October 21, 2022 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Remote Remote Work
October 21, 2022 at 12:55 pm
I hope you're right, Steve. The pandemic showed that people can get their jobs done in any location, with appropriate connectivity. I've been working from home (WFH) since March 2020 and am very thankful for it. But my employer isn't flexible enough to allow their employees to work from anywhere other than their homes and not to work any time other than normal business hours. I'm sure I'm not the only one, others work for employers who, even if they let you WFH aren't flexible in letting you work different hours or at a coffee shop nearby. Since March 2020 I've become extremely interested in the various phases of remote work. I know of some companies who've worked out the details so people can work different hours and communicate asynchronously. And others that are flexible concerning where you work. There's just lots of companies/organizations which aren't able or willing to consider anything other than what was true of the factory floor in the 1970s. I know that we've lost good people because of this inflexibility, as some of my colleagues had to prioritize nursing sick family members with COVID over making 9 AM meetings.
I hope that as the nature of work changes, others will learn to adapt.
Rod
October 21, 2022 at 2:38 pm
I have been working from home full-time since mid-2019, but I almost never work from other locations because as you said, the ergonomic issues are a big problem. I did do this a couple of times voluntarily though, and brought my external monitors, etc. with me. It was OK for a few days, but I missed my chair a lot.
At this job, and others before it where working from home was not allowed, I received special permission to work from my wife or a friend or relative's hospital room, enabling me to be with them to support them and supplement the nursing staff by getting them snacks and water and ensuring that food and drug allergies are respected when they are unable to do so for themselves, while still working 6 - 8 hours per day for as long as two weeks at a time. It saved me from having to take a lot of leave. Many hospitals have chairs or couches in the rooms that can convert to a small bed, which in one case enabled me to stay in-room for a week straight, only going home to feed the cat and change clothes and still working a full day every day. Not having external monitors cut down on my productivity, but I was still able to get the essentials done in a timely manner. This, to me, is the true benefit of remote remote working.
October 21, 2022 at 2:49 pm
Working from a coffee shop, even if nearby, doesn't seem to be the greatest place to work from for concentration purposes. And the reason why some companies only want you to work from home is because public WiFi isn't the most secure thing in the world. What a great place to setup a "sniffer".
A part of the reason why companies still want their people to work certain hours is so that you CAN still have meetings and the synergy of being able to pop the ad hoc question and get an immediate answer. Otherwise, if you have, say, 10 people in a group, you'd have 50 different schedules... 1 per person per work day.
Be happy you can work from home. That's a huge "give" by companies compared to prior to March of 2020. People can "give" a little back by actually having some usual predictable work times. Sure, there will be exceptions, just like when people went to the office.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
October 21, 2022 at 2:54 pm
I have been working from home full-time since mid-2019, but I almost never work from other locations because as you said, the ergonomic issues are a big problem. I did do this a couple of times voluntarily though, and brought my external monitors, etc. with me. It was OK for a few days, but I missed my chair a lot.
At this job, and others before it where working from home was not allowed, I received special permission to work from my wife or a friend or relative's hospital room, enabling me to be with them to support them and supplement the nursing staff by getting them snacks and water and ensuring that food and drug allergies are respected when they are unable to do so for themselves, while still working 6 - 8 hours per day for as long as two weeks at a time. It saved me from having to take a lot of leave. Many hospitals have chairs or couches in the rooms that can convert to a small bed, which in one case enabled me to stay in-room for a week straight, only going home to feed the cat and change clothes and still working a full day every day. Not having external monitors cut down on my productivity, but I was still able to get the essentials done in a timely manner. This, to me, is the true benefit of remote remote working.
You, good sir, are truly amazing. I'm sorry for the reason why you had to work from the hospital but I'm glad that you work for a company that understood such things long before the lockdowns. And to still do the work for 6-8 hours per day is amazing.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
October 21, 2022 at 3:25 pm
And the reason why some companies only want you to work from home is because public WiFi isn't the most secure thing in the world. What a great place to setup a "sniffer".
