Work From Home (WFH) Thread

[pietasterp]

I thought rather than hijack other threads, enough of us are doing this now during the pandemic (and may continue to do so for the foreseeable future) that it was worth its own thread. No agenda or guidance on where this thread should go.

I guess I'll start...how are you all doing with working from home? Anyone looking forward to going back in to the office?

[NYJets]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I'm a teacher teaching from home. it's significantly less work. It's going better than I expected as far as kids participating and doing the work. But its still nowhere near real school and I hate it.

Our governor said recently he expects us to go back in the fall but could be restrictions. There's lots of things being talked about. What ones actually get put into place and how is going to be very interesting.

But I badly want to go back

[Jr.]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I'm a teacher teaching from home. it's significantly less work. It's going better than I expected as far as kids participating and doing the work. But its still nowhere near real school and I hate it.

Our governor said recently he expects us to go back in the fall but could be restrictions. There's lots of things being talked about. What ones actually get put into place and how is going to be very interesting.

But I badly want to go back

Man mine was a lot more work. Trying to modify lesson plans for online. Taking attendance through assignments turned in. Essentially anything we would've done in class as an activity turned into a writing assignment that had to have feedback. There was a lot more grading than normal for me.

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[NYJets]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

Man mine was a lot more work. Trying to modify lesson plans for online. Taking attendance through assignments turned in. Essentially anything we would've done in class as an activity turned into a writing assignment that had to have feedback. There was a lot more grading than normal for me.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Operation Sports mobile app

I should have phrased it as for me it's significantly less work. I think most teachers feel as you do.

For me, reasons its been less work:
-My school was already 1:1, I already use google classroom a lot and normally put probably half the assignments online anyway

-A couple weeks in our school created a schedule we're supposed to follow which basically told us to really only assign work 3 days a week, so we get 2 days a week that are basically prep time all day. So I do have to spend more time grading, emailing, modifying lessons, but I also get way more time to do it.

-We don't have to do attendance or anything. There is a schedule the kids are supposed to follow, but we're also supposed to be extremely flexible so less than half the kids follow it but as long as they do the work at some point its fine.

But yea, my colleagues who also have their own kids at home are overwhelmed. Elementary teachers who didn't use technology really or have kids have chromebooks before are struggling. And theres' definitely other situations that would make it a lot more work.

[GAMEC0CK2002]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

Another teacher. We are a 1:1 tech school but not all our kids had reliable internet access. We gave 2 assignments per week and instructed not to have penalties for being late. Also, no zeroes -- 50 is lowest grade. And, no student can get a final grade less than what they had before covid shutdown. Of my 35 or so students , 5 essentially did no work. 6 improved their grade.

[Jr.]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

Another teacher. We are a 1:1 tech school but not all our kids had reliable internet access. We gave 2 assignments per week and instructed not to have penalties for being late. Also, no zeroes -- 50 is lowest grade. And, no student can get a final grade less than what they had before covid shutdown. Of my 35 or so students , 5 essentially did no work. 6 improved their grade.

Yeah I heard about other places doing that. We all kept up grading as usual. I had 7 kids withdraw in the final date they could, had about 7 others that failed out of my 80 or so kids that finished the semester. Counting the withdrawals, who were all falling, it was a slightly higher percentage than usual for my classes. Overall though our students did pretty well moving to online.

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[Herky]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I do IT support for John Deere and am usually based in a 5 floor office style building. For the last 1.5 months I’ve been working from home since that office is 90 percent working from home. They let myself or the other IT guy on site pick who wanted to work from home and he didn’t want to do I am.

Not a lot of work to be done right now since it’s slow. However I do like it and when I do get a remote ticket I have less distractions.

My wife is working from home as well and our kid goes to daycare still.

