Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Kim Jong-Un has said that North Korea could face a "great crisis" on covid as their quarantine has been breached - and reportedly berated senior officials.

Obviously no idea what's going on there but it feels like if this sort of thing is being said publicly, things are bad

BNO Newsroom
@BNODesk
BREAKING: North Korea, one of the few countries with no confirmed cases of coronavirus, reports "grave incident" due to lapse in anti-epidemic efforts - Yonhap

[viper37]

Most mask restrictions lifted tomorrow.

Government of Alberta has announced that employees must start returning to their workplace in August with everyone to be back in September.

Masks restrictions still on.

Workplace starts return to the office next week. Expect to be 100% on September 7th.

Quebec government starts on September 7th & expects to be 100% in November.

I expect, I'm going to have to look for a new employer that allows remote work. No way am I going back 100% to the office.

so much for this brave new world in hybrid workspace and so many people just not stepping back in the office since they're so poductive at home and their employers just loved that. 

I always knew it was a dream.  Employers want to see their employees working.  Even if they spend their days surfing on the internet, they're considered "hard working" when in the office compared to the intense at home workers.
Ah well.  Road congestion and lenghty commutes.  I'm getting used to that with my 20 min commute day&night.  And that 3 min wait to cross the road block where they're repairing a bridge.  It's almost as bad as Montreal.

[viper37]

It's like if during WW2 there was a faction in the Allies who said the Axis really wasn't so bad, and all this war stuff is an over-reaction, and maybe we should just, you know, get along with the Nazi's. And this went on throughout the actual war, and even afterwards people were STILL saying "Well sure, like 250 million people died after all, but was that because we insisted on fighting them? Probably would not have been so bad if we just let them be! And look at all the bad things that came out of fighting them!"

there were such political factions in many countries.  Canada, US & UK had the good sense of locking them up on day 1 of their war with Germany.

[viper37]

Obviously no idea what's going on there but it feels like if this sort of thing is being said publicly, things are bad

BNO Newsroom
@BNODesk
BREAKING: North Korea, one of the few countries with no confirmed cases of coronavirus, reports "grave incident" due to lapse in anti-epidemic efforts - Yonhap

either things are bad, or he's preparing a new purge.

[DGuller]

so much for this brave new world in hybrid workspace and so many people just not stepping back in the office since they're so poductive at home and their employers just loved that. 

I always knew it was a dream.  Employers want to see their employees working.  Even if they spend their days surfing on the internet, they're considered "hard working" when in the office compared to the intense at home workers.
Ah well.  Road congestion and lenghty commutes.  I'm getting used to that with my 20 min commute day&night.  And that 3 min wait to cross the road block where they're repairing a bridge.  It's almost as bad as Montreal.

I see so much of this cynicism on my LinkedIn feed, and frankly it's just getting so tiring.  There are more reasons why employers would prefer their employees to be in the office than just desire to micromanage them.  They may legitimately think that in the long run this is a way to get more productivity out of their employees.  I myself am now working two days a week in the office, and I have to say that these two days are more productive than the three days at home.  It's not because I have a taskmaster standing over myself making sure that I'm busy working at all times; it's just easier to focus on the task at hand, and there is a morale boost from seeing the people you work with in person.

[Richard Hakluyt]

There is also some concern that junior staff are losing out on being "mentored" by more experienced workers. I'm not talking about a formal program here; just the sort of osmotic transfer of knowledge that takes place in fairly casual conversations.

[garbon]

There is also some concern that junior staff are losing out on being "mentored" by more experienced workers. I'm not talking about a formal program here; just the sort of osmotic transfer of knowledge that takes place in fairly casual conversations.

On the flipside, I've been working for 8 months remotely and feel like I've had lots of casual conversations with junior staff where I taught them things unplanned.

My office has declared that when we do officially 're-open' (you can go in now if you want), whether you need to be in the office depends on whether or not their is a need for you to be collaborating given work you have one. A lot techinical/writing based work would be put as something you do from home. They are then thinking people would roughly come in 2-3 days a week with a rotation of senior staff being around.

This is my 2nd company where none of the US staff were majority of the time office-based even pre-covid.

