Day Six of my work from home, and I’m contemplating the advantages and disadvantages in re. sick time and being sick. 

For instance, the Friday before I started this, I worked from home because I had a cold and I wanted to nap at lunch but I felt good enough to work.  

Today, I was up a portion of the night with a pounding migraine and I’m not sure how well I can think – but I can show up to a meeting, then go nap until the next meeting, and so on, and since my life is like 3/4 meetings and Zoom trainings since this whole thing started, that’s like a half day. 

Is this a plus? Is it a negative?

I mean, it lets me husband my sick days.  It lets me save them for, say, I can barely move, which I’ve had. But on the other hand, it means that I’m less likely to take as much sick time and recovery time as I might need, when I could just log on for a couple hours. 

Right now, it’s “just a migraine”, so I’m going to try to show up to meetings.  But I know that when I feel like this, I can’t do critical thinking very well at all; it’s like the migraine is literally sitting on the thinking parts. Also, I think my focus is even worse than normal.

Okay, I’m trying to write a thoughtful post about whether or not being able to take partial sick days mid-day is a good thing or not while explaining that I can’t think while I have a migraine.  Does the amusement of this hit anyone else?

Right, so, if you’re working from home, what’s your personal sick day policy? What’s your office’s? How does it differ from when you’re working from work?

I.e. obviously, there’s not going to be a “please don’t come in and breathe on everyone” when you’re already at your workplace by being home, right?

 Day 5 of working from home: I almost miss my work workstation. 

I am, I believe, doing a lot better than many of my co-workers, because I already had a home office. I’ve doing the All Day Writing there the last couple Christmas breaks, so I know I can sit there for long stretches, and it’s an actual desk and then a “docking station” where I plug my laptop into a proper keyboard and monitor (I always use a proper mouse).  

I also have a standing desk set-up next to it which I’ve been trying to use for about a half hour to an hour a day, or until my feet really complain. 

My real problem is posture. In part because I like to use my laptop as a laptop a lot normally, I get comfortable looking down at my monitor, which yes, I know is awful. But it makes getting my chair-and-monitor set up so that I don’t make a crink in my neck by the end of the day… tricky.  I might need another textbook under my monitor, and I already have about 8″ of textbook. (My laptop sits on two board games and a dictionary.)

I’ll probably get it set up and comfortable by the time they declare we can all go back to our offices – although maybe if I dragged the Tempurpedic chair I use in the other room in here I might be more comfy…

People discuss work from home ‘offices’ as the dining room table (we don’t have one of those) or the bedroom and, while I have worked from bus and a couple times from car, I can’t imagine doing that full time.  I wonder how much of my willingness to and comfort with work-from-home is due to having a solid office? (Even if it lacks a back wall.)

(It’s a three-walled space backing on the living room, it’s not like I’ve, you know, knocked out an exterior wall!)

If you’re working from home – and it sounds like most of the world is at this point – how’s your home-office set up?

(are you remembering to stretch?)

Yesterday, Day Three of my Telecommuting Journey…

The power went out. 

The internet also went out. 

(We have two UPSs.  The router & cable modem are plugged into one of them. I have about an hour, hour and a half of time working if I turn my laptop to dimmest, etc…. IF the internet isn’t also out.)

It was just after my late lunch, and I really wanted a nap, so I walked out to the middle of the road, got enough signal for gmail and Discord, emailed my boss a telegram (Power out, internet out, will contact when back) and pinged my friends on Discord.

Then I took a nap. 

I mean, my entire job is online. I’d have had maybe… 20 minutes of cleaning my office if I was at work. 

I did some writing when I woke up, called NYSEG just in case nobody else had (1290 people affected, we imagine it will be about 5 p.m. when we get it fixed), played some Minecraft (obv. not the shared server), ordered pizza (from the end of the block), picked UP that pizza, and played Tiles & Tales once I got the tablet with games charged up.

The power came back on at about 9. 

In ordinary circumstances, I might have gone to a local library or cafe to work but… nothing’s open. 

Do you have plans for work if the power/internet go out?

I’m going to try to make a trend of this, doing it before work in the morning.

👩‍💻

Day three of Telecommuting: My co-workers are starting to suspect I’m actually another cat.

Honestly, I think Oli may be worried and Merit thinks I’m just sick again, and Theo just ignores everyone during the day.

But I was going to talk about supervision. 

For me, this is pretty much exactly the same as being at work – because my boss is always remote (well, a few times a year he visits the office, but with the border to Canada closed, it’s going to be a while). For most of the admins, there won’t be a lot of difference, because the professor that supervises them is either usually just in their office or not even that.

I mean, except the one extrovert in the office.  I imagine she’s going to go mad.

(we did Meyers-Briggs at Admin Excellence Training summer of ’18.  She was like “OH this explains so much” when everyone else at the table came back Introvert.)

But with all that, I still found myself checking the calendar to see if my boss was “at a conference” (he’s got at least two that are tele-conferences now.) yesterday.

As far as I can tell, no.  

But Oli did his best to fill in boss’s virtual absence anyway by sitting on my desk and staring at me.  Good kitty. I feel well supervised. 

How about you?  How do your supervisors feel the need to fill in that gap?

I’m still sitting in the armchair doing Pre-Morning Things again, so this is Before Day 2. 

👩‍💻

Today I’m thinking about meetings.

 When I’m in a meeting at person, I have to do at least moderate performative attention-paying (ditto for training).  I have to look at the person and pretend I’m making eye contact and try not to look too distracted. 

I mean, I generally doodle maps, as anyone who has seen me post “in a meeting” maps can tell, or if I’m too close to the presenter, I just doodle generally, but there has to be some looking at them. And, in general, I have to TRY not to look too bored. 

When I’m working from home, I get to do something to distract the bouncy half of my brain while the other half listens.  Performative attention-paying is “make sure I formulate an interesting question and ask it at least once” which I try to do in meetings/training anyway.  When it’s interesting meeting/training I can engage pretty well and I don’t get talked over or interrupted in chat the same way.

(grumble grumble grumble)

And when it’s three stultifying hours of meetings I am in to show willing… well, let’s just say there’s been a lot of progress on my Minecraft railroads and stations.

That’s a long way of saying meetings are nicer by Zoom when you are an introvert with ADHD. 

(And life is easier in general once I learned those were things about myself that were both true and acceptable, or at least, that *I* could accept them and the rest of the world could be faked around easily enough.)

The Dilbert will continue until morale improves. 

What’s your favorite or least favorite thing about telecommute meetings?