Texan_Aggie said:

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Our company sent an email yesterday that basically said even though Abbott has opened up office buildings, we are staying WFH for the foreseeable future. In other words, leadership doesn't have a clue on how to open up and would rather play it safe.

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Hopefully that is a good thing in your mind, right? Nothing worse than having to throw on slacks & a long sleeve shirt (or even a polo) when it's 100+ degrees outside. I WFH normally and starting to sweat the moment that I step out of my former work parking garage is one thing that I absolutely do not miss.

Touche

I'm kinda good with the jeans and fishing shirt office attire for a little while longer too.

David_Puddy said:

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Texan_Aggie said:

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Our company sent an email yesterday that basically said even though Abbott has opened up office buildings, we are staying WFH for the foreseeable future. In other words, leadership doesn't have a clue on how to open up and would rather play it safe.

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Hopefully that is a good thing in your mind, right? Nothing worse than having to throw on slacks & a long sleeve shirt (or even a polo) when it's 100+ degrees outside. I WFH normally and starting to sweat the moment that I step out of my former work parking garage is one thing that I absolutely do not miss.

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It has its perks and its drawbacks. I miss the social interaction with colleagues and it is definitely more efficient to sit in a room and be able to draw up ideas than to do Zoom meetings. But, I do enjoy the cutback on the amount of BS meetings that have minimal value and often distract me from productivity. I don't know I'll ever go back to 5 days a week in the office, I never really did before as usually I'm out at customer/client sites. But it would be nice to have the opportunity to go in for a few days a week.

I get why they don't want to open back up - have to balance the risk of "negligence" claims if people become infected against whatever increased productivity/financial gain it brings. There's also a perception issue if we "made our employees come back" and they weren't comfortable/got sick. All that said, I hope they allow people who want to come in to be able to do that.

Get an iPad/ surface and a pen or some other tablet you can draw with and use a shared whiteboard. It's a great substitute for having to get everyone in a room to draw on a whiteboard and it's easier to save/distribute what you end up with (no snapping a photo with a cell phone and recreating later if you need to edit).

He has me blocked, so someone will need to tell him. If he hosts the call, he can mute everyone in the meeting and then unmute individuals as they need to speak. Also, Microsoft Teams is a much better platform for virtual meetings.

Agreed, it has been seamless to standard meetings and whatnot

RK said:

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I'd rather sit at a desk on the roof of my parking garage in a parka than work from home with no school or camps going on for the next 3 months.

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For the last two months (until this week) we have been rotating, 1/2 in one week, 1/2 in the next week (we are essential). By the end of the week I was working at home with the kids present, I couldn't wait to get back in the damned office.

BowSowy said:

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Teams has been great for WFH

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We just switched to Teams. I don't necessarily prefer it over Skype, but it is better than Zoom.

I have yet to participate in one of these meetings where someone's internet doesn't go out. Suddenlink in Kingwood is the WORST!

And I'm not an old, but I still haven't figured out the $@&? mute button. When I think I'm muted, I'm not. When I think I'm unmuted, I end up having a conversation with myself.

Fitch said:

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Same here. It's an optics thing for employers that are in-process reopening.

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I talked to my manager about this during a conversation - we live in Washington state but have global offices - I made the point that if I go to work and get sick and die from the flu, my wife/family has no recourse - she seemed to think, and I wager many companies likely feel the same - that covid is different and there could be legal repercussions if you got it at work.

That said - my company has extended wfh until June 30, country wide, and have made it abundantly clear it will be optional whenever we do return.

TXTransplant said:

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BowSowy said:

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Teams has been great for WFH

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We just switched to Teams. I don't necessarily prefer it over Skype, but it is better than Zoom.

I have yet to participate in one of these meetings where someone's internet doesn't go out. Suddenlink in Kingwood is the WORST!

And I'm not an old, but I still haven't figured out the $@&? mute button. When I think I'm muted, I'm not. When I think I'm unmuted, I end up having a conversation with myself.

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We have made about 90% of our progress with Teams since WFH. I like it especially as I've learned more features and tools by just watching some tips videos on Youtube...our internal training is kind of weak

For speaker, on advice of the wife who was running 2 days a week WFH prior to COVID and lives on Teams, get a Jabra speakerphone. I love it and crystal clear on both ends...and simple and easy to see you are on mute.

for the first month of WFH, I could say that I was much more efficient and got a lot more done than when in the office. The last few weeks have started to be more of a drag as I'm spending way too many hours on webex calls to talk about the same stuff.....so WFH is starting to be more like being in the office - inefficient.

the last few days I've actually declined to get on some calls because IMO they were not needed and I had other more important things to do,

AgCPA95 said:

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TXTransplant said:

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BowSowy said:

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Teams has been great for WFH

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We just switched to Teams. I don't necessarily prefer it over Skype, but it is better than Zoom.

I have yet to participate in one of these meetings where someone's internet doesn't go out. Suddenlink in Kingwood is the WORST!

And I'm not an old, but I still haven't figured out the $@&? mute button. When I think I'm muted, I'm not. When I think I'm unmuted, I end up having a conversation with myself.

