I have been working from home since 2002. That year I moved to AZ, set up a permanent site-to-site VPN to my employer in MD, and continued my job as sysadmin of our company's network. I set up my home network and the company routers with routing to all of the company's locations, including Hong Kong and a half dozen other sites.
 
Since 2007, my work at home consists mostly of yard and garage projects, one of which was a 4 year task of rebuilding an FJ-40 from the bottom up.

I have been working remote since 2005 and my wife has been remote since 2014. I can’t imagine have to go back to working in an office environment. Only downside is that it can get a little isolating but that is what SigForum is for.

I have been to the office 4 times since March 15, 2020.

Since many of my office mates are commies, they're all scared to death.

My main concern right now is if my company requires an employee to get the vaxx, either to enter the office or maybe even to remain employed.

Those of us who aren't wrench turners were sent home late March early April, then around October they decided we could come in two days a week.

So I have to get permission to go in and barcode new equipment for our property book, and even get my ass chewed for going in to take care of an essential task that I can't do from home.

Since a few people have caught the election infection at work they made us all telework full time again.

I will say the coffee and music is better from home, but the productivity due to only having the one small laptop screen has gone down.

quote:

Originally posted by lizardman_u:
I will say the coffee and music is better from home, but the productivity due to only having the one small laptop screen has gone down.

I was allowed to borrow two large monitors, a keyboard and mouse from stock at the office to use with my laptop to maintain productivity.
Is that an option for you?

My company went full time work from home due to all this. We were planning on eventually going back to work, but we did a survey of all the employees. Who wants to full time wfh, part time, or return to the office. It was like 90%+ full time wfh, so we're getting rid of many of our office buildings, including the one I'm in.

For me, what I've done all year is build up a ton more infrastructure in IT to support everyone. It's been a crazy busy year but it's coming along great.

I either work in the house or coffee shop with my laptop, or I've got a section of the detached garage where I have one of those giant iMacs too. I like going out to the garage because it feels more like "going to an office," since I have to put pants on.

We've been self-employed primarily (W2 jobs being secondary up until 2014)since 2011. We have 2 offices (One is attached to our home, one being a satellite location 200 miles away in a medium-sized commercial building). We immediately closed both offices to walk-ins, but we only ever had 10-15 walk-ins a year, never anyone who followed through on a contract.
With the craziness, when our school district gave us a full-time distance option for our children this past summer we took it. We knew there would be on-again, off-again stupidity and mask stupidity with the fickle-minded followers calling themselves teachers in our district. We were right.
The distance was easy for our high-schooler, who was already supplementing her education with online college courses due to decreasing college-bound opportunities at her school. Her largest problems being teachers who couldn't figure out the tech, most of those are ironed out now.
My 8-year-old discovered a more difficult situation. His reading suffers, and the virtual format isn't fitting his learning style. He isn't adapting well, and we're now seeing just how many problems he has and tricks he uses to get through class unnoticed. While we've so far decided to keep him enrolled, it's clear that the school is just passing him along, and he's right in the middle of his class, so they're more worried about other children. Besides, he only gets 1 hour, 3 days a week of contact/classroom time with his teacher. When I'm listening in...not much is accomplished. She manages a dozen 8-9-year-olds who aren't paying attention and gets little teaching done. Then she assigns packets of busywork...which my child can't read the instructions to complete.

My wife spends about 3 hours a day with him, and I spend about 1 hour. We've had to roll back to the basics and fill in the blanks where he got away with faking his way through the school curriculum. While the daughter is in our office doing 8 hours of online meetings and coursework, she answers the phones when we're out of the office teaching our son. It's a struggle, and we'll probably be full-time homeschoolers next year. We're responsible for our children's education, and I'm appalled at how much trust we placed in his teachers, and how long we apparently ignored his lack of education happening. The fault firmly lays in our lap, and we're working to correct the problem.

So... productive work in our office is somewhat compromised. Productivity is stressed. The best internet speeds we get living in the city here is around 1 meg speed, which is stressed with 4 people working online. 2021 is going to start rough. I anticipate burning through my cash reserves before spring.

I'm home a couple days a week. The days I go to work I'm able to leave as soon as everything needed on site is done. That means I go in at 7 AM and I'm usually out by noon. I finish the day online but I gotta be honest. Once I've gone in to work I don't really have to do much when I get home. I'm not hating this.

WFH for both of us, Wife manages a dept of 35, we discuss this often, while people talk about companies wanting/not wanting to come back to corporate offices, there is a large contingent of people who now WANT to work from home.

Single Moms, or families with single earners, no longer have to drop two to three grand a month on day care for kids... Huge savings and better for the kids anyway...

Home office work will be a player, commercial property rates and values will probably drop over the next few years. Building offices may take a hit, in short commercial property is set for a major reset depending on how this works out.

As was by El Toro, with the right attitude at corporations, people can live on a mountain, in the desert, on an Island and be productive. It's going to change how we hire people, you are no longer restricted to the local talent except for manual labor jobs.

Need a new HR person, Tammy in Topeka, new accountant, Pete in Pittsburgh, Ron in Raleigh no longer has to shop for a job in town, he could be working for a company out of Columbus.

Interesting times, wifes employer is finishing the build out on the new corporate tower 15 stories, question is, will anyone want to come into the office, or want to come in, since they could telecommute anywhere...

I work in IT (server and app admin), I've been remote since 2015 or so.

I've been remote since early 2019 with a lot of travel. Only thing that has really changed for me is a dramatic decrease in travel, especially by air.

Home. I can work anywhere in the world with internet connectivity. I wish they'd let me go remote 100% and I'd move out of state. But as soon as this is over they'll have us back in the office. Been to the office a few times during the pandemic to escort techs to work on my equipment.

My job is impossible to do from home. Most of our company is working from home I am part of the skeleton crew. This just started back up again this week. I do work from home onece every two weeks now, but I am guessing just like before I won't actually be allowed to stay at home.

I’m a consulting engineer, was already set up to work remote so when we were sent home in March it was really no big deal. Less time driving around town 2-3 days a week to client meetings an no more 25 minute commute. I will work from the office half a day if I have errands to run in town but it’s purely up to me.

Our company announced no back to office until late summer next year at the earliest, if our clients go back to in person meetings I’ll have to but I’ve already requested and been approved to work from anywhere until that happens so I’m building out the camper van I bought a few years ago and hitting the road in the spring.

Working from home for maybe 15 years now...my wife has been working from home since March.

Have been since March.

Been working partly from home since around july, I think. Finally able to work 4 days at home with one day in to do mail. Just informed that prob will continue until at least end of Jan. I like working from home, and am hoping I will be allowed to continue after that, really.

My corporate attorney job has been work from home since March. My wife's corporate consulting position went remote a few years back, so no change there. We have a real estate brokerage on the side, and that's always been run from our home office.

The silver lining to this pandemic is that my company is now just a little bit closer to allowing regular work from home days or even permanent work from home positions.

If my company allows for full-time remote work in the future without penalty to career advancement or pay, I will strongly consider moving to Texas, Tennessee, Washington, or Idaho.