[pietasterp]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

We're starting to talk about how we're going to phase people back into the office, but I know a lot of places will probably be some form of remote for the rest of the year. I think the issue is once you let people do their own thing at home, it's hard to wrangle them back again. It's sort of like, How ya gonna keep 'em down on the city after they've seen the farm? LOL

My suspicion is that while a lot of companies have been forced into the remote work situation and have been surprised by how well its worked, I think as time goes on, they are going to see productivity drop. Most people I know are really self-motivated and do a good job without as much supervision, but all it takes is for 5-10% of the workforce to start getting a little too comfortable with taking liberties with the limited oversight and it ruins it for everyone.

With regard to all the teachers on here, I just can't imagine the virtual thing works for much longer. Let's hope it's semi-normal by fall.

[TNorfolkMM]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I'm a teacher teaching from home. it's significantly less work. It's going better than I expected as far as kids participating and doing the work. But its still nowhere near real school and I hate it.

Our governor said recently he expects us to go back in the fall but could be restrictions. There's lots of things being talked about. What ones actually get put into place and how is going to be very interesting.

But I badly want to go back

I am in the same boat but work with our special ed department and it has been murderous with the amount of extra paperwork. I am hoping we go back in the fall especially as positive case percentage keeps dropping for us. Plus I coach basketball and I am greatly missing it. Missing seeing all my students as teaching from home sucks lol

[Jr.]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I am in the same boat but work with our special ed department and it has been murderous with the amount of extra paperwork. I am hoping we go back in the fall especially as positive case percentage keeps dropping for us. Plus I coach basketball and I am greatly missing it. Missing seeing all my students as teaching from home sucks lol

This was the first spring that I didn't coach baseball in 10 years. I've been going out to the field to take care of it a couple times per week but I miss it like crazy. I'm hoping the likely loss of fall sports doesn't effect next spring.

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[pietasterp]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

This was the first spring that I didn't coach baseball in 10 years. I've been going out to the field to take care of it a couple times per week but I miss it like crazy. I'm hoping the likely loss of fall sports doesn't effect next spring.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Operation Sports mobile app

I didn't realize schools were already talking about nixing fall sports. It's not even June(!!!).

Definitely think sports should be back by next spring. Would be really surprising if they weren't.

[pietasterp]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

Anyone headed back into the office, now that things seem to be opening up?

Reeling people back in after extended time away seems like it's going to be the next challenge (for those that are even planning a return this year).

[NoleFan]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I was never full-on WFH but I do 1-2 days in the office and 3-4 days from home each week. At first, after a couple days WFH I was longing for my office days. Now though, I'd rather do WFH all week. Just something about getting up before everyone else, hitting the treadmill, taking a breather, maybe making breakfast for my son, and just working with all of the welcome distractions of being at home. It's weird, I know.

[pietasterp]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

I was never full-on WFH but I do 1-2 days in the office and 3-4 days from home each week. At first, after a couple days WFH I was longing for my office days. Now though, I'd rather do WFH all week. Just something about getting up before everyone else, hitting the treadmill, taking a breather, maybe making breakfast for my son, and just working with all of the welcome distractions of being at home. It's weird, I know.

I don't think it's weird at all. I'd say the vast majority of people, if given the option, would continue working from home forever. I think it's gonna be difficult to reel people back in to the office at this point (for those companies that choose to do so).

[KSUowls]

Re: Work From Home (WFH) Thread

We were given notice a couple weeks ago that we might not be returning to the office at all this year, and on a separate town hall some things were said which could which implied that even when things are back to normal they won't really be "normal". I'm expecting that even when things are back to normal that we will have a sizable number of employees working remotely.

I love working from home, sleeping in a bit later, not spending an hour or more of my day in traffic to go 7 miles each way, and keeping miles off my car. I do miss being in the office occasionally though. It's harder to stay connected with people through Teams, and I do miss being able to walk to the next office to walk someone through a problem. I'm hoping that when things return to normal that we just have an overall shift in corporate culture. There are advantages to being in an office environment, but it doesn't need to be every day. It doesn't need to be a standard 40 hours a week either for that matter, but I guess that's a separate discussion.