Are you working remotely ?

Cyched

CF Influencer
May 8, 2009
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Denver, CO
I work at a utility and they sent "non essentials" home Wednesday. I hate it! My wife was ordered to work from home for the next month. She loves it.

I'll head back to the office Monday UNLESS ordered not to or there is any kind of exposure threat.

How does it feel to be deemed non-essential?
 

cstrunk

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Mar 21, 2006
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Longview, TX
I work for a civil engineering firm in Rogers, Arkansas and they're getting things set up network-wise to accommodate the whole office. I took the laptop home possibly anticipating it going down.

Walmart Corporate in Bentonville sent all their employees home today to work remotely.

I work for a Civil Engineering firm in TX. So far we've only received emails saying they are monitoring the situation and some people can be accomodated to work from home if approved by their manager. Luckily my office branch is small so I'm not too worried, but if need be, I have a laptop and could drag a couple monitors home with me. The main issue is our company doesn't have VPN capacity for all users, so that would have to change to make everyone work from home.

Our main client, TxDOT, just received word they'll be working from home for the next 3 weeks. So I still wouldn't be surprised if I join more of y'all next week.
 

BanjoCy

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Sep 4, 2012
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None for me... don't think I've heard a peep beyond travel ban. But I have to support testing that would be difficult to perform outside our test lab... so I doubt anyone in my office gets to WFH on any kind of full time basis. At most I could see being told to WFH 2-3 days/wk.

I'm thinking our labor force has more to be concerned with - who knows, the contracts might force them to pull a temporary layoff in order to get people out of the factory.
 

Cdiedrick

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Jun 26, 2014
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Has your office closed yet? I live an hour outside of Minneapolis.

I am waiting for ours to do so, but our industry is not exactly the most proactive... yesterday our office manager sent out a note about washing our hands regularly... Uhhhhh ya think?

There is nothing that we accomplish in the office that we couldn't do remotely, so I am thinking it is only a matter of time, but maybe not.
I’m in sales and cold call multiple times a day. Rural Iowa is pretty safe since I deal with Ag. Farmers are antsy to get equipment ready for planting. Life is good!
 

cowgirl836

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Sep 3, 2009
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Do we work in the same industry? Another coworker and I were venting on it this morning that much of our office should get the hell out. I have a lot of meetings I'd like to be in person for on Monday....ugh and other days too but I'm really thinking we need to start staying home. Think we're going to see by Monday that community spread is happening in our city. It is, but we'll have solid proof by Monday.


I just want to note that by mid-afternoon 4 more cases came up showing community spread. Work did the right thing, imo, and all schools closed. Things are moving fast.
 
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Jmarsh13

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Sep 28, 2006
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Work in a small office of 15. Everybody will be WFH starting Monday. Partially to limit contact with people but also to help those that have school age kids since most schools are going to be closed as well so they can watch kids without worrying about finding daycare...
 

cstrunk

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Mar 21, 2006
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Longview, TX
Depending on how crazy this gets (and it's already crazy), it will be interesting to see if more people opt to work remotely permanently and start moving to rural locations to avoid future pandemics/apocalypses in the future... among other reasons. Basically will there be a flood of people moving out of cities instead of the other way around like it has been for quite a while now.
 
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awd4cy

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Dec 29, 2010
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Central Iowa
Depending on how crazy this gets (and it's already crazy), it will be interesting to see if more people opt to work remotely permanently and start moving to rural locations to avoid future pandemics/apocalypses in the future... among other reasons. Basically will there be a flood of people moving out of cities instead of the other way around like it has been for quite a while now.
that’s not going to change at all. Rural areas are still going to keep drying up.
 

Doc

This is it Morty
Aug 6, 2006
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Denver
Was watching Sportcenter to see how they’re feeling with it, and they were showing cricket highlights. One cricketeer hit a home run, or as they call it, whoppin a big six, and the players went looking in the stands for the ball because there were no fans there. Cricket balls must be $$.
 

cowgirl836

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Sep 3, 2009
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that’s not going to change at all. Rural areas are still going to keep drying up.


Possible (and hopefully, long past time for it) that remote working becomes more normalized. But the rural brain drain won't stop anytime soon.
 
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HFCS

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Aug 13, 2010
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LA LA Land
Depending on how crazy this gets (and it's already crazy), it will be interesting to see if more people opt to work remotely permanently and start moving to rural locations to avoid future pandemics/apocalypses in the future... among other reasons. Basically will there be a flood of people moving out of cities instead of the other way around like it has been for quite a while now.

I live near the center of LA with a huge Asian population, both immigrant and 2nd/3rd/4th gen. Many of the recent immigrants have been permanently wearing the masks for years because they had it drilled into them in Asian cities that it's very rude not to wear them.

I can't speak for other cities but we're a looooooong ways from people not wanting to live in LA. I'm house hunting in Burbank to move out a little further (still very urban though). There are only 20 houses for sale in a city of 105k. Imagine if Cedar Rapids or Sioux City had 20 houses available to buy for the whole metro. The last one I put an offer on sold for 25% over list.
 

Arkansas Cyclone

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Nov 25, 2006
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Bentonville, Arkansas
I work for a Civil Engineering firm in TX. So far we've only received emails saying they are monitoring the situation and some people can be accomodated to work from home if approved by their manager. Luckily my office branch is small so I'm not too worried, but if need be, I have a laptop and could drag a couple monitors home with me. The main issue is our company doesn't have VPN capacity for all users, so that would have to change to make everyone work from home.

Our main client, TxDOT, just received word they'll be working from home for the next 3 weeks. So I still wouldn't be surprised if I join more of y'all next week.

Sounds like our firms are very similar in how they're approaching this. My firm sent out an email yesterday morning saying that, as of now, they're remaining "open" but anyone that doesn't feel comfortable at work can work from home with supervisor approval.

That was before it was announced that Walmart Corporate sent their employees home and that was shortly followed by the City offices of Fayetteville saying they were closing down. If the City offices of Rogers close down then I think they'll completely reassess the situation quickly. I think they're in the process of prepping our network for a lot of people to begin working from home. Wouldn't surprise me that another email comes out Monday.
 
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cstrunk

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Mar 21, 2006
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Longview, TX
Sounds like our firms are very similar in how they're approaching this. My firm sent out an email yesterday morning saying that, as of now, they're remaining "open" but anyone that doesn't feel comfortable at work can work from home with supervisor approval.

That was before it was announced that Walmart Corporate sent their employees home and that was shortly followed by the City offices of Fayetteville saying they were closing down. If the City offices of Rogers close down then I think they'll completely reassess the situation quickly. I think they're in the process of prepping our network for a lot of people to begin working from home. Wouldn't surprise me that another email comes out Monday.

Yeah, very similar. My boss still thinks people are majorly overreacting, but I think he's slowly coming around. Our corporate offices are in Maryland. Not sure how crazy it is out there, so that will have something to do with our official announcements.
 

Agkistrodon

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Feb 14, 2009
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I work for a government agency, so when we telework we are still required to use government laptops. Unfortunately, my station is run by draconian morons who are afraid we won't work nonstop if we are out of their sight for a second. So, despite government policies on teleworking, our leadership has denied our requests to telework for years, and only ever purchased one laptop for our entire office. Most everyone at my station has a 20-30 mile commute every day, and most days we are not doing anything that would require us to be physically present.

I know literally everyone else in my agency in the entire country who has the same job series as I do, and all of their offices purchase laptops that allow their employees to work remotely.

We're supposed to have conference calls and meetings about everything coronavirus-related on Monday.
 
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