discussion, and he told me later that he fully intended to back me up, but a manager from another group stepped in and beat him to it.  I had all sorts of people agreeing with my downer of a decision.  I felt nice and validated.

That doesn’t mean the whole thing wasn’t super weird though.  Thursday is my usual telecommuting day.  This week literally every day felt like Thursday.  Even as I was signing out for the day on Friday I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around the fact that I wouldn’t be driving to the office the next day.  Today is Saturday and I still woke up at the same time I do on a work day.  That isn’t uncommon, but today when I woke up I had to wrack my brain for a while (0.68 seconds) to figure out what day it was and what I needed to do.

I am worried about my family’s health.  Not just physical but mental too.  I can’t control if any of us catch the bug, and statistically speaking it’s a safe bet that at least three of us will, but I can try and help with how everyone handles this mess.  I need to stay positive in the hopes that I can help to keep everyone else positive.  I can’t lose my temper… ever.  The stress level world wide right now is insanely high and am nervous that my temper’s fuse is now really short.  I cannot cannot cannot lose it.  I have to pay close attention not only to what I say to people, but how I say it.  I can’t snap.  I can’t sound pissy.  I can’t be anything other than cool and supportive.  Everyone is having a hard time with this and I need to be the rock, if I can.  Not The Rock because I don’t like wrestling and I really don’t like his acting, but just a rock.  Dig?

Okay, I am getting silly now.  It’s time to click publish.

  • Stay safe
  • Stay healthy
  • Wash Your Damn Hands
  • Keep your cool
  • Keep your focus at work
  • Don’t let it bring you down, it’s only castles burning.  Just find someone who’s turning, and you will come around. (N. Young, 1971… I think?)