Organizing and decorating my home office no longer carries the cachet it did during weeks one and two. I'm used to the room now and like everything else in one's house, it's rarely even noticed. I have found, however, that all those special office supplies we think we can't live without are simply trinkets to collect. I use a small legal pad and a pen. Sometimes a sticky pad. That's it. And I barely use those. In Week 3 many people's nerves are fraying. I only know this via email communications, of course. Attitudes that were once excused or ignored are now confronted. I know because work friends have forwarded me some of their email exchanges with other people. For my part, I have endeavored to remain upbeat in my correspondence, knowing that others aren't having any fun, either. I did receive one snarky response today, and I took a few minutes before deciding how to reply. (I let it go.) Wednesday was my worst day. My system slowed to the point of complete inertia and then froze up completely several times (shut the PC off, re-log in, authenticate my login, try again; lather, rinse, repeat).I finally shut if off and walked away; did some laundry; tried to lower my blood pressure. Worse, I knew I'd have to face the same imbroglio the next day. I can't expect my IT Department to solve my problem; I think it's simply a matter of fifty million people or so gobbling up bandwidth. Working from home has become complete drudgery. It's no longer novel; it's tedious. Telework does not bring freedom -- I rarely leave this room. I probably walked around -- no, I know I walked around -- more in the office than I do at home. Shall we talk about depression? It may have been Tuesday night, and it was my own fault. I flipped on the TV when I lay down for the night, and as the minutes ticked by, the reports grew increasingly horrifying. I understand why cable news does that, but mitigate, people! Any rays of hope at all, folks? What I gleaned was, don't leave my house under any circumstances. If I do, it's essentially a death sentence. And maybe I've already contracted the virus -- the incubation period can be up to fourteen days.I visited my local convenience store twice in the past two weeks. Should I be drawing up a will? What no one on TV will (or can) answer is how long this will go on. May 4, our original return-to-work date, now seems like a cruel joke. My tentative retirement date is June 12 -- will I even be able to return to the office to retrieve my personal belongings? Is this called "going out with a whimper"? Things I've learned this week:
Online grocery shopping is the highlight of my week, as frustrating as it is.Why is there such a shortage of paper towels? The hell with toilet paper -- I have a cat who barfs regularly (as cats do) and paper towels are an essential item. I've begun weighing whether I really should be wasting a half-sheet of paper towel for tasks I previously whipped off a good-sized wad to tackle.Luckily I can blow my nose with toilet paper, because facial tissue is non-existent as well. I do tip my Shipt shopper well, because that's a thankless, health-endangering job. But all in all, I'd be tickled to do my own shopping.
I've spent all the bill money on groceries. The piper will be piping soon, but right now I need snacks.
There are things I'd like to order from Amazon, but I'd feel too guilty making a driver deliver my impulse buy when there are people who really need stuff, like paper towels (there aren't any, by the way; but I'm just saying.)
"The Office" reruns are the highlight of my week.
Being able to do my regular job anytime soon is a pipe dream. The whole reason I applied for the trainer position in 2003 was because processing claims all day made me want to hurl myself off a high precipice. Guess what I'm doing now.
Things I've done this week:
I gained probably five pounds.
I took a shower almost every day.
I downloaded a prayer app, but I keep forgetting to reference it.
I slept fitfully and my dreams were all disturbing.
There is always tomorrow (I say rhetorically, since tomorrow is Saturday and I won't be working). I have fits of despondence, but my fallback outlook is positivity. Raise a glass with me that Week 4 will be a revelation.
I remember the days before computers existed, but that seems so much like ancient history it strains my cortexes to try to conjure the memories. I remember performing my job duties on an IBM Selectric typewriter. I remember when the only means of contacting a co-worker or a boss was by the telephone plugged into the wall. And if their line was in use, oh well; try again later. Answering machines? What? Call waiting? I never planned to work at home. Sure, I wanted to, but the nature of my job made that prospect impossible. Until now. Now anything goes. At least as of this week. This week everything we ever knew changed. I'm confined to home (unless I want to risk my life, which I don't). Monday, I brought home a hastily-configured work computer because My Old Trusty isn't exactly trustworthy and I couldn't afford to gamble that MOT would actually allow me to connect to my worksite. I spent an hour and a half unconnecting MOT and five minutes hooking up Work Computer (Why do home computers have so many moving parts and connections? Hello, PC companies!) I'm used to working with two monitors, but alas only one of the monitors I brought home actually works. I'm not going to bitch about small annoyances; our IT Department had approximately four hundred employees to set up in three days. I'm keeping my mouth shut. Using a strange computer, though, has its challenges. When I need to do my personal tasks, like banking, Work Computer doesn't know any of my logins. It took me far too long to locate and sign into SiriusXM, and when I did, I found that Work Computer's speaker (onespeaker) is so tinny it was more annoying than soothing. I quickly signed out. So instead, I listen to cable news all day long, and hear the same stories about Coronavirus over and over; and because there is no new news, I tend to tune it out. It's simply background noise; something to mask the silence. What have I learned about teleworking? There is good and there is not-so-good. GOOD:
I don't need to set an alarm. I get up early and sign in when the system allows me to.
