#1524

All except the tartan tat shops. Miniature highland coos for everyone!

1 Like
#1525

Happy 1 year of WFH anniversary to me :partying_face: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

5 Likes
#1526

Same here!

2 Likes
#1527

I bought a cheap, unbranded £30 webcam off Amazon that got great reviews. It’s junk. I should have sent it back, but I’ve now binned it and gone back to my laptop camera after a colleague asked me during the morning team meeting if I was using one of those hidden cameras they put in teddy bears to spy on your kids. I figured a separate camera, even at £30, must be better than whatever tiny camera HP stick in their laptops, but no.

Moral of the story, you probably have to pay £70 for a Logitech, or don’t bother.

4 Likes
#1528

Howled at this.

8 Likes
#1529

Christ alive I am actually getting served video ads for these now! How??!

#1530

I’ve tried iVCam which is £10 a year and so far it looks ace. It seems like a great idea to use your camera phone when camera phones are so good these days. I think I will be buying. Seems to work perfectly with Zoom, I haven’t tested it with Teams.

1 Like
#1531

Got my home workstation assessment next week. Hoping to score some equipment namely a chair, desk, monitor, y’know all the things i really needed the past year to help wfh more bearable.

#1532

I kicked the whole wfh in the head. I had the option to stay but I was losing my mind. Kind of feels good not having my desk at home cluttered anymore

I’m sure I woulda liked it much more if I didn’t have a stay at home order but with one it was perpetuating my mental health problems

#1533

Yeah I am 100% sure on this. I feel crap, but it’s not because I’m working from home. It’s because I can’t go anywhere else, at all.

#1534

Submitting my request to become a permanent remote worker today - the rest of my team are based in the US so it doesn’t make an enormous difference to them where I am. Haven’t seen my boss in person for nearly 3 years! Leaving London for Glasgow the second it’s approved.

8 Likes
#1535

I’m increasingly dropping heavy hints about this whenever I get the chance at work. When we “go back to the office” I want my boss to be informed to the point of boredom that in future I want to spend the absolute bare minimum amount of time in the office, for good.

1 Like
#1536

Work give us a WFH budget which kicks in again in April (so must be related to tax years I guess), so when that rolls around I’m rinsing them for the best webcam that money can buy

#1537

I’m also dropping heavy hints and in response my boss is dropping heavy hints that he’s expecting everyone back full-time in the office where he can keep an eye on them. I’d like to be in the office 2 or 3 days a week, but pretty sure it’s going to be 5.

1 Like
#1538

Well that sucks.

Our director has been pretty clear on the line that our organisation supported “Smart Working” before the pandemic and will continue in the future. Plus we had space problems before and are almost certainly going to be getting rid of one of our three head office buildings. I think my boss trusts us to get work done remotely, I used to wfh one day a week before, and we have been very seriously been put to the test over the last year and come out of it with rave reviews. But with him what I worry about is that his personal experience of it hasn’t been great as he has two young kids, and that he might backslide to a “compromise” position out of “fairness” when this all ends. Hence I want to go at it in quite a militant way: if I need to come into the office then I will, but I’ll do what I have to do there and then come straight home, because that’s where I can work the most effectively.

#1539

There’s so so so so so much lag on AutoCAD via a remote desktop on a laptop screen that it’s basically unworkable. Need a native installation and a second screen.

Was finally invited to submit a request for a mobile phone. Was told it’s a three month wait.

A lot of what I do tends to be enabled by the ability to nip across to a colleagues desk to check on a design detail or specification. This scenario has not been replicated in a remote working sense. Only even had a first remote team meeting earlier this month.

The urge to check Outlook out of working hours to try and steal a headstart is hateful.

Resent having a corner of my living room largely dedicated to work.

Kids are at home for two out of my four working days. That doesn’t contribute to getting shit done (though that’s more of a nowhere’s open thing than necessarily a WFH thing).

In short: not for me, Clive. Not without being given the proper tools. Probably wouldn’t mind a 2 days in/2 days WFH given proper kit.

2 Likes
#1540

We switched from a remote desktop set up to SolarWinds one. It means that you have to keep your PC and monitors in the office switched on all the time, but it’s a lot smoother when using CAD software, as it’s effectively just a viewing window into your machine in the office, and so all processing is still done on that machine. It can also handle a dual monitor set up.

I can’t remember the exact name of the product, but I can dig it out if you want.

#1541

Our work is having consultations on our return to work (currently scheduled for October at the earliest), having meetings with each team of 8 or 10 people. Asking what we like/don’t like about WFH and the office, and any other things that we could think of. They’ve already told us that they expect us all to be doing a mix of in office and WFH when we return (unless there are specific needs for people to be totally in the office). In our meeting they asked everyone how many days they’d like to be in the office, and I think I was assuming 2-3, but people started saying 1-2 and then I kinda realised that was my preference too. Although I mentioned that it’s going to be hard to tell until we actually return. It’s going to be such a different feeling when we return, with surely less than half of the staff there, and maybe some change to the offices or hot desking or something like that. Plus the probability of bringing your laptop and equipment in with you each time for an office day, and then back home afterwards.

1 Like
#1542

This is kinda mad

1 Like
#1543

I wonder how much the willingness/desire to be in the office will change when we can all live lives outside of work once the world opens up too. Like right now, I’d pretty happily work in office 3 days a week because it’s also a social thing, but when I can meet my actual friends after work and on weekends, my colleagues won’t see me for dust if I can help it.

7 Likes