Covid-19: American Acceptionalism

I get why some people do not like the WFH environment, but I love it. Just not having to spend an hour each day driving to and from work is a huge plus for me, plus with instant messenger services like Skype it's easy to still have quick and easy conversations that do not need to be scheduled in advance.

I guess it also helps that I am not a social butterfly and don't really miss people that much

 

As a supervisor, I find it very very difficult to connect with my team on a more intimate, personal level in WFH situations. You lose all of the small talk type scenarios that often lead to a connection or a discovery tgat develops the relationship. It's that development one can often call on later as a manager to help demonstrate you genuinely do care about people.

As a manager, you can also garner tonnes of usual information about your team by simply being the same physical environment. What makes them tick. How they work. Picking up on difficult calls and/or clients they dealing with. And then, offering that support and guidance from your experience in that very moment. So much of this is lost right now.

 

Agreed James. It's the "others and the afters" I am missing - other engagements, and then the discussions that take place after a meeting or presentation.

 

Holy hell......WTF Texas? This mofo is insane.

BREAKING: TX Gov @GregAbbott_TX rescinds state mask mandate and says ALL businesses can open 100%

— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) March 2, 2021

 

Get out. Really?

 

Either of those decisions is bad.

Both of those decisions combined are frightening.

 

As someone who used to spend 2 and a half hours in the car driving to and from work every day, I now get that time back, and it's huge for me and my mental wellbeing. Work is tough enough without having a slog to get to and from there.

The only thing I miss is listening to podcasts on my drive. I can't just sit in my living room and listen to a podcast. I just... can't.

I haven't lost a beat managing my team from home in the last year. I just try to communicate with them as best as I can using whatever methods suit them. I know a lot of people don't care for Zoom anymore, but using Teams and Zoom suits me just fine. You just need to ensure that people have their video on all the time. From time to time, we all join a call and stay on there all day, opening cameras and mics, like we would if we were all in the office. Given the choice between being with the whole group and being separated working from home, I'm really enjoying working from home, and if we can get everything accomplished that we need to, then there's no need for us to all be in the same room.

 

Would you feel differently if you had a 15 minute each way commute into work?

 

...despite all of the predictions of conflict by various pundits in the early 21st century, the great American civil war ended up not being between Trumpites and anti-Trumpites but over working conditions-working online versus working at home.

 

This is just to distract from the clusterf*ck that was the winter storm.

 

Mississippi says "Hold My Beer....". Who's going to be next? I bet on North Dakota and Wyoming.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves has just stated that all COVID-19 mask mandates are ending tomorrow and all businesses can resume at 100% capacity.

Texas will be following the same path in a week from tomorrow.

— Dr. David Samadi (@drdavidsamadi) March 2, 2021

 

Yes, because it's still 30 minutes that I get back. When you add it up, it's 2 and a half hours in a week that you get back, plus time you would need to stop and get gas adds up, plus maintenance on your car. If you don't have to go into an office, why on earth would you actually want to?

 

Oh, I don't know....social connections as a start?

I guess it depends entirely on a personal situation too. I only have a short commute and don't pay for parking.

My home environment is much much more challenging with distractions of a small human variety.

And, I rarely get to socialize in adult ways, outside of the office. I like my colleagues fir the most part too.

 

That is pretty massive news.

President Biden says USA will have enough vaccine supply for every adult in America by the end of May.

— Tom Leyden (@TomLeyden) March 2, 2021

 

Texas gonna Texas.

 

This is why you should motorcycle or taken public transit to work. If I had to go to driving a car to work you can bet I'd prefer working from home (now I'm not so much sold on it).

 

In Germany people are avoiding vaccination with the AZ vaccin, because tabloids published stupid stories about it. A med at a vaccine centre said on tv they only had 10% of the possible number of people make an appointment and half of them turn up.

 

which may soon backfire on them, big time, as the AZ supply they have become unusable ....

Authorities in Germany and France are under pressure to come up with creative solutions to shift the AstraZeneca vaccine at higher speed in order to avoid a pile-up of unused doses over the coming weeks.

