Working From Home Megathread

AlmightyCushion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118343486#Comment_118343486

Just rotate the bed 90 degrees so that the long part of the bed is against the 2.1m wall. Beds are shorter than that so should easily fit.

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118339846#Comment_118339846

I found that segment online, there is a Virgin Media player. Grogan was talking about potential safety and liability issues related to wfh. Spiral staircases were mentioned. With regard to the right to request remote work legislation, he said "May or June" but it's all just speculation at this stage.

As for my paranoia, I worked in the PS long enough to be fairly well up on what goes on. Many managers and senior staff are dead set against wfh or any other changes. In fact they are the paranoid ones, they don't know what their staff do but they know they do nothing so get the useless fcuks back to the office where at least we can see them.

Using WFH to save on office costs won't be the factor that it is in the private sector as, shur, the taxpayer will pay for the offices and, shur, we'll look like fools if we have a fancy office that is half empty.

Also, yes the PS does want to get rid of staff working in "non trendy" areas through "natural wastage". While it may be a stretch to say that staff will be denied wfh in a deliberate attempt to encourage them to resign, it isn't far fetched in the slightest to say that holding on to/attracting good staff by offering wfh is not a priority. That's why the right to request wfh legislation is needed.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118345874#Comment_118345874

Funny how people have been happy to second guess me for months on this, but I don't recall anyone leaping to me defence. Is it possible that there are scenarios where someone fits a bed and a desk in a box room? Yeah, it's possible, maybe with a slightly wider box room or a particularly narrow bed - but it is unlikely that you'll have a desk that is usable as a long term work space.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118345882#Comment_118345882

The problem with the bed is the length, not the width. So if you're going to have a usable bed, it really isn't going to fit in most box rooms, with a desk. Do you expect people to fold up their desk every night, unplugging all equipment, moving monitors and keyboard and camera, and put it all back together every morning?

And I am banned from office, like pretty much every civil servant in the country. I can only go into the office where I have a business need to be there.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118345892#Comment_118345892

Yeah, tried that first time round - unless you don't mind knocking in your walls, it's not going to work in this case?

Lillyfae

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118346156#Comment_118346156

The bed is folded the majority of the time, when your visitors from wherever aren’t dropping in. Your office won’t be folded away every day, so that stays put until you need your box room back.

I know you don’t need this explained to you.

AlmightyCushion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118346156#Comment_118346156

Then there is something wrong with the dimensions on that site. There are plenty of single beds that are around 2m long do should easily fit in a 2.1m room. Regardless, no one is saying that WFH works for everyone but it does work for lots of people.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118345167#Comment_118345167

With omicron being as transmissible as the common cold and having similar symptoms, being in the same building as someone who is infected is risky.

Forget social distancing or masks, this virus don't care. It will rip through the country like a bad cold, just like the ones we have every year. The restrictions are mostly symbolic at this stage in the virus evolution.

Unless you quarantine 100% of the population for a couple of weeks it will spread to 100% og the population then decay away.

limnam

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118345812#Comment_118345812

Thankfully for a lot of people there's grants. If they can't afford it, they can't afford to be "wasting" money on oil/gas etc.

They can put the petrol/Diesel/commuting money they're now saving towards it for a couple of months.

I imagine most working people can afford it as it's relatively inexpensive to do. It can also be done over time you don't need to do all rooms at once etc.

But as usual you're always about the problem rather than the solution.

JoChervil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118345826#Comment_118345826

Again, you've changed proportions of the desk, so who is kidding here?

JoChervil

Till now, I had some doubts that you were a troll but you knowingly manipulate things, in this case sizes.

As it is shown you changed the size of the desk. How two 100cm desks, can be shorter than 195cm bed? You are a troll no doubt about it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118346004#Comment_118346004

Public Service has been obsessed for years with micro-managing, mainly due to once having been over-staffed as a “solution” to the unemployment issue in 70s/80s. Back in the day there was not always a lot of work to do, but at least in my organisation one could utilise creative skills. Pre-computerisation there were loads of tedious repetitive tasks, which people drudgingly did, but managers would be non-stop overseeing that they were done to the last letter sent out. Then all the tasks would be done and dusted and if you weren’t creative, at times there could be a lot of tense moments trying to appear busy.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118346395#Comment_118346395

Apologies, my mistake, I had a little cut/paste issue there that I missed.

But to get back to the original point, my diagram was based on the dimensions of my box room, and shows clearly that the smallest desk doesn't fit with the smallest bed in that room.

