Pulaski

I hope that works out for you.

Danny B

Pretty much

I was kicked off of the dining room table and into another room last weekend as there is no known 'return to the office' date.

dbd33

I think it'll fly, there a quire a few examples of people having to go to their home countries for domestic reasons and working from there for extended periods. As well, I know the organization is looking at the benefits of having fewer people on site. After some difficulties ramping up the VPN everything has gone smoothly through COVID and there's no plan to reopen the offices this summer so I think we're in "new normal" territory. That opens the possibility of "remote working" being really remote working. Winter in a cheap tropical paradise but with serious income is a very attractive idea to me.

Siouxie

Paul_Shepherd

Thankfully I avoided all that work from home cobblers.

We need to get people back in the office where I work ASAP, the lack of communication is getting ridiculous, I have had redo a design on one of my drawings twice now through lack of information, an engineering team cannot work from home. Its crazy.

BristolUK

Is there room for everyone? Not too overcrowded with everyone going there?

dbd33

I don't understand this at all. What is it you can do in the same room that you can't do remotely? (Obviously you touch each other but I wouldn't have guessed engineering to be very tactile).

No ripples at all over my moving to working from home until Christmas. That'll finish out this project so then, if there's work to be had, it's a whole new negotiation.

Pulaski

WFH definitely needs communication to make it work properly.

I was WFH 100% anyway, since 2/19, but I have open communication between multiple colleagues and contacts throughout the day, and across the whole US. But that was the same even when I did have a cube in the office as my cube wasn't adjacent to my colleagues who live locally, and as most of my work is with or for people across the whole US, being in the office doesn't solve the communication problem anyway. I have a permanently open IM app on my desk top and transition to phone calls and screen sharing when needed.

Siouxie

Therein is your problem - communication. If your colleagues / planners / clients and/or the rest aren't communicating it doesn't matter whether they are at work or at home. Send a memo (e-mail) to the department manager and copy in a senior manager and point out that the lack of communication is causing undue delays to the project.. watch how fast you get answers.

Paul_Shepherd

Personally I feel the only way for a design office to work efficiently is face to face, where you can describe what the issue is and what your intended solution is with help of pointing to drawings and photographs to aid your technical explanation. I have lost count how many times an email string over a simple issue has turned into a comedy sketch of misunderstandings (with Benny Hill music playing) as no one knows what anyone is talking about through verbal or written descriptions alone, we need to point to drawings or photographs to explain the area we are talking about with regards to the design and possible changes.

We also need to go out into the manufacturing shop regulary to assist/discuss manufacturing issues, there is no way you can talk about that over the phone or by email, as it just turns into a farce of misunderstanding and get very frustrating very quickly. It also depends on how disciplined the company is, the company I work for was already bad for communication, its deeply rooted in the way its been managed,or mismanaged over the years, but now its terrible.

I think all of the design office could be in the office with a bit of rearragement, we have the space to spread out, as the rest of the office…. sales, purchasing accounts etc are not in. The manufacturing guys are all in, the welders, machinists, assembly technicians , so why can’t the design office be in too.

Pulaski

Maybe one day screen-sharing technology will become available in Canada.

Paul_Shepherd

The place I work at is stuck in the 1950s!! We have just been taken over by a huge American company....I am hoping we may break into the 21st century, but I dont think its going to happen overnight, the company is broken,.. the pandemic has just hilighted the deep flaws already there.

Pulaski

Wow! I was expecting to hear that there was some technical issue, such as bandwidth, or that your colleagues aren't very tech savvy, not that your employer hasn't implemented the technology.

Former Lancastrian

Why working from home is not always suitable in my job. No access to a fax machine/scanner or printer. Yes we still fax stuff as we cannot send information via email that contains Protected B Information and 90% of my work is Protected B. The recipient of any email needs a way to encrypt it and very few if any or set up to do this.

dbd33

In the eighties I worked on a system for a production line that made cans, there were sensors on the line that could detect that a can had been made and from there we were able to work out how much steel or aluminium had been used and thence order new coils of material within minimal warehousing. Not quite JIT but we were thrilled with it. The canning plant was then bought out by the giant of the industry and the staff were all flown to America to learn the card index system that replaced our effort. Management skills know no national boundaries.