Working from home, for the first time.

The Quarantine Zone
1

Gonna be accessing my work computer from the laptop they issued us.
As soon as it activates remotely.
Maybe,.

2

I’m working from home for the first time today. So I’d say this is the first time the coronavirus has really impacted my behavior.

After being so reluctant to step into this brave new world, I’ve decided to embrace it and rejoice. Right now I’m listening to Mariah Carey and making pancakes. After breakfast, I’m going to go for a short hike on the trail near my house, and then I’m going to come back and work my ass off for eight hours, with some breaks interspersed. It’s gonna be fun, not the dreadful awful thing I’ve been fearing. Maybe I’ll be converted into permanent telecommuter.

3

Best of luck!

I made the effort yesterday to drive to the office and pick up a spare monitor so I can work for a few weeks without straining my eyes. Hook it up and the damn thing doesn’t work! It’s plugged in, powers on, the HDMI to Display Port cable is plugged into the HDMI and Display Port… I’ve gotten far enough to determine that it’s either a bad cable or the monitor itself is bad.

Since IT is working to enable a bunch of other people to work from home, I’ll leave them alone for a while.

4

I’ve worked from home before, but until recently it was either via Citrix at my previous employer, or via RDP into my work laptop. Unfortunately, TPTB shut down that avenue, so now we have to schlep our laptops home and use the VPN on them.

C’est la guerre, I suppose. Anyway, I’m kind of proud of myself; I rigged up my laptop and my monitor via a DVI/HDMI cable and my PC via the 2nd HDMI input, so now I have extended my laptop’s desktop to my main monitor AND I can flip to my PC with a push of a button. Handy! I’ve got wireless keyboard and mouse for the laptop too, so it’s pretty spiffy, all said and done.

5

I’ve worked from home before, but until recently it was either via Citrix at my previous employer, or via RDP into my work laptop. Unfortunately, TPTB shut down that avenue, so now we have to schlep our laptops home and use the VPN on them.

C’est la guerre, I suppose. Anyway, I’m kind of proud of myself; I rigged up my laptop and my monitor via a DVI/HDMI cable and my PC via the 2nd HDMI input, so now I have extended my laptop’s desktop to my main monitor AND I can flip to my PC with a push of a button. Handy! I’ve got wireless keyboard and mouse for the laptop too, so it’s pretty spiffy, all said and done.

6

I’ve only worked from home once (for snow in January) and it was…interesting. I can do it so long as I talk my laptop home, but I just don’t have the same screens or nice set up at home, so I wasn’t a big fan. I’m too distracted at work as well. For the meantime I’m happier to go into the office, but there are also only 9 of us on-site, and we’re pretty separated in our offices (only two people actually share one and they’re a least a good 6 feet away). It’s good to know that I can stay home and continue earning a paycheck, even if I want to starve that off as long as possible.

7

I know a lot of people who work from home, but man, I hate it. Hate hate hate.

My laptop screen is too small, conference calls are cumbersome, much less exchange of information in real time. This totally sucks for me. And I’m guessing it might last for months.

8

This is why my employer lets everyone use two external monitors and video conferencing.