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Working From Home Tips

Working From Home Tips

Old Dec 11th 2020, 1:57 pm
  #166  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

Originally Posted by Jingsamichty
We had a work social last week. The company delivered a box of 4 gin or whisky samples to everyone on the project and then at 4pm on the Friday we had a teams meeting with either the gin or the whisky expert who took us through a tasting session. It was great fun and a good opportunity to have non-work chats with colleagues.
That's a really good idea, I like the sound of that.

We have a Christmas party over MS Teams tonight, company has booked a comedian and we also have some Bingo lined up. Be interesting to see how it goes down 'virtually'.
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Old Dec 11th 2020, 3:07 pm
  #167  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

My Company has a paint and drink wine sesison booked for us ( wine and paint kit delivered to yuo0 . Unfortunately i won't be able to attend as i literally can't afford the time out of my works day
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Old Dec 16th 2020, 2:38 pm
  #168  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

Home office expenses for employees


https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-age...how-claim.html

It’s $400 off your taxable income meaning you’ll net like $40-60 bucks depending on your tax bracket.
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Old Dec 16th 2020, 3:19 pm
  #169  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

Working from home tax deductibles will depend on if you are an employee or self employed freelancer/contractor.
(self employed - see link >)
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-age...2/t4002-5.html
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Old Dec 17th 2020, 11:34 am
  #170  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

What if both self employed and employed over the course of the year and WFH some or all of the time for both?
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Old Dec 17th 2020, 2:40 pm
  #171  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

I didn't realise companies still put on "Christmas works do" it seems a thing of the past in many places now, well in engineering/manufacturing companies anyway.... it nice to hear your companies (DAnny B and Jingsamitchty) are trying to do something for work morale and interaction. Maybe not the same as all getting together in the traditional way, but its something.
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Old Dec 17th 2020, 3:57 pm
  #172  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

Originally Posted by Gozit
What if both self employed and employed over the course of the year and WFH some or all of the time for both?
Then you will need to pay taxes, and both parts of CPP as a self employed person (you get a tax credit for 50% of CPP) - and can make deductions for use of home office for that part of your work, provided it's a designated space.
You would need to use the other link given for the employed work from home part of your work - I have no experience of this so can't suggest anything else, lol.




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Old Feb 25th 2021, 2:38 pm
  #173  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

This sketch pretty much sums up most of my zoom meetings this year I can't wait to get back to the office.


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Old Feb 25th 2021, 4:11 pm
  #174  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

I have done no zoom meetings for a job but have done a few, between the technical issues, loss of audio, noise from outside, and the dog randomly barking during interviews, they have gone not so bad, but I wouldn't want to deal with such issues on a daily basis. I also find I become more bored and disinterested when using zoom or similiar, its simply not an equivalent to in person anything.

Thankfully there isn't really work from home jobs for low skill workers like myself, so I don't have to worry about it, it would horrendously stressful trying to work from home in our living situation. ha ha
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Old Mar 16th 2021, 10:38 am
  #175  
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Old Apr 19th 2021, 6:28 pm
  #176  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

Alright for some innit?!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/o...tion-1.5991120

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Old Apr 19th 2021, 9:09 pm
  #177  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

Walking meetings are now a thing at our company. It's exactly what it says on the tine - You have a meeting or a call whilst walking. I suppose one needs to be relatively fit and/or not walking up a hill otherwise it'll be a bit "agenda item 1...gasp....updates...gasp...from....gasp....marke ting...<bronchial cough>". I did call a colleague today while walking the dogs. It went fine aside from him commenting about the noisy crunching of the crushed stone on the trail. Making notes or sharing a PowerPoint might be a little difficult though.

In general as an organisation we've moved away from "you must have your video on" to "My wifi isn't good enough to support video calling". I can't work out whether that's genuine (some people in London UK have shockingly poor broadband it seems) or whether it is an excuse for "we've seen too much of each other and been doing it for so long so turn the screen off so I can multitask doing something more interesting than this bloody meeting".
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Old Apr 20th 2021, 11:21 am
  #178  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

Originally Posted by Atlantic Xpat
Walking meetings are now a thing at our company. It's exactly what it says on the tine - You have a meeting or a call whilst walking. .
I don't know that it's been "a thing" before but I've always participated in activities during meetings and I assume other people have too. It's a long time since I've had sex during a conference call but I routinely cook, eat, walk dogs, go to the toilet, paint things, drive, shop. All the things one would be doing without the headset can be done with the headset. It's different when there's a point to the meeting but hat's one in ten, most of them are just rote procedure, the participants take it in turns to say "in the past 24/7 I reached out and proactively interfaced" while changing their oil or a nappy.

