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If not for Covid -19 I wouldnt choose to WFH. Im a people person and much prefer to be in the office (even though most of my direct team are based interstate) for easy access to cafe coffee and hallway chit chat with people from other teams. I generally like to keep work and home life separate, and only WFH when i have a tradie coming over to fix/install something or am feeling unwell (but not sick enough for a sickie).
Plus i dont have a home office, so my dining table has become the work desk (dominated by technology) meaning I cant host anyone for dinner.
Thats said, Im very fortunate that I work in technology, for a company that cares about its employees. They were quick to send us home with (or ship) everyone a monitor, keyboard, mouse, headset and docking station to use with their laptops. I think they issued close to 7000 of these WFH kits. I did buy a second monitor (as in the office im used to 2 monitors + laptop screen) , an ergonomic chair and desk mat to protect the table - tax deduction here I come.
Im used to doing a lot of VC because of being based in a different city to majority of my team. Prior to Covid-19 my employers Video Confercing app of choice was My-VMR and it was woeful - very resouce/bandwidth intensive and lacking in features.
After one week of mandatory WFH our IT department implemented Microsoft Teams and the difference in performance has been dramatic and much improved. I have a decent nbn connection, so the perfromance has been good - no buffering or pixilated images, its nice to see who is talking and love that I can check who they are when i do know without them knowing. Teams supports up to 250 attendees so for division meetings it has worked well, and thre raise hand feature is blessing for controlling questions. I used the screen share and chat features heavily too (since teams means we dont have skype anymore).
I have occasional Zoom (have to use the web version as the app doesnt meet security requirments) and Web-Ex meetings with vendors and they are so coughpy compared to the soundand image quality of the teams app.
People were over scheduling though so now there is a mandatory 1 hour from 12:30 -1:30 PM meeting exclusion zone so people can take a break and get out for lunch. Its not my preferred lunch break but it does help, and think it might stay once this is all over.
For me the bigger challenge is loss of incidental exercise, my steps are right down with no walking to meeting rooms or taking the stairs to other floors to see colleagues. And now its a minimum 45 min round trip to get coffee - 20 mins to walk to cafe, 5min wait then 20 min walk back home.
One good trhing about all the VCs is that it forces you to shower and dress each day (even if more casually than one would in the office), it gets me out of my PJs and helps with work mindset.
We hot desk at office, and have a ratio of 2 desks for every 3-4 employees depeding on the location. Physical distancing rules mean we can only use every second desk and would need to allocted a fixed desks - so not everyone wil be able to come back, some sort of roster will be needed. The inablity to use meeting rooms, shared kitchen or collaboration spaces due to excessive cleaning that will be required plus limit of 2 people per lift means until physical distancing restrictions are loosened no one knows when we will get back to the office regualrly. It could take hours to get from foyer to my 18th floor desk! Plus tehre are concerns over crowded public transport.
Employer will announce the retrun to office plan at end of June. Our director has said that other teams will likely get first dibs on office space (i.e. those who arent able to work as effectively form home) and that it may be the case we will have 1 day a month where we get the floor space for team in person get together whilst we continue to WFH. He is Melborune based and is betting it will be January before being in the office is a regualr event. I was also concerned that he is loving WFH so much that he isnt going to come to Sydney regulalry at all anymore (he was coming once a week for Executive meetings) which likely means my work trips to Melbiurne will cease too
I really hated being at home at first, but now that it is getting cold it is nice not to have to commute in the cold. But i do miss the office, my regualr lunch spots and all the socialising that is gone. Work has these weird social calls (like BYOD tomorow night) but i hate forced fun, the spontaneous catch-ups are what I miss.
In regard to exercise after about a week and a half of WFH, I realised I was not getting anything useful with no commute or walking around the office ... so I began minimum 3K walks every day. Initially they were late in the day after knocking off but once daylight saving finished I now do it some time between 12 and 2pm.
I used to think I drank more coffee at the office; oh, how wrong I was! But Mrs Excel and I have enjoyed walking a bit more lately too.
The soul is good. WFH is great, I have a magnificent sent up and by using my hands free set up for the phone can and do talk with colleagues without having to hold the phone.
We could go on for hours doing thisI also saw what you did there.
All the WH&S is at least as good as at the office. With the flooded office and people forced to WFH they haven't planned ahead and aren't really set up properly. They are doing it hard.
At work our standard set up is two large screens and a work issued Surface Pro. I have the same at home with the work issued Surface Pro.
Not commuting in winter is awesome.
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