[Barrister]

There is also some concern that junior staff are losing out on being "mentored" by more experienced workers. I'm not talking about a formal program here; just the sort of osmotic transfer of knowledge that takes place in fairly casual conversations.

I keep bumping into lawyers in court only to find out they are fellow Crown Prosecutors in my own office.  They may have been hired 3 or 6 months ago but I had no idea who they were because we have had zero opportunities to meet in person.  My office is large at maybe 80-some lawyers but not so large that I didn't know everyone pre-Covid.

[Josquius]

There is also some concern that junior staff are losing out on being "mentored" by more experienced workers. I'm not talking about a formal program here; just the sort of osmotic transfer of knowledge that takes place in fairly casual conversations.

Yes, there's definitely a concern here.
I also worry whether it will amplify certain personality types being an advantage. Its a lot harder to grab someone for a casual chat remotely, especially if you've never met them, than if you're co-located.

[garbon]

I also worry whether it will amplify certain personality types being an advantage. Its a lot harder to grab someone for a casual chat remotely, especially if you've never met them, than if you're co-located.

I've been repeatedly telling juniors to reach out to me / that part of my role is to help make things better. Some appear to believe me, some do not.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I think that's all challenging - and real issues with this transition. I think where offices still exist I imagine teams will want to coordinate calendars because it ultimately doesn't matter for many that there's someone on site each day of the week, it probably matters more if most of them are in on the same days so they can take advantage of those sort of chances.

Separately I have heard of someone turning down a job because the organisation expected 3 days in the office

[garbon]

Yeah I think that's all challenging - and real issues with this transition. I think where offices still exist I imagine teams will want to coordinate calendars because it ultimately doesn't matter for many that there's someone on site each day of the week, it probably matters more if most of them are in on the same days so they can take advantage of those sort of chances.

Separately I have heard of someone turning down a job because the organisation expected 3 days in the office

Of course, on the flipside, at my last role we had an office for our most junior role in South Africa where there was no one senior from our division in that office. All of those casual sorts of conversations/chances had to develop via phone/webcalls as there was no other option. My best employee was someone who I twice promoted that was in that SA office.

[Tamas]

Yeah I think that's all challenging - and real issues with this transition. I think where offices still exist I imagine teams will want to coordinate calendars because it ultimately doesn't matter for many that there's someone on site each day of the week, it probably matters more if most of them are in on the same days so they can take advantage of those sort of chances.

Separately I have heard of someone turning down a job because the organisation expected 3 days in the office

I think at the end of the day some jobs and personality types are more suited for remote work than others.

And the same way bubbly personalities with short attention spans seldom go into software development, or antisocial recluses choose to go into sales, a realignment will gradually take place. The companies for whom WFH works out will see their living-in-the-office preferring employees gradually leave and those who sign up with WFH expectations joining and staying, and vice versa.

It's going to be an interesting and for sure challenging transition. What I don't want to see are efforts to prevent it from taking place at all.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Separately I have heard of someone turning down a job because the organisation expected 3 days in the office

I'm very interested in all these handwringing reports about labour shortages. Will the workforce, even the relatively unskilled part of it, get to call the shots for the first time in 40 years?

[viper37]

I see so much of this cynicism on my LinkedIn feed, and frankly it's just getting so tiring.  There are more reasons why employers would prefer their employees to be in the office than just desire to micromanage them.  They may legitimately think that in the long run this is a way to get more productivity out of their employees.  I myself am now working two days a week in the office, and I have to say that these two days are more productive than the three days at home.  It's not because I have a taskmaster standing over myself making sure that I'm busy working at all times; it's just easier to focus on the task at hand, and there is a morale boost from seeing the people you work with in person.

There are many reasons to want people in the office, beside micromanagement.  But it's mostly about micromanagement.

Zoom/Teams meeting can be chaotic and subject to bandwith, often too low for the simlateneous needs of so many people.  In my new place of work, we use the internet feed of the nearby high school.  Might work great now that school is over, but so far, Teams meeting have been a real chore, and we needed to shut our cameras, or take a break during our meetings to allow the bandwith to come back.

Last Monday, a councilor was having trouble joining us.  The week before, I was unable to join the meeting for several minutes.  There are always problems.

The good thing: many of the pointless meetings in office environment have been postponed indefinetely and generally kept to a bare minimum.  So that's the good part.