5 ms·

I think some people may just be shell-shocked and reacting too slowly. My employer refused to allow working from home for the most part last week, up until Thu

I think some people may just be shell-shocked and reacting too slowly. My employer refused to allow working from home for the most part last week, up until Thursday. After several days of union negotiations, they floated the idea on Friday of letting people request up to four days per two week pay period to be remote. That was at about 3 PM. Just after 4 PM, an email went out saying that people were allowed to work remotely 5 days a week for the next month or two. So some of us got kind of upset that they were making it an individual decision. Somebody may have to come in, but most people shouldn't and some people can't. It needs to be collectively managed, in my opinion. So then, today, around COB, there's another email saying everybody is required to work remotely for the next couple weeks unless there is some specific exception. So it's just dramatically evolving day by day.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> they floated the idea on Friday of letting people request up to four days per two week pay period to be remote I don't understand why do they think of it in terms of people requesting it like it's a perk? Even out of time of crisis it's not some luxury it's just a normal working arrangement.
- nomel 7y ago
  edit: Ok, enough downvotes for taking his statement statement literally, without observing its context.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    If you can’t work from home (factory worker, nurse, spy, whatever) then clearly none of these messages or discussions are relevant to you so why bring it up?
    - nomel 7y ago
      My mistake, I took your "normal working arrangement" literally. edit: No need to downvote an apology. I took it literally, without the appropriate context. Sorry.
- ISL 7y ago
  We are able to work from home, but a higher-level person I work with made multiple statements last week to the effect that working from home was "like a vacation".
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Normally, it's allowed one day a week, but not at all for new employees, and not without advance approval. One answer to why it's this way would be that's what the union contract was negotiated to be. My inference is that government employees are considered to be lazy and/or like children, that you can't trust them in general to work on their own. But I really wished people to understand it's neither a perk nor an entitlement now. It can't be an individual decision, because whether one person goes in depends on what other people do. Telling people they can stay home if they want makes it into a prisoner's dilemma situation. People (leadership and rank and file) are trapped by their individualistic thought patterns when the only solution is to both do what you are told and be told to do what is in the collective interest. People sometimes talk about how other cultures don't prioritize the individual as much but they never sound like it actually makes sense, it's just kind of patronizing. Right now, it's making sense to me, but a lot of people (e.g. on my Facebook feed) seem to just be writhing in misery over trying to choose the best thing for themselves and guilt over other people not necessarily being able to do the same thing.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > government employees Where did anyone mention government employees?
    - girvo 7y ago
      The person who you are responding to is one.
    - vips7L 7y ago
      He did. He's op, he works for a government.
      - pdonis 7y ago
        Ah, I saw his follow-up post.
  - loopz 7y ago
    The leaders who resist change probably know what they'd do at home..
lotsofpulp 7y ago
As a monopoly provider of substandard internet to most of its customers, I would not give Charter the benefit of the doubt.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  In my case, I work for the (a) government that was just telling everyone else in the private sector to work from home several days earlier...
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Maybe they are hesitant to allow remote work because they know how bad the internet provide is?
claudeganon 7y ago
My partner’s work has been talking contradictory circles around how they’re (all of a sudden) doing work from home. People need to come in for “critical business functions” (undefined), but must be “staggered” (no explanation of how or to what extent), and of course “only if they feel safe.” I get that everyone is just trying to get a handle on the situation, but trying to project authority or control through these vagaries mostly has the opposite effect.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I think there is a fundamental missing piece of what people consider leadership that is being stressed now. People are used to thinking of their job in a stressful situation as comforting people and part of that is giving them choices. Or commanding people to do what they don't want to do, or a combination. When there is a situation that affects people differently and collectively, the important thing IMO is to release them from the conflict of individual vs group decisions by giving direction that is fair and aimed toward the collective interest. It's hard to change gears and do the opposite of what normally seems right. I got frustrated because it seemed like leadership didn't understand that they don't have to force us to do anything, but they can't just let us all decide for ourselves - the task that is necessary is to tell us to do what we generally know needs to be done. It seems redundant, but it's vital, it's not magical, it just has to be done. Kind of like pulling the rip cord on a parachute - it's not rocket science but you have to do it and do it now.
creato 7y ago
I got a few e-mails from various companies (not my employer but companies I am/was a customer of) that went from "here are some small changes we're making" to "here are some big changes" to "we're closed". One company in particular sent 2 of these e-mails in the same day!
rtkwe 7y ago
My work went from "next Tuesday workers with last names A-L should work from home to test our remote access capability" to "starting tomorrow everyone who can work from home should and work with your managers before coming in, and to prepare to do so for up to a month" in the space of 1 hour between emails.
Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
I've been finding myself really aggravated at people who continue to downplay it, especially when they're engineers who should know what exponential growth means. There also seems to be this weird narrative going around (or at least it was, I'm not sure if it still is now) that this is all being overplayed by the media. My manager told me over the phone yesterday that it was 'just a bad flu' and that the reaction everyone was having was out of proportion. She's an engineering type that I'd have expected to know better. I'm currently working from home unless it's absolutely necessary to go into the office. At the same time, I'm having to grapple with the honest truth (found after some introspection) that my extreme need to make people understand this is just as much about my own fear as some people's need to pretend everything is okay and downplay it is to them. While reading yesterday's thread about "I'm not sure there's an acceptable solution to this", something in me started raising some alarm bells. Reading that thread, it was like the world had already ended. I can totally understand this, but I know there's only a certain amount you can be drawn into that before it goes from being responsibly aware to being uselessly hopeless. So I'm trying to practice empathy and remind myself not to jump down my friend's throats in chat everytime something coronavirus comes up. At the end of the day, we're all in this together and nobody has definitive answers. I guess what I'm trying to say is, remind yourself to be nice to people. Everyone needs this more than ever right now. Edit: Not intended to be directed at anyone in particular here. Just a bit of my rambling thoughts. I'm also not saying we shouldn't spread good information. I've just been finding myself getting really angry at really close friends and trying to keep on top of why that is for me and how I can be a bit nicer to them.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't use allcaps for emphasis on HN, regardless of how aggravated you feel. This is one of the site guidelines.
  - Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
    Sorry dang; my intent was to express how urgent it felt in my own internal dialogue, not to express aggravation to anyone else here. I'll edit.
jvanderbot 7y ago
Almost exactly the same experience here (NASA center).
- loopz 7y ago
  This will change now. Many ministers are quaranteed and working remotely as of this week.
SquishyPanda23 7y ago
There are at least two factors at play here: - some people really don't understand exponential growth - it's become a mark of political tribalism to pretend that the pandemic isn't real. There are other factors, like the fact that most offices don't have the infrastructure for 100% of employees to work from home suddenly. But I think the above two factors dominate.