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We have made about 90% of our progress with Teams since WFH. I like it especially as I've learned more features and tools by just watching some tips videos on Youtube...our internal training is kind of weak

For speaker, on advice of the wife who was running 2 days a week WFH prior to COVID and lives on Teams, get a Jabra speakerphone. I love it and crystal clear on both ends...and simple and easy to see you are on mute.

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My company has had teams for over a year now and we have used it mainly as a cloud/group workbook tool, but we have still been doing all calls and meetings over Skype. We make the switch to having Teams be the default meeting tool in June so hopefully its not a steep learning curve.

It's definitely different from Skype, and we've notice a few bugs, but nothing terrible. I've heard there are security issues, but I'm not in IT, so that's not my problem.

Added benefit of WFH - when your A/C needs a replacement coil (for the second time in 5 years), you don't have to take off work to be home when the repair guy comes to assess and replace it.

Downside - WFH when your house is 78* makes you a little grumpy.

TXTransplant said:

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BowSowy said:

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Teams has been great for WFH

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We just switched to Teams. I don't necessarily prefer it over Skype, but it is better than Zoom.

I have yet to participate in one of these meetings where someone's internet doesn't go out. Suddenlink in Kingwood is the WORST!

And I'm not an old, but I still haven't figured out the $@&? mute button. When I think I'm muted, I'm not. When I think I'm unmuted, I end up having a conversation with myself.

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Teams' integration with sharepoint makes it much, much better than Skype for me. There are also a ton of features when you create teams but I haven't really dug into those too much. Also, mine always defaults to a muted mic, is yours not the same way?

any idea when memorial park driving range/golf course will open? They can easily space people apart on the range.

And teams is getting better this month (if you haven't already gotten the update), new update allows pop out chats so that you can have just a small window if you want it. Really handy during meetings.

TXTransplant said:

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BowSowy said:

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Teams has been great for WFH

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We just switched to Teams. I don't necessarily prefer it over Skype, but it is better than Zoom.

I have yet to participate in one of these meetings where someone's internet doesn't go out. Suddenlink in Kingwood is the WORST!

And I'm not an old, but I still haven't figured out the $@&? mute button. When I think I'm muted, I'm not. When I think I'm unmuted, I end up having a conversation with myself.

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Skype blows compared to Teams and you'll come around to that conclusion too eventually.

This is true. I didn't like Teams when my company first started using it because all it was used for was to keep recap notes for meetings by project. Now that we've used it more in a remote setting, it's very useful for housing documents, small updates to a project team, as well as for meetings.

TXTransplant said:

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It's definitely different from Skype, and we've notice a few bugs, but nothing terrible. I've heard there are security issues, but I'm not in IT, so that's not my problem.

Added benefit of WFH - when your A/C needs a replacement coil (for the second time in 5 years), you don't have to take off work to be home when the repair guy comes to assess and replace it.

Downside - WFH when your house is 78* makes you a little grumpy.

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Yes, I think the data is stored on Microsoft's "cloud" which is in EU (so I am told). Raises all kinds of questions on who has access to information store on it and the ability to store sensitive information on it. Have had some clients only be able to use it and some completely not allowed to use it.

What I heard was that, if you host a meeting/share documents with people outside your company, they can go back and see some sort of "notes" from the presentation. I'm in IP, so confidentiality is a big concern. That's about all I know, though.

"Keith Wade, a longtime political strategist and public servant in Houston and special adviser to mayors Sylvester Turner and Annise Parker, has died of the new coronavirus, officials said.

"A dear and beloved friend has fallen tonight at the hands of #COVID19," U.S. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee said. "Keith Wade was a quiet and even-handed leader. He was a political strategist without comparison and many of us in public service can attribute our successes to him.""

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Keith-Wade-special-adviser-to-Houston-mayors-15287767.php

I was a Slack guy at my last few companies, but now use teams and love it. The remote desktop option is really handy for showing someone how to use a software tool or something else.

I know they have virtual whiteboards, but without a virtual pen then aren't very useful.

That's going to be my next request to the director.

This is my first time working from home and I love it. I'd prefer to mix up the day with a visit to a coffee shop or cafe, but that will be in due time.

Either way, seems like WFH is here to stay in some format in our Denver office.

I met him a couple of times in a previous life. From what I recall he's the definition of "community organizer".

aTm2004 said:

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ChipFTAC01 said:

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I met him a couple of times in a previous life. From what I recall he's the definition of "community organizer".

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"Mayor Parker, I have organized your night out at this lesbian owned restaurant in Montrose followed by drinks at this minority woman owned bar in EaDo and a bar in The Heights owned by someone who has been getting citations from the city but just made a campaign contribution to you."

"Mayor Turner, Mr. Agumagu is in room 518 with chocolates and wine as you have asked."

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I picture it more like this:

"Yall want this honky cracker running things? He will take away all the things we have worked so hard for. No more WIC, no more Unemployment, no more HUD. They gonna have police on every corner in this hood. They gonna run us out, bulldoze our homes and put up big ole mansions. They might even let us ride the busses to come clean they houses, if they feelin generous. Yall want that, or yall want Sylvester to keep whitey out and increase all our government checks?"

Ten minutes later on the cell phone from the back seat of the G Wagon: "Yeah Sly, I got em. Don't sweat it. Now, where is my bag of cash and when does my direct deposit hit for my new city job?"