What is happening at work?

[once_upon]

Agreed--and on top of that Congress is off until after Labor Day. Just talked to a sobbing man in Topeka. This is truly awful.

We aren't out driving much, just do a Sunday drive around and grocery pick up.
In the last week, I've seen belongings thrown out in yards or curbs at least 4 times. Much of it broken or ripped as it looks like just tossed from front door to yard or curbs. And its not much to start with.

 

[MacMadame]

Rents in SF have fallen for the first time since Zillow started tracking them in 2014.

I just read my company's newly revised Employee manual. They now have a section on moving. If we are going to relocate, we need permission from our manager. But nothing about changing salaries (COL increase/decreases)

 

[once_upon]

Can a company legally tell you where you can and cannot luve?

 

[skatingguy]

Can a company legally tell you where you can and cannot luve?

If you want to keep the job they probably can.

 

[MacMadame]

Can a company legally tell you where you can and cannot luve?

I think the point is, if they hired you to work in Timbuktu, they don't want you to hightail it to Kalamazoo without their knowledge.

In particular, it's going to impact healthcare benefits because you might move somewhere they haven't paid for coverage.

ETA the whole issue is interesting because of WFH. If I am hired to work at a particular office, there is an expectation that I will live near enough to this office to be able to come into the office on at least a semi-regular basis. Therefore, I can't really move 500 miles away and fulfill the duties that I was hired to do because I can't come into the office on demand.

But if we are all working from home, it really doesn't matter where I live.

I think the point of the policy is that you let the company know if you are going to relocate (i.e., not move two towns over but actually leave the area) and, if they think this will impact your job performance in some way, they can object. Then you have the choice of leaving the company or not relocating.

 

[MacMadame]

I went to the office today to grab some stuff for my new home office space. There were two people in the office even though technically it is closed. Neither wearing masks.

Also, I forgot my footstool.

 

[Louis]

I went to the office today to grab some stuff for my new home office space. There were two people in the office even though technically it is closed. Neither wearing masks.

Were they near each other? A couple of our European offices reopened. Masks are only required when not at your desks, which are spaced far enough apart and have protectors.

I'm not sure of the epidemiological risk, but so far, no problems. And these are fully compliant with country specific guidance, so I assume other companies are taking the same approach.

IMO, it's not realistic to expect people to wear a mask all day if they're just sitting at a desk.

 

[once_upon]

it's not realistic to think people won't come to work or go to while when they are sick.

No matter how many apps one has to do screening pre going to work or pre going to school, people are going to go to work or send kids to school

I know several people who wear masks all day at work sitting at a desk.. Because they are mandated to and they actually care about the health of others. And would feel really responsible/bad if their refusal to wear a mask resulted in someone getting sick and dying.

 

[jeffisjeff]

A committee I am on for the university looked at a variety of screening apps and most of them (including the one we are asking students/staff/faculty to use) are pretty simple and rather useless. I honestly don't get the point, but some folks seem to think that saying "WE HAVE AN APP FOR THAT" is equivalent to actually doing something.

 

[GarrAargHrumph]

Can a company legally tell you where you can and cannot luve?

I think the point is, if they hired you to work in Timbuktu, they don't want you to hightail it to Kalamazoo without their knowledge.

In particular, it's going to impact healthcare benefits because you might move somewhere they haven't paid for coverage.

ETA the whole issue is interesting because of WFH. If I am hired to work at a particular office, there is an expectation that I will live near enough to this office to be able to come into the office on at least a semi-regular basis. Therefore, I can't really move 500 miles away and fulfill the duties that I was hired to do because I can't come into the office on demand.

But if we are all working from home, it really doesn't matter where I live.

I think the point of the policy is that you let the company know if you are going to relocate (i.e., not move two towns over but actually leave the area) and, if they think this will impact your job performance in some way, they can object. Then you have the choice of leaving the company or not relocating.

Where employees live and work has repercussions on things like taxes the company must pay to the US and state governments, which programs the employer itself has to participate in re: state and federal governments, to which benefits must be offered to employees and how, to which taxes and etc. must be taken out of employee paychecks, etc.

