CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

[Majingir]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

My job doesn't have a work from home option, but I wouldn't mind in the future having one where I have options. Like if I want 1 or 2 days a week working from home, I can do so.

To me, it won't feel like I'm part of a company if I'm at home most of the time, but getting to stay home to do work for a day or two to do things I know I don't entirely need to physically be there to do, I won't mind.

On a diff note, they've announced that schools here are now closed for the rest of the school year. So September is now the earliest date they'll reopen.

Despite that, people still complaining about it. What I want those people to ask themselves is HOW do you have school resume as normal right now while maintaining distancing? You gonna get a 6 year old kid to stay 6 feet apart from their classmates and friends? Are all desks and lockers gonna be sterilized every day?

[pietasterp]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

Found out early this morning that my office is closing and I'll be working from home full time.

Not entirely sure how I feel.

There are so many positives. Getting away from the annoying commute and not having to pay $14 a day to park will be huge pluses but I will miss a lot about going into the office.

It's also been strange learning how to manage a team remotely over the last couple weeks. Haven't quite grasped how to keep my team engaged from a virtual setting yet while still maintaining my managing style (very hands off). It's a very weird medium that I haven't quite been able to figure out yet.

Agree, I think this is going to be difficult to manage long-term. It's one thing if you already have a long history of working with your team, but as team members come-and-go, establishing and maintaining the relationships and being an effective leader will be a challenge. We'll have to adapt to the new situation.

[The Chef]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

My job doesn't have a work from home option, but I wouldn't mind in the future having one where I have options. Like if I want 1 or 2 days a week working from home, I can do so.

To me, it won't feel like I'm part of a company if I'm at home most of the time, but getting to stay home to do work for a day or two to do things I know I don't entirely need to physically be there to do, I won't mind.

On a diff note, they've announced that schools here are now closed for the rest of the school year. So September is now the earliest date they'll reopen.

Despite that, people still complaining about it. What I want those people to ask themselves is HOW do you have school resume as normal right now while maintaining distancing? You gonna get a 6 year old kid to stay 6 feet apart from their classmates and friends? Are all desks and lockers gonna be sterilized every day?

My company had me transition to working from home permanently about 8-9 months ago and while there are definitely perks to it, there is also a feeling of isolation and to a degree loneliness. I don't feel like I'm part of the company and am basically left to my own devices daily with little interaction with anyone from my work. In a way I wish I had the option to go into the office some days just to get that adult interaction but seeing as they shut down their entire operation here in TX there is no office to go to anymore.

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[JayhawkerStL]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

My wife is dealing with this by “having lunch” with friends using Zoom. Then they have happy hours the same way. Sometimes, she has a Zoom chat going while working. She also does a couple of book clubs this way, too.

Instead of isolated, she just has an easier time avoiding some folks, but still getting to see and chat with others. But she and a friend would organize happy hours on Fridays before all of this, so this just helped keep it going.

[pietasterp]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

My company had me transition to working from home permanently about 8-9 months ago and while there are definitely perks to it, there is also a feeling of isolation and to a degree loneliness. I don't feel like I'm part of the company and am basically left to my own devices daily with little interaction with anyone from my work. In a way I wish I had the option to go into the office some days just to get that adult interaction but seeing as they shut down their entire operation here in TX there is no office to go to anymore.

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I agree with this. At a previous position, I worked from home for a couple of years, and the first 9-12 months it was the greatest thing ever. But pretty soon after that, it started to really feel isolating and lonely and I actually looked forward to getting back into the office when I started a new role.

Everyone is different and everyone's job is different, but for me, I think going into an office that isn't a particularly painful commute 3-4 times/week is pretty much ideal. It's enough office time to interact and develop team chemistries and allow for collaboration, without being a burden or resenting the commute/time.

[mestevo]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

Yeah, I feel much of our IT org will be remote permanently after this. I'd prefer to be in the office a couple days a week for 5-6 hours a day, never worry about bus schedules or daycare costs again as working around having kids becomes an accepted social norm that for many it's become in a pinch now.

Wife was just told their HQ isn't reopening until October.

Unrelated,

- Pier 1 just announced their stores won't reopen.
- JC Penny and Amazon reportedly in talks, after JC Penny announced bankruptcy last week.

[roadman]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

I knew that this might happen, from a restaurant owner in the Boston area:

If I open my restaurant at 25% capacity, I’ll make more money doing takeout. Less overhead, less staff. Not sure if other restaurants have done the math, but opening may not even be OUR best option.

We’ve been lucky with takeout success. “Don’t fix it if it isn’t broken.”

[kehlis]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

Everyone says they don't like or can't work from home.

I've found that I can work pretty well from home especially when there's silence. I'd love to drop the office entirely, work from home full time, and move to another state while doing so so that my money goes further. All our stuff is online anyway.

I like our crew though. Unique place. I don't (didn't?) particularly dread going in.

It's not me I'm worried about.

[JayhawkerStL]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

Saw my pulmonologist yesterday. Nothing going on, but it had been over a year and they wanted to see me before approving my refills. Went well. Mask required in building, took my temperature and asked me screening questions.