My company enforces use of their Cisco VPN and Zscaler filtering, etc. This is great from a security perspective, and something other companies could do to allow remote access without opening themselves up to sniffers, man in the middle attacks, etc.
However, this is not always great from a productivity perspective because my employer is so very conservative about what they let through, whether I am plugged directly into my home router or using Wi-Fi at home or elsewhere. For example, no DropBox or Google Drive access, YouTube is forced to Restricted Mode (a side effect of which is that I cannot comment on videos that do not declare themselves as safe for all ages), and random technical blogs are blocked for no obvious reason. The VPN also drops occasionally for a few seconds, even when there is no glitch in the Internet connection, forcing me to reauthenticate to my RDP sessions and interrupting my access to any Teams meeting that may be in progress (which at least automatically reconnect once the VPN reconnects). For my personal machine and phone, I subscribe to NordVPN.
It just isn't safe to "remote remote" work without a VPN of some kind, especially when using Wi-Fi pretty much anywhere.
October 21, 2022 at 6:47 pm
When we got our WFH authorization the expectation was made pretty clear. Work from wherever you want and in whatever conditions you want as long as you can meet goals. And the expectation was that other than people not being able to physically find you that your availability would be roughly the same as if you were in office. So responding to emails, chats, phone calls in a timely manner during normal business hours.
October 21, 2022 at 7:01 pm
Spot on an same here. Exceptions have been made (one fellow has to drive his kids to school at a certain time every morning and so is excused from Morning Scrum at 9AM). As one fellow told me, "Working remotely is a great privilege... I don't wanna screw it up".
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
October 21, 2022 at 11:08 pm
Spot on an same here. Exceptions have been made (one fellow has to drive his kids to school at a certain time every morning and so is excused from Morning Scrum at 9AM). As one fellow told me, "Working remotely is a great privilege... I don't wanna screw it up".
I agree with you, Jeff.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
October 21, 2022 at 11:17 pm
Jeff Moden wrote:And the reason why some companies only want you to work from home is because public WiFi isn't the most secure thing in the world. What a great place to setup a "sniffer".
My company enforces use of their Cisco VPN and Zscaler filtering, etc. This is great from a security perspective, and something other companies could do to allow remote access without opening themselves up to sniffers, man in the middle attacks, etc.
However, this is not always great from a productivity perspective because my employer is so very conservative about what they let through, whether I am plugged directly into my home router or using Wi-Fi at home or elsewhere. For example, no DropBox or Google Drive access, YouTube is forced to Restricted Mode (a side effect of which is that I cannot comment on videos that do not declare themselves as safe for all ages), and random technical blogs are blocked for no obvious reason. The VPN also drops occasionally for a few seconds, even when there is no glitch in the Internet connection, forcing me to reauthenticate to my RDP sessions and interrupting my access to any Teams meeting that may be in progress (which at least automatically reconnect once the VPN reconnects). For my personal machine and phone, I subscribe to NordVPN.
It just isn't safe to "remote remote" work without a VPN of some kind, especially when using Wi-Fi pretty much anywhere.
I know what you mean! Once I got used to the idea of WFH I wanted to find out how other remote workers handled sensitive data on their laptop screens. So, I asked around on various remote work groups I'd joined and learned about. I got some great answers. For example, you can get those screen filters which obfuscates the screen unless you're directly in front of it. Others told me of selecting spots in Starbucks or co-working spaces where they'd put their backs to a wall and no one can see your screen without your seeing them come up to you, and other suggestions. Some, like how I would handle it, would only work in a public place if what they're working on didn't have sensitive information. If they had to work on sensitive information, then they would go home to work from there. It can be done, but you must think through what you're working on and what can be done publicly vs. what cannot be done in a public setting. And a VPN is a must.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
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