 

[once_upon]

Where employees live and work has repercussions on things like taxes the company must pay to the US and state governments, which programs the employer itself has to participate in re: state and federal governments, to which benefits must be offered to employees and how, to which taxes and etc. must be taken out of employee paychecks, etc.

I understand the tax and benefits stuff, but it sounded like you needed to get approval from your manager to move.

 

[MacMadame]

I understand the tax and benefits stuff, but it sounded like you needed to get approval from your manager to move.

I went back and checked. It's not if you move. It's if you change your "work location." So if I move somewhere but still come into my designated office when needed, maybe even have a desk there, I don't have to get permission if I move. But if my work location changes (I start working out of another office, I start working at home in a place too far away to come into the office) I need permission.

That seems reasonable to me. If I get hired to work out of an office in NorCal and then I decide to move to someplace in Canada and work out of one of the offices there, it better be okay with management. I wouldn't expect to just do it and assume it's okay.

 

[Louis]

[...] but some folks seem to think that saying "WE HAVE AN APP FOR THAT" is equivalent to actually doing something.

Lately this is the UK government strategy, too. . Apps will solve all problems! From immigration to c*vid to Brexit. (I do think the digital bent of the government is generally a good thing, but a bad process is a bad process whether digital or not.)

I went back and checked. It's not if you move. It's if you change your "work location." [...]

That seems reasonable to me.

Agreed, most of the time this is contractual. And employees cannot assume that this work remote situation will last forever -- i.e., if a vaccine were developed tomorrow, and the employer sent an email saying to come in on Monday, the employee can't say, "whoops, I moved to Canada." Some employers provided their employees with notice that while remote work was the policy for now, it could change at any time and they needed to be prepared to come into the office on 24-48 hours notice. A few of my friends who, like me, decided to summer on the continent went back to the UK since flights are in short supply (and can be sold out or expensive at the last minute) and quarantine rules keep changing.

In the UK, I could get a number of tax benefits from working from home, but I would need my employment contract to be formally updated to indicate I am a remote worker. (I don't want to do this because I like going into the office.)

 

[antmanb]

A committee I am on for the university looked at a variety of screening apps and most of them (including the one we are asking students/staff/faculty to use) are pretty simple and rather useless. I honestly don't get the point, but some folks seem to think that saying "WE HAVE AN APP FOR THAT" is equivalent to actually doing something.

This is my company too. The first thing people leap to in order to solve a problem is "let's buy this piece of software". Ok but you know that you have to actually put information into the software in order for it to be any use at all, and its the work behind the information that we haven't yet done so what's the point in looking for the software?

 

[quartz]

Bookstore job is going well - almost all customers are adhering to health and safety protocols, with only minor disgruntled-ness. We still have a limit of 9 people in-store including staff, and due to how our store is laid out I think we could up that to 12 and still have no issues keeping distance, but it’s not my call. It’s difficult to manage when a family of 6 or more wants to shop and you need to have them wait until everyone else is out and then they basically have a private shopping party and then others have to wait for them. Sales are quite good - but the libraries here are still closed to in-person, we will see what happens when they re-open.

College job is ramping up for the fall semester start - enrolment is just a smidge under target. Any theory based courses are on-line - still working out the scheduling/logistics of on-campus labs/shops. I am still doing active-screening for our winter semester students who are on-campus getting in their practical hours, and also have text book sales starting too in a couple of weeks - there is some material that is either not available online or not feasible as an on-line resource.

It is still unknown how my Test Centre will operate, if at all - many tests are being eliminated and being replaced by extra projects. I have stated that I am comfortable working directly with students if needed and I’ve always been flexible making things up as I go along and putting accommodations into place.

Currently working extra hours at the store due to scheduling issues with other staff, but will be able to scale back just in time to devote more of my availability to the college as the new semester commences.

I am just happy to be back at both jobs, and comfortable with the risk factor of working with the public. It’s all still very annoying and tedious dealing with the health and safety stuff, and some of it is most certainly theatre, but getting out of the house and being useful and productive, and wearing cute outfits, is good for my own well-being.