One interesting thing he mentioned was that viral load matters. He said he had suspected it from the beginning, but that he is saying that the current Thought is that the more virus you get when infected, the worse you get. That really supports mask wearing, for both the individual, and for those around the individual.

Talked to him about my job, and my fear. He said he was not sure what he could say to relieve my fear, and then added, “And I’m not sure I should.”

He confirmed that my lung capacity is 28%, which was a drastic improvement from when he first saw me. Asthma is actually not as much of an issue as most assume, which goes with most of what I had read. But the lung damage is considered a separate issue, and that is much more problematic.

We talked a bit about my childhood treatment, which really pissed him off. My doctor told my parents that inhalers were bad for me, and that riding out asthma attacks would build my lungs up. He even instructed them to make me play soccer. So I had dozens of emergency room trips that were nothing more than them giving me a shot, waiting an hour and listening to my chest.

What they know now, and it’s what set him off, is that during an asthma attack, your lungs are shredding themselves trying to get air in. My current lung capacity is due to scar tissue in my lungs. I actually feel great now, but part of that is because I really have no clue what it feels like to take an actual deep breath.

My daughter has asthma, but treatment was so much better. After getting pneumonia at around 6 months and getting diagnosed with asthma, we did daily breathing treatments with her. And she got additional treatments if she had a flare up, until she was old enough to do an inhaler.

So while I couldn’t get through an entire night’s sleep without waking and using an inhaler, let alone the meltdown of fear I would have if I realized I left my house without it, she rarely even knows where hers is, or if she even has one. So her risk is a lot less than mine. And since she is working in a medical clinic in Oakland, I’m hopeful of that.

I have noticed that many of the Covid death stories I have read about asthmatics were folks like me. Really healthy now, but a history of childhood asthma in the 70s. It’s why I was asking him about treatment from that period. For all I know, my parents couldn’t afford inhalers, and that was the story they told me. But the doc said that treatment has improved drastically since 2000. My daughter was born in 1997.

I read an article awhile back about a nurse that had died. He was really healthy and athletic. His friend said he knew he had childhood asthma, but assumed he grew out of it. I started to notice it was older asthmatics, and I suspect, ones that did more damage early on, but I have no way of confirming that. But it scares the **** out of me.

Was watching Hunters last night, and this scene just crushed me. That kid is how I feel when I see people talking about it just being sick people like me, or old people, and how weak we are now because we protect our kids so much. And really, I had many close calls with death, you know, because my parents followed the tough guy’s strategy for asthma.

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[NYJets]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

Connecticut starts phase 1 tomorrow. We've met or exceeded all bench marks set weeks ago to start a reopening as far as testing, positive test percentage, decline in hospitalizations, etc. Retail stores at reduced capacities, restaurants outdoor seating only, some reopening of offices i think. Salons and barbers were supposed to be tomorrow too but he bumped them back to June 1 now. If all goes well phase 2 will be June 20

[pietasterp]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

Everyone says they don't like or can't work from home.

I've found that I can work pretty well from home especially when there's silence. I'd love to drop the office entirely, work from home full time, and move to another state while doing so so that my money goes further. All our stuff is online anyway.

I like our crew though. Unique place. I don't (didn't?) particularly dread going in.

This hasn't been my experience at all. Almost everyone I've ever worked with has asked if they could work from home at least a day or two per week, and pretty much everyone I know would do it 100% of the time if they could. Getting people back in the office after all of this is already starting to be a struggle.

The idea of moving to a less expensive area while telecommuting sounds good on paper, but it's definitely a "be careful what you wish for" type of situation. Compensation is directly related to local cost of living, and companies eventually react - they won't be paying NYC wages to people living in Ohio for long before they figure out they can pay much less. Also, in the longer-term view, if someone in Nebraska is willing to work for 75% of what someone in Connecticut will work for, how much more can they save by hiring someone in Bombay?

It's not me I'm worried about.

Yes, this exactly.

[Speedy]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

I love WFH.

[emoji2369]

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[kehlis]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

I love WFH.

[emoji2369]

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Serious question,

Has your own job security been reliant on 20 other people being able to perform from home versus in the office? My employees don't have nearly as much to lose as I do if this doesn't work.



If it was just me, I'd easily be able to get over the interaction's I'll miss.

[Jr.]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

For anyone interested in donating processing power for research on COVID-19

https://foldingathome.org/covid19/

Folding@home (FAH or F@h) is a distributed computing project for simulating protein dynamics, including the process of protein folding and the movements of proteins implicated in a variety of diseases. It brings together citizen scientists who volunteer to run simulations of protein dynamics on their personal computers. Insights from this data are helping scientists to better understand biology, and providing new opportunities for developing therapeutics.

[dsallupinyaarea]

Re: CDC Officials Warn of Coronavirus Outbreaks in the United States.

I've worked from home for a little over 3 years now and while I do enjoy the perks*, I've found that it can be isolating in an unhealthy way if you allow it. There's a ton of value in actually having to get up, put on clothes and go out into the world every day. You don't see that value until it's gone and you have to manufacture it on your own. That coworker that traps you at the coffee pot to talk about Monday Night Football, you will miss him.







*it really opens up your PTO for actual fun things. You don't really need to use a sick day unless you're delirious, you're not taking pto for sick kids, doctor's appointments, etc.