At the start of the pandemic there was a "cameras on" phase so the meeting moderators could check that the participants were truly standing up (per the Agile manifesto) but, as times got harder, the moderators, "scrum masters" as they were ridiculously called, got laid off.
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Old Apr 20th 2021, 12:36 pm
  #179  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

Originally Posted by dbd33
I don't know that it's been "a thing" before but I've always participated in activities during meetings and I assume other people have too. It's a long time since I've had sex during a conference call but I routinely cook, eat, walk dogs, go to the toilet, paint things, drive, shop. All the things one would be doing without the headset can be done with the headset. It's different when there's a point to the meeting but hat's one in ten, most of them are just rote procedure, the participants take it in turns to say "in the past 24/7 I reached out and proactively interfaced" while changing their oil or a nappy.

At the start of the pandemic there was a "cameras on" phase so the meeting moderators could check that the participants were truly standing up (per the Agile manifesto) but, as times got harder, the moderators, "scrum masters" as they were ridiculously called, got laid off.
Walking meetings is a thing distinct from the normal multitasking while attending a teams meeting. I too cook, clean, feed animals, drive to collect kids from school (my daughter rolls her eyes as she sees me sitting in the car with my earbuds in..."Daddy are you on a call again?") etc. But actually committing to do some exercise while on a call is a new level of either proactive employee healthcare or intrusion into my life depending upon your pov.

I've also noticed of late an increasing tendency to use the backgrounds that teams, zoom etc allow you to do so. It took me a while to work out that the trend for white painted modern rooms was actually everyone using the same damn background! Occasionally you run across some wag who has a "whacky" background - a beach or pub or the bridge of the starship enterprise etc, but that seems to be the exception, mercifully, rather than the rule.

When actual backgrounds are shared the minutiae of peoples rooms can be fascinating. Granted there is a trend, to curate your bookshelves, but its the small things that interest me. Or the bloody great things in some cases, like the broadsword hanging behind a chap I was talking to last week. Apparently it was used to cut the cake at his sons wedding but it equally could have been a negotiation ploy. Another colleague had a pink striped thing to one side that for several meetings I couldn't fathom what it was. Finally I asked and found out it was a kids tent/wendy house. Whether it was for kids or for my colleague to retire into with a glass of wine when it all gets a bit too much, I couldn't say!
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Old Apr 20th 2021, 1:54 pm
  #180  
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Default Re: Working From Home Tips

Originally Posted by Atlantic Xpat
Walking meetings is a thing distinct from the normal multitasking while attending a teams meeting. I too cook, clean, feed animals, drive to collect kids from school (my daughter rolls her eyes as she sees me sitting in the car with my earbuds in..."Daddy are you on a call again?") etc. But actually committing to do some exercise while on a call is a new level of either proactive employee healthcare or intrusion into my life depending upon your pov.

I've also noticed of late an increasing tendency to use the backgrounds that teams, zoom etc allow you to do so. It took me a while to work out that the trend for white painted modern rooms was actually everyone using the same damn background! Occasionally you run across some wag who has a "whacky" background - a beach or pub or the bridge of the starship enterprise etc, but that seems to be the exception, mercifully, rather than the rule.

When actual backgrounds are shared the minutiae of peoples rooms can be fascinating. Granted there is a trend, to curate your bookshelves, but its the small things that interest me. Or the bloody great things in some cases, like the broadsword hanging behind a chap I was talking to last week. Apparently it was used to cut the cake at his sons wedding but it equally could have been a negotiation ploy. Another colleague had a pink striped thing to one side that for several meetings I couldn't fathom what it was. Finally I asked and found out it was a kids tent/wendy house. Whether it was for kids or for my colleague to retire into with a glass of wine when it all gets a bit too much, I couldn't say!
Before I realized that there were virtual backgrounds I talked with someone who claimed to be in Kitchener-Waterloo but had a scenic forest behind him, I puzzled over that for several meetings as, whatever the merits of K-W, scenery is not one of them. Most people now have certificates behind them, degrees, accounting or actuarial qualifications. If they ever force a camera-on policy I'm sticking up sailing certificates and a cup with the unreadable plaque "Congratulations on passing your driving test - after only three tries".

I walked the dog this morning after reading your post. It's -7 with 30mph wind. "for what people want to hear my teeth chattering" I wondered.

Incidentally, this post has been interrupted by a delivery from www.cheesyplace.com One of the great problems of Canada may have been resolved.
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