Working From Home (Week 2)

[Jaime_Lee]

I was having a few side conversations with some community members about how they are managing their new "working from home" arrangements.  So, I thought would start a thread specific to working from home.  Feel free to share your experience here or start your own individual thread!  That is what the PTCooler is for 🙂

My family routine hasn't changed much except I haven't had to take public transportation since February when  I had an onsite meeting with the newest member of the Community Management Team @Jean-Christophe 

(I will introduce him on a separate PTCooler post).

We are already homeschoolers with the help of a a couple Homeschool Co-ops and a solid DVD program (with their Grandma facilitating) so life hasn't really changed so much on that end. My highschooler who attends a local school is completing all her Google classroom assignments and taking Homemaking 101 aka folding laundry (again with Grandma---thank goodness for Grandma!)

While we are missing our "Homeschool Community Groups" and extra-curricular activities, we have been able to get in a couple extra walks through the woods.  We also brought out some board games a little more frequently.  Our next fun family task will be downloading Vuforia Chalk.and playing together.  Why not?  It is free until June 30th.  This would be a good use of "screen time" and manage our social distancing.

So....that is what we have been up to.  What about you?  How has your routine changed? What challenges are you facing while working from home?  Maybe your PTC Community peers can offer some advice.

[StephenW]

Well, just yesterday morning we were told we were doing a split work schedule - every other week, 1/2 of us in the office (manufacturing support) and the other 1/2 working from home. So I moved the desktop computer and monitors to the house and here I am for the rest of the week. My wife was already working from home so we are sharing space. Sooo I end up listening to her music (mostly ok), I steal her snacks, and I learned she likes to talk to (and argue with) herself while working... my chair is NOT comfortable, the hobby work area is NOT the right height for working, and I don't mind standing while working (some)...oh and the dog sleeps all day 🐕😴

Luckily our IT group had already set up all computers (including desktops) for remote work connections.

I'm glad to still be working and to not be sick.

[HamsterNL]

I'm also working from home, using a Remote Desktop Connection to take control of my PC at work. We communicate by WhatsApp or Riot.

I have far better music at home, so that's an positive side 🙂

Homeschooling is a thing... I work 40 hours a week, co parenting my son, and one day in the week also acting as a "daycare" for a schoolfriend of my son. But so far so good...trying not be to too harsh on everybody 🙂

@Jaime_Lee, nice to see you are playing board games! I'm an avid boardgamer, but I had to cancel all my boardgame dates 😞 But lately, I have been playing on www.boardgamearena.com with my friends. We setup a videoconference call with Zoom so we see and hear eachother. It's nice being able to play together online.

[BettinaGiemsa]

Oh, I have been working from home for many years and I love it. For me, it comes with some flexibility and helps me balance my mom and my work duties. The rest of my team are in the US, I am in Germany and we have one team member in India - for me that means relatively quiet and productive mornings, but lots of meetings in the afternoons and some late night calls here and there which I can then compensate with breaks in between. I love it.

Now for the past 2 weeks the entire family has been home. We suddenly have to coordinate calls, supervise the kids doing their assignments from their teachers - and I suddenly have to cook for 4 every day and my daily grocery list has doubled in length 😉

Otherwise, things work well - the kids fight as usual, but we have beautiful weather these days, so I can just push them out into the garden.

The upside of all this is that I have more actual spare time - mom taxi is out of business, no more yoga classes, fitness club, or any sort of social activity. While I am missing some of it, I enjoy not having that schedule anymore. Sounds weird, but you suddenly realize that the most pressure you have is put on you by yourself...