The ability to work from home is a blessing and curse. Though today, it is saving me a sick a day. Hit an icy patch on the stair landing ( didn’t see it because the outside lights are out) So I managed not to fall, but tweeked my back and rolled an ankle. I think that is a good trade off for not face planting down two flights of concrete stairs.
Anyway, I work at a community college and they pivot to virtual at the drop of a hat. Which is great… but it makes “inclement weather days” (because I’m in the south and it just doesn’t snow that often) few and far between.
I hope everyone who was in the storms path yesterday is okay. I am a little south of the ice and snow. Just had rain and some thunder. And then wind… lots of cold wind which is still kinda howling around.
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Ooh, I hope you’re ok.
One of my guildies spent yesterday out in the nasty weather and another one has to go in today despite his department being closed.
I have ice on my back, it will be okay. But thank you! I already had an appointment with my chiropractor late this afternoon. I got an adjustment on saturday and I’m afraid I just undid everything that we did on then. But time will tell.
Monday is my husband’s normal “work from home day”. But everything is actually fine here on the roads. there is a little very light snow flurry right now. It’s just coooooold. One of the cats keeps going between my husband and the fireplace and meowing. She wants a fire!
Slightly related but my dog’s name is Sportsball and we hired this new manager and for the first month or so he was so confused and thought I was really into sports. Yet I also made fun of sports? But the funniest part is from his perspective, everyone just went along with it. I just crack up thinking about this poor guy confused, like, what is this person going on about, am I surrounded by crazy people?? Then at some point is like ITS THEIR DOG???
Anyway my work made us go back to office and work is da poop. I work with people that are all remote so I go in to sit on calls.
To be fair I am kinda a terror, very YOURE TRAPPED IN HERE WITH ME energy except I will give you stickers of my dog and talk at you about him.
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I work service industry so I have no choice but to be present to serve the ungrateful masses.
But I’m on vacation this week, which is highly needed since the last time I had any significant time off I was still Salary (I’ve been dropped back down to Hourly Supervisor for “failing to meet expectations”).
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My work history is primarily hotels and retail. I lucked into an office gig in higher ed. I’m still not used to the concept of weekends and holidays. I am very familiar however with “failing to meet expectations”. Sometimes you can only do so many jobs at once.
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Failing to meet expectations is the story of my life. I don’t think I had any teacher in school who didn’t write that on a report card.
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Unfortunately I have to be in the lab so working from home is not an option. But I got my ride scheduled to uber there and back. My car doesn’t do well in snow/ice.
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I work from home occasionally, but I have to pick the days most of the time based on who else is going to be in the office. If no one else is in, I’ll go in even if I’m sick.
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My sole source of vindication was, after the decision to bust me back down, my peers in the field came to the store to help us get ready for Store Inventory and they all asked why I seemed to be the one doing the lion’s share of the prep work.
It was nice to be seen, even if by then it was too late.
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Yeah, I hear you with that. It’s like a sort of moral “victory” in a way. Like, yeah - you see what I was up against. The situation still sucks, but you feel like there is a slight wisp of vindication.
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My peaceful time working from home came after 10 years in high-paced startups as usually the only woman in the room. Ah, the stories.
One of my bosses unironically commented — notably while the backend of his website was open on my computer and I was awaiting his verbal list of updates he wanted me to do because he thought the ticketing and PMS system was beneath him and he uniquely should get direct dev access — that he didn’t think women were “cut out for developer positions” because all of his other female developers tended to quit in the first month or so. It took everything I had to not say something snarky and then motivate myself to get my work done for the rest of the day without screaming. (The comment wasn’t about me tho, see I was “one of the good ones.” 
)
I left two weeks later. I’ve kept idle track of the people (men and women) who filled my position since and they tend to stay on average for 3 or so months. I lasted nine. (But y’know, it’s definitely “the women” who were the problem…)
I’m grateful for the relative peace I have now after years of those kinds of places. The only downside is snow days aren’t magical, unexpected days off anymore, they’re just a day with an earlier start and a mandatory shovel of the driveway and sidewalk. But honestly? Childhood magic fading away is just par for the course, work from home or not.
…lol, as I was typing this, two neighborhood kids offered to shovel my stairs and driveway. I asked them how much and they said $50. I wasn’t even mad, everyone has to hustle. Anyway, going to go shovel my driveway now.
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I mean…$50 between the two kids is $25 a pop. Given that $20 really is the equivalent to $5 when we were growing up it’s not really a hustle but paying them fairly for their time.
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Right? I did the math and I just wasn’t mad. They were also raising funds for hockey so I get it, that’s an expensive sport with little to no financial support from the school district.
That said, I needed the exercise and didn’t want to pay $50 for two uninsured kiddos to possibly slip and bust their butt on my icy driveway. Gave them $20 to do my steps though, along with a general hockey fund donation.
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Also this 
I’m salary so I don’t get paid OT and I’ve worked every weekend since Thanksgiving. Winters are my busiest time of year so I’m not really complaining, it is expected for my job and it’ll gradually get back to normal by March. In the past, since this is the expectation there was a lot of wiggle room for us to work from home because of the long hours and weekend work. I’m working 10-12 hour days right now.
With the requirement to be in office 75% and how inflexible it is because it applies to everyone regardless of work or personal situations, it’s super annoying!! My entire team except for my manager is remote. Everyone I work without side my team are also remote. So it’s like ??? Also I miss seeing my dog lmao.
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My husband was working from home 4 days a week. New CFO, who want everyone in the office - even if they can work remotely 100% of the time. His team deals with the website and social media, they don’t need to be in the office. Anyway, after much “discussion” he now has 2 remote days. He’s still a little bitter.
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We found the problem.
The Work-From-Home situation is great for people, terrible for middle management and HR, and a death sentence for cities and towns who built themselves to cater to large amounts of people crammed into unsustainably small areas.
Parking fees, an absurd amount of snack and fast-food stores, over-inflated rent on ‘prime’ real estate in the middle of town or the business district, the list goes on as to why a huge chunk of the government and big business took after wombats and started passing cubes out the back door during Covid and started screaming we all had to go back to the office after the worst of the pandemic ‘passed’.
Their whole overly-inflated income system came from forcing people together and then milking them for every spare cent be engineering a situation wherein you were stressed, tired, had to commute long distances and didn’t have the time or the opportunity to eat well or cook for yourself and could thus nickel-and-dime you for every single commodity that made this life ‘easier’.
If there is any silver lining to the Sequel Nobody Wanted, Dump Two : Elongated and Musky, it is that we’re likely to end up working from home again due to a whole new super-viral situation brewing in China right now and a Glorious Leader on both sides of the ocean who’d rather be stacking bodies in refrigerated trucks than admit to fault.
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Bold of you to assume they’ll allow another quarantine with Brain Worm Kennedy in charge of the national response.
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Brain worms for everyone, everyone knows that’s how you stop the viruses from working!
we’re two steps away from leeches and bleed to balances the humors.