On Monday, France’s medical regulator reversed its advice not to use the AstraZeneca jab on over-65s, and Germany’s vaccination committee is coming under increasing pressure to follow suit or even scrap prioritisation altogether.

Both countries have been slow to administer the Oxford-developed vaccine, subject to an acrimonious tug-of-war over delayed deliveries between its Swedish-British producer and the European commission in January.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...france-under-pressure-to-shift-oxford-vaccine

 

Trump got the vaccine but didn't want you to know. He didn't want you to believe it was safe.

His persona is more important to him than your life.

It's all an act.

— Erin Brockovich (@ErinBrockovich) March 1, 2021

And all those blind followers of his won't believe they're just getting played...

 

Re: Working from home.

I like it. I prevent wear and tear on my car, I save money on gas, I don't have to be up at an ungodly hour, I don't have to sit in traffic going to work and coming home from work (And I live 15 minutes from my office), if it's slow, I can catch up on some housework real quick, and most importantly, I'm not stuck in an office. I can play music without worry, I can have a soccer match going on, if I order something and it's being delivered, I'm on hand to retrieve it.

I get that some people like the social aspect, but for a while, I was stuck near a person who talked on the phone all day about nothing (I learned way more about his personal life than I should have.) On top of that, my desk was near the management hall, where people liked to gather to the point of distraction. Telephone guy and the hall were a reason I invested in some high end noise cancelling headphones. At home? It's a bluetooth speaker blasting tunes all day.

What I don't miss most though, is the commute. I hated sitting in traffic to and from work. Bonus if you decide to stop for coffee or donuts and the person in front of you doesn't know what to order after 5 minutes in line.

 

Public transit is not an option as I live 50 miles from the office I work at, and the closest public transit option would leave me 7 miles from the office, and as much as I enjoy walking, walking an additional 14 miles every day seems a touch much. And I've got kids, so getting a motorcycle just to go to and from work is more wasteful and impractical than owning my small car.

When I worked onsite, the office I worked at was only 28 miles from home. When the contract ended, I had the choice of layoff or move into the office, making my commute 50 miles. I chose to keep working. I loathe the commute, but some things you sacrifice to keep a good-paying job that you really love.

 

That line Winston Churchill has about the US is relevant.

Can you imagine if Biden or someone competent was in charge from the start? It'd make a world of difference for everything.

 

Not helped by this at the end of January...

https://www.politico.eu/article/cor...strazeneca-macron-quasi-ineffective-older-pe/

French President Emmanual Macron said Friday the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine appeared to be "quasi-ineffective" on people older than 65 — just hours before the EU's drugs regulator approved it for use on all adults.

"The real problem on AstraZeneca is that it doesn’t work the way we were expecting it to," Macron told a group of reporters, including POLITICO, in Paris. "We’re waiting for the EMA [European Medicines Agency] results, but today everything points to thinking it is quasi-ineffective on people older than 65, some say those 60 years or older."​

I particularly liked the bit at the end, 'some say those 60 years or older'. Almost reminiscent of trump with his, 'I'm hearing... people are telling me... I saw on the internet'.

Of course, a few hours after that the European Medicines Agency said it should be given to people of all ages but, y'now... they're just scientists after all

 

RE: working from home with two SMALL children (@The Devil's Architect)..

I want to quit. There's no way to make this work. I suck at both (Dad and Boss) at the moment. Hell, I'm scheduling people I've never met. We are putting a whole new apparatus into service this week that will change how we do everything at the brewery, and I'm largely there because I know everything. Now I won't know shit.

I don't enjoy half-assing everything. If the girls can get back into daycare, then maybe I have a chance. Otherwise, I need to make a clean cut with work. This back-and-forth is really frustrating, and will last until at least the summer. My wife is doing really well salary-wise, although she's working 12hr days and a bit on the weekends right now. Until the summer, this is brutal. If I call it quits now, there's no going back. If I stick it out, it *may* pay off.

Can I handle 3 more months, or maybe another year?