Working from Home

I work for a big company, I am one of thousands of employees.  I've been around long enough, and risen through the ranks far enough, that I had a pretty good workstation.  Everybody "nests" to some extent, brings in or collects stuff to decorate your work space.  Me, too.  This is what my desk looked like about a year ago.

I liked it, it was comfortable enough to make being there eight hours a day not too bad at all.  I didn't have my own office but I wasn't in the smallest cubicle the company puts people in either.  It was okay.  Then about a year ago the company built a new building and had my department move in to it.  So I had to pack up my stuff and move.  I actually did a lot of the coordination of the move for my department, bringing people and materials together to make it all happen on schedule.  We had people moving into the new building from three different buildings.  It was quite the enterprise, particularly since we didn't want to lose productivity any more than necessary. In the midst of it all, I also had to pack up and move.

We moved in  "waves" and I was in the first group.  I thought it went well.

Now, a year later, all of American society has decided all at the same time that we need as many people as possible working from home to keep commerce going as much as possible while reducing, or slowing the spread of the plague of the 21st century.  That's probably for the best but its having an incredible affect of society and the economy.

So my company has decided that I, and 95% of the other employees, should work from home until this whole thing blows over.  Everybody hopes that is soon.  Unfortunately, "soon" still means at least two or three months of working at home, in isolation.

My company was actually pretty well positioned for this before all the craziness started.  The company went "paperless" a few years ago; all incoming mail is now scanned and distributed electronically. I decided to fully embrace being paperless and try to handle actual paper as little as possible.  All my "files" are all electronic now, on the company's network.  That's down a lot from the amount of paper I used to keep several years ago when I had a couple of five-high cabinets and bookcases full of paper files and notebooks. And everyone has collaborative software so meetings can be held with everyone attending by logging into to online meetings rather than being physically present in the room.  The company has several offices across the country and I attend meetings on a regular basis with people who are in different cities and states.

I have actually worked from home two other times, once while recovering from a surgery several years ago and the other time just last fall when I was recovering from my accident.  But both times I did that simply by setting up my laptop on the kitchen table and logging into the company network.  Nothing but my laptop.  For this they wanted us to take some of the equipment at our desks home with us.  That was nice because working with a keyboard and monitors is much more comfortable than just a laptop.  And I changed my phone set-up so I could get my phone calls through my computer, which is a Surface, and headphones.

So I packed up the equipment I needed and, over lunch hour a few days ago, moved home.  The one thing we don't really have is a good place for an office at home.  We have four bedrooms but they're all still being used as bedrooms.  So I set up in a corner of the family room in the basement.  That way I can be off separate from everyone else, which is particularly nice for when grandkids are here.  I brought my stuff home and got all set up and back to work; it went well and I had everything working pretty quick.  The one thing that was a little difficult was getting my phone to work through my computer.  But we got it working.  I had to learn how to answer the phone, including how to end a call, by clicking on buttons and icons, rather than just picking up and hanging up a handset.  I thought that was kind of funny.  But I figured it out and it works well enough.

In the days since moving home I have made a few little tweaks to my desk and stuff, trying to get it a little more comfortable and workable.  I thought about bringing my chair home but didn't.  So I switched out chairs and keep a folded blanket on it for padding.  It works.  With this set-up I actually have more leg space than I had at work.  That was the one thing I noticed right away when we moved into the new building, the smaller leg room.  All our heat ducts go to the upstairs so the basement gets a little cooler.  That's nice in the summer but its a little too cool in the winter.  So I dug out an old space heater we bought a long time ago, cleaned it up, and plugged it in.  Fortunately, it still works just fine so that helps.

So now I'm all set up and working from home.  It occurred to me that if this "lock down" lasts long enough, I may actually retire from home.  That'd be something.  I'm hoping all this doesn't last that long, though.  Even though, over the years, I have asked my boss a number of times about working from home, there are some nice things about being in the office.  And my commute isn't so long that it takes a big chunk out of my day like some people have.  But mostly, I would like things to get back to normal, where you can go out and be around other people without having to worry about getting sick.  That will be nice, to get back to that point.