chrisseaton 7y ago

> they floated the idea on Friday of letting people request up to four days per two week pay period to be remote I don't understand why do they think of it in terms of people requesting it like it's a perk? Even out of time of crisis it's not some luxury it's just a normal working arrangement.

nomel 7y ago
edit: Ok, enough downvotes for taking his statement statement literally, without observing its context.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  If you can’t work from home (factory worker, nurse, spy, whatever) then clearly none of these messages or discussions are relevant to you so why bring it up?
  - nomel 7y ago
    My mistake, I took your "normal working arrangement" literally. edit: No need to downvote an apology. I took it literally, without the appropriate context. Sorry.
ISL 7y ago
We are able to work from home, but a higher-level person I work with made multiple statements last week to the effect that working from home was "like a vacation".
perl4ever 7y ago
Normally, it's allowed one day a week, but not at all for new employees, and not without advance approval. One answer to why it's this way would be that's what the union contract was negotiated to be. My inference is that government employees are considered to be lazy and/or like children, that you can't trust them in general to work on their own. But I really wished people to understand it's neither a perk nor an entitlement now. It can't be an individual decision, because whether one person goes in depends on what other people do. Telling people they can stay home if they want makes it into a prisoner's dilemma situation. People (leadership and rank and file) are trapped by their individualistic thought patterns when the only solution is to both do what you are told and be told to do what is in the collective interest. People sometimes talk about how other cultures don't prioritize the individual as much but they never sound like it actually makes sense, it's just kind of patronizing. Right now, it's making sense to me, but a lot of people (e.g. on my Facebook feed) seem to just be writhing in misery over trying to choose the best thing for themselves and guilt over other people not necessarily being able to do the same thing.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > government employees Where did anyone mention government employees?
  - girvo 7y ago
    The person who you are responding to is one.
  - vips7L 7y ago
    He did. He's op, he works for a government.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      Ah, I saw his follow-up post.
- loopz 7y ago
  The leaders who resist change probably know what they'd do at home..