I only wash my hair when I feel like it.
My makeup drawer has not been pulled open all week.
I don't have to pick out clothes in the morning. I wear the same combination of yoga pants and pullover every day.
No commute! When my day is over, it's over. Look! I'm home already!
I'm more focused, because I have no one to chat with (see "bad").
I'm saving money -- no frozen dinners; no gassing up the SUV.
My laundry (and dishes) are done! Saturday laundry day is a relic of the past.
BAD:
I need a better chair, seriously. My back and legs are killing me. I've tried several configurations of throw pillows and foot rests and still haven't gotten it right.
Diet: I'm eating too much. And the wrong foods. I keep telling myself to get it together, but my only break is when I can grab a meal from the kitchen, and we're not healthily stocked.
No fresh air. I will resolve this issue as soon as the weather and wind allow. I will take walks. I need to get out of this room!
Social interaction withdrawal. Dang, I'm not even an extrovert, but I miss talking to people! I email them and they don't answer right away, and I don't understand why they're not as needy as I am.
No dividing line. The workplace, at least, was a different environment.I didn't necessarily like going there, but it was different from home.
I will try to offer tips for surviving the work-at-home experience in my next post (hint: have plenty of caffeine on hand), but for now, this is where things stand with me. All in all, the pluses outweigh the minuses. But that's week one. I've got at least three more weeks to go.
Unexpectedly, just like that, I'm becoming a telecommuter (thanks, Corona!) I like to have some time to prepare for big life changes -- four months is ideal; one day isn't.
The good news is, I've calmed down a bit since yesterday. My heart palpitations have temporarily subsided.
When people imagine working from home, they assume the transition will be seamless. Working with computer systems over the years, I know better. Anything that can go wrong will.
My home computer is rather slow. It hasn't bothered me much; most of the stuff I do online does not require lightening-fast response time. If Firefox takes two minutes to load a web page, I take my dog outside or swipe through Twitter on my phone. All those computer fixes I procrastinated about have suddenly become crucial. My Windows 10 setup recalcitrantly refuses to install updates. Google tells me this is a "known issue". I've tried several suggestions with no luck. I'm not going down the road of restarting in safe mode and plucking random "host processes" or anything ending with .NET and willy-nilly deleting them in the misguided hope that something magical will happen (the only thing that'll happen is my PC will stop working all together).
I did manage to conduct some system cleanup. I'd forgotten about cccleaner, which I'd had and used on my previous setup. First of all, it's FREE, but most importantly it's efficient and moron-friendly. cccleaner took care of a bunch of unwanted stragglers. My anti-virus software is stunningly efficient. I use Malwarebytes, which is also FREE. I did purchase a subscription a while back, though, since I was so impressed with it. There are free anti-virus programs that also work well: I've used AVG in the past. If you are looking for recommendations for any kind of program, go to CNET first.
Since I was panicking yesterday and felt that my failed Windows update was crucial, I impulse-purchased a program called RestorO -- big mistake. Not only did it fail to fix my problem, but it created many problems of its own. It was advertised for $27.99, which at the time seemed like a small price to pay for sweet deliverance. They charged my bank account $30.00, but what's a couple bucks here or there, right? Then my trusty Malwarebytes began signalling me every 30 seconds that RestorO was malicious and was causing PUPs, which sound cute, but aren't. Tired and wary of the constant alerts, I tried to delete RestorO -- it refused to leave. Thus I had to search for another free program for removing guests that wouldn't exit. CNET told me to try Revo Uninstaller. It did the trick! Again, FREE.
I've given up on installing that obdurate Windows update -- sometimes one has to know when to surrender. But I did do some needed purging.
On the non-computer side, I submitted an Amazon order for my favorite coffee, which will be delivered Tuesday. Had I known I'd be separated from fresh hot java, I would have been proactive. All my (many) Amazon packages have been previously delivered to my workplace, so finding something on my doorstep will be new.
I won't have my special pens and highlighters and file folders, but I suppose I will improvise. Truth be told, I'm not feeling this. I predict doom. But it has to be done. Either that or my two hundred hours of PTO time will dissipate in a flash.
All I can do is cross my fingers and pray that it all works. There might be upsides -- stay tuned for updates.