 

[MacMadame]

My CEO brought up the fact that moms of school-aged children have the biggest burden in our battle against C19 right now and urged managers to reach out to their employees with kids and make accommodations for them. He also wrote a piece about it which has some concrete suggestions

How to Compensate and Support Working Moms

A burden of working and schooling from home is falling on mothers. Here are several leadership tips to help you support and compensate female employees.

www.bluescape.com

 

[once_upon]

Good article..

When C-19 hit, my daughter in law was taking mostly online college courses and my son was traveling at least 3 times a month.

C-19 hits. Son no longer traveled but had crazy schedule as many clients/co workers were in different time zones, kids were home and dil was still taking classes. She was mostly responsible for remote learning stuff.

Now fast forward to fall, she has begun her clinicals and other labs for her nursing program. She can't be the responsible one for remote learning as she is in in-person classroom/clinicals. They had prioritized her education as it is one of life goals. My son's company is very supportive of its employees, aware of the demands on him for remote learning for the kids and is willing to work schedules and stuff around employees trying to do work, parenting, teaching, etc. The responsibilities for kids schooling will fall primarily on him.

Companies attitudes and willingness to help are so appreciated by all. I hope managers/companies take to heart some of the suggestions

 

[Dobre]

Yesterday, I was assigned to chop out the wild rosebush brambles that grow around the cistern. They are admittedly overgrown, and Mom was sure they would all grow back even healthier; but they'd made it impossible to see the location where the water drains out when the cistern is too full and brambles were also making it difficult to close the hatch/lid without catching them. Hence, Mom had had enough & declared that the entire bramble bush must be chopped down to within @ six inches from the ground. She sent me up the hill with an electric pruning saw to tackle the job.

Ha! The pruning saw scarcely made it through the removal of a couple square feet near the cistern lid and quit on me twice. (The brambles kept tearing the chain off its track. Dad fixed it, but declared the job hopeless).

Mom sent me back up the hill with the pruning sheers and a revised map, now declaring that a 3 ft. wide path from the back of the bramble bush to the cistern would be sufficient.

Yikes! There is just no way to cut a nice easy 3 ft. path through a bramble bush with pruning shears. A day + a couple hours later there is now a path that is 4 ft. wide at the cistern (due to the fact that the pipe draining water wasn't actually centered & required further clipping) and @ an 8 ft. wide gap at the back of the bush. (The electric saw was also re-employed for seriously heavy-duty bramble stems).

A lovely little bird with a yellow tummy scolded me for destroying its home, but I assured it there wasn't a chance in a million that I was going to take down anywhere near that whole bramble bush. I expect it will be here 100 years from now.

(There was also a coiled up snake--possibly a rattler as I had heard one in the same location several days previously--that I was pretty sure was dead when I came close to uncovering it yesterday, but I didn't spot it there when I looked this morning . . .)

 

[MacMadame]

NYC investment bankers are returning to the office:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/11/bankers-are-leading-way-back-our-offices-good-or-ill/

 

[Louis]

NYC investment bankers are returning to the office:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/11/bankers-are-leading-way-back-our-offices-good-or-ill/

Behind a paywall for me, so not sure if my comment is duplicative with the article, but September is when the new analysts get trained. The training relies heavily on observation and would be hard to do remotely. From other news articles, it sounds like the plan is to have 50% of the staff in each week. Good news for New York and London businesses around these banks.

My own office is more open than I thought, though it's closing early (like 4:30 pm early - bad for someone like me who has calls with the US until 7 at minimum). It's normally packed to the gills, with more people than desks even pre-social distancing, but apparently only 3-5 people have been going in.

I won't be back in London until October (when I have to go back, or else I'll lose residency/immigration status), but I'm at the idea I won't be stuck at home. I will go in at least three days a week, even if just for a few hours. I can walk (45-50 minutes), so don't need to take public transit if I don't want to.

 

[MacMadame]

but September is when the new analysts get trained.

They didn't mention that but did mention the 50% capacity.

There was a lot of talk about how banks see customer service as being in person and not remote and whether or not that was a sensible way to look at it.

 

[once_upon]

They didn't mention that but did mention the 50% capacity.

There was a lot of talk about how banks see customer service as being in person and not remote and whether or not that was a sensible way to look at it.