lotsofpulp 7y ago

As a monopoly provider of substandard internet to most of its customers, I would not give Charter the benefit of the doubt.

perl4ever 7y ago
In my case, I work for the (a) government that was just telling everyone else in the private sector to work from home several days earlier...
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Maybe they are hesitant to allow remote work because they know how bad the internet provide is?

claudeganon 7y ago

My partner’s work has been talking contradictory circles around how they’re (all of a sudden) doing work from home. People need to come in for “critical business functions” (undefined), but must be “staggered” (no explanation of how or to what extent), and of course “only if they feel safe.” I get that everyone is just trying to get a handle on the situation, but trying to project authority or control through these vagaries mostly has the opposite effect.

perl4ever 7y ago
I think there is a fundamental missing piece of what people consider leadership that is being stressed now. People are used to thinking of their job in a stressful situation as comforting people and part of that is giving them choices. Or commanding people to do what they don't want to do, or a combination. When there is a situation that affects people differently and collectively, the important thing IMO is to release them from the conflict of individual vs group decisions by giving direction that is fair and aimed toward the collective interest. It's hard to change gears and do the opposite of what normally seems right. I got frustrated because it seemed like leadership didn't understand that they don't have to force us to do anything, but they can't just let us all decide for ourselves - the task that is necessary is to tell us to do what we generally know needs to be done. It seems redundant, but it's vital, it's not magical, it just has to be done. Kind of like pulling the rip cord on a parachute - it's not rocket science but you have to do it and do it now.

creato 7y ago

I got a few e-mails from various companies (not my employer but companies I am/was a customer of) that went from "here are some small changes we're making" to "here are some big changes" to "we're closed". One company in particular sent 2 of these e-mails in the same day!

rtkwe 7y ago

My work went from "next Tuesday workers with last names A-L should work from home to test our remote access capability" to "starting tomorrow everyone who can work from home should and work with your managers before coming in, and to prepare to do so for up to a month" in the space of 1 hour between emails.

Fr0styMatt88 7y ago

I've been finding myself really aggravated at people who continue to downplay it, especially when they're engineers who should know what exponential growth means. There also seems to be this weird narrative going around (or at least it was, I'm not sure if it still is now) that this is all being overplayed by the media. My manager told me over the phone yesterday that it was 'just a bad flu' and that the reaction everyone was having was out of proportion. She's an engineering type that I'd have expected to know better. I'm currently working from home unless it's absolutely necessary to go into the office. At the same time, I'm having to grapple with the honest truth (found after some introspection) that my extreme need to make people understand this is just as much about my own fear as some people's need to pretend everything is okay and downplay it is to them. While reading yesterday's thread about "I'm not sure there's an acceptable solution to this", something in me started raising some alarm bells. Reading that thread, it was like the world had already ended. I can totally understand this, but I know there's only a certain amount you can be drawn into that before it goes from being responsibly aware to being uselessly hopeless. So I'm trying to practice empathy and remind myself not to jump down my friend's throats in chat everytime something coronavirus comes up. At the end of the day, we're all in this together and nobody has definitive answers. I guess what I'm trying to say is, remind yourself to be nice to people. Everyone needs this more than ever right now. Edit: Not intended to be directed at anyone in particular here. Just a bit of my rambling thoughts. I'm also not saying we shouldn't spread good information. I've just been finding myself getting really angry at really close friends and trying to keep on top of why that is for me and how I can be a bit nicer to them.

dang 7y ago
Please don't use allcaps for emphasis on HN, regardless of how aggravated you feel. This is one of the site guidelines.
- Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
  Sorry dang; my intent was to express how urgent it felt in my own internal dialogue, not to express aggravation to anyone else here. I'll edit.

jvanderbot 7y ago

Almost exactly the same experience here (NASA center).

loopz 7y ago
This will change now. Many ministers are quaranteed and working remotely as of this week.

SquishyPanda23 7y ago

There are at least two factors at play here: - some people really don't understand exponential growth - it's become a mark of political tribalism to pretend that the pandemic isn't real. There are other factors, like the fact that most offices don't have the infrastructure for 100% of employees to work from home suddenly. But I think the above two factors dominate.