Hmm - when we purchased this townhome, when we sold the house, when we refinanced (because mortgage rates dropped) all our banking transactions were on line until the "wet" signatures were required.

 

[MacMadame]

Hmm - when we purchased this townhome, when we sold the house, when we refinanced (because mortgage rates dropped) all our banking transactions were on line until the "wet" signatures were required.

This article is about investment banking. So unless you have a 1 million or more investment account with them, I don't think they even know you exist.

 

[allezfred]

I took two days off and had a bit of problem remembering whether that meant I had to go into the office tomorrow or not as part of our rotations.

 

[antmanb]

All of our works attempts to get everyone back in have been for naught since we're back to "work from home where you can" mandate from the government. Our directors have finally given up on their plans and it's likely to be next year before people are back. Though I don't understand why it's "next year" surely it's until there is a vaccine because precious little is actually going to change between now and 1st January.

 

[Kasey]

We had to cancel nursing clinicals this weekend because one of my students' spouses tested positive for C19, so we need two negative tests from her (since she's been around the other students in the group). Just figures, I change jobs in the hospital to get more away from C19 and end up with a possible exposure anyway.

 

[MacMadame]

We had a departmental All-hands meeting today. The CEO has told the execs that we will continue to work from home for the next 7-8 months. If something changes, they will work with people for whom coming into the office is no longer feasible (i.e., they moved somewhere cheaper).

Also, we have stuff on the burner that will cause us all to work pretty hard from now until the end of the year (or maybe just the Dec release?) but for Jan they are going to do something so we can take time off. I assume they may not do a release in Jan. or maybe just not schedule much for it or possibly shut the company down from Christmas to New Year's but they didn't go into details.

How many others who are working from home are working for companies that are making it semi-permanent?

ETA forgot to post this link:

Why You Need to Hire a Head of Remote Work — and What That Job Entails

The smartest, most transparent, and most progressive companies transitioning to remote will hire an executive to lead their journey in the next one to two years. This hire (or the lack thereof) will be a litmus test to job seekers who expect remote work to be supported, not merely allowed.

business.linkedin.com

 

[Jenny]

I think a lot of companies are thinking hard about this, because for the first time they aren't just guessing and projecting, but can actually measure things like costs of running an office, productivity of employees, the success (rather than feasibility) of alternate ways of doing business, ie how they do meetings, how people collaborate, how they work with customers and clients, how business travel fits into it all.

Before many of these ideas were just theory, or had to be piloted, or might have even been assumed to be impossible. But now many companies have a solid 6 months of actual practice to learn from, just in time for many to be projecting plans and budgets for next year.

 

[once_upon]

We had a departmental All-hands meeting today. The CEO has told the execs that we will continue to work from home for the next 7-8 months. If something changes, they will work with people for whom coming into the office is no longer feasible (i.e., they moved somewhere cheaper).

Also, we have stuff on the burner that will cause us all to work pretty hard from now until the end of the year (or maybe just the Dec release?) but for Jan they are going to do something so we can take time off. I assume they may not do a release in Jan. or maybe just not schedule much for it or possibly shut the company down from Christmas to New Year's but they didn't go into details.

How many others who are working from home are working for companies that are making it semi-permanent?

ETA forgot to post this link:

Why You Need to Hire a Head of Remote Work — and What That Job Entails

The smartest, most transparent, and most progressive companies transitioning to remote will hire an executive to lead their journey in the next one to two years. This hire (or the lack thereof) will be a litmus test to job seekers who expect remote work to be supported, not merely allowed.

business.linkedin.com

My oldest son has worked from home, in a location several thousands of miles from the home office, for at least 4 years. When wfh began, he was unofficially mentoring a dozen or more employees who had never experienced a wfh situation. Its not in any official capacity. He's not getting paid more, but its to his benefit to have co-workers who are developing the skills to work from home

He would hate that job, but would be very good at it.

 

[MacMadame]

Women are dropping out of the workforce because of C19:

Why Did Hundreds of Thousands of Women Drop Out of the Work Force?

In some families buckling under the caregiving burden, the lower wage earner is leaving the work force. Usually that’s the wife.

www.nytimes.com