JoChervil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118348505#Comment_118348505

So I used dimensions of your room 210cmx275cm. And I used sizes of IKEA single bed and desk. And as another poster said, if your room is 2.10m wide, so a bed 1.95m long can easily fit along its shorter side as well. No need for knocking a wall.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118343963#Comment_118343963

You think that you can put a suitable WFH kit on a desk like that, and pack it up at the end of each day so you can get into the bed - and I'm the HR nightmare? Thanks for the laugh.

A typical full-day WFH setup has a laptop, external monitor+stand, external keyboard+mouse, headset, and a docking station to make plugging them all in easier. Some can skip the docking station, depending on how many USB ports the laptop has. Some also have a printer. Some have a 2nd monitor, or need to use the laptop on a riser so it can act as the 2nd monitor.

In one company, I've been involved in procuring and issuing equipment. Our recommended practise is to leave everything connected together in a space which is permanently allocated for work. This is because we've had a few monitors damaged after being dropped while they were being moved around.

A person could only / just-about fit all that on the mini-desk in the quoted picture. The external keyboard would be an issue.

And moving it all when you to go to bed would be a nightmare: among other things, people like me don't have a spare alternative space to put it in when it's not on the table.

Personally, I've been lucky: I need to do some stuff on-site, and so the company lets me into the office whenever I want, and have been clear that they accept the risks associated with working at the kitchen table at times when the Covid situation mean =s I don't feel safe (their phrase) going in.

But earlier in the year I was advocating for a colleague who was in a difficult living situation. She very much wanted to attend the office, but was categorically refused because she did not ever need to be there.

And all this talk of changing the bed for a fold-out couch, and installing zoned heating - yeah, that'd be a great laugh ringing up the landlord and asking for that. The couch would be great on days when my partner is worked a night-shift or is sick and needs to sleep during the day.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118349869#Comment_118349869

I have a home office setup with screens, docking stations etc.

You again going to HR about a collegue just shows you are in fact HR's worst nightmare.

If your company can't afford a 120 euro to replace a monitor i dunno what to say.

Your acting like work should solve your own miserable living situation and that it down to you, no one else.

The sense of entitlement in your post is utter crazy, I pitty anyone that has to work with you. You seem like a graduate with a sense of entitlement that can't think outside the box.

You and Andrew really coming across as Narcissits, the self importance is literally insane.

Even if you had a 20 room mansion you still disklike work from home. You and Andrew would.

I wonder if Dermot Bannon is worried about his job

tigger123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118349900#Comment_118349900

I don't think so.

By the sounds of things he's going to get 2 to 3 seasons out of converting box rooms to WFH set ups. It's very complicated, costly, unfeasible, and chocfull of drama.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118349893#Comment_118349893

You and Andrew really coming across as Narcissits, the self importance is literally insane

You seem to have missed the repeated posts highlighting concerns about colleagues who've been thrown under the bus by those who are only dellira to share an hour or two off their commute.

JoChervil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118351870#Comment_118351870

Yeah, nice try to pretend that your penny pinching attitude has noble reasons...

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118354313#Comment_118354313

Notes the sneering looking-down-the-nose attitude at those who don't have the resources to make WFH workable for them. Sad to see how many people are prepared to dump their colelagues under a bus once they manage to save some commute time.

Frank Bullitt

It is amazing that the 2 main heads in here who are against WFH, are experts in home offices. Stunning.

Lillyfae

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118351870#Comment_118351870

Nobody has missed your repeated posts, one as nonsensical as the next. Only dellira to shave an hour or two off their commute? Will you listen to yourself. What about yourself who's happy to throw people under the bus of having to commute one or two hours a day rather than put the relatives from England (who shouldn't really be travelling anyway at the moment with the absolute STATE of their policies) on a couch bed once a year.

JoChervil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355396#Comment_118355396

Well, you were showed here that, if someone really wants, can work from home from his box room, so no-one is dumping anyone under the bus, but instead support creating work opportunity for people from remote areas of Ireland, where they don't have to live in a box room in the first place.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118339506#Comment_118339506

That's serious nonsense. Outsourcing in practice doesn't work that well. Look at most depts and they are run efficiently. Revenue and Welfare being prime examples of this. Outsourcing and privatization just doesn't work. We know this from Eir and the likes. The state pretty much surrender critical infrastructure. WFH/Hybrid was always going to be a policy driven by govt for the Civil Service well before Covid 19. As a country we are investing in remote working hubs in the country too so we can alleviate the need for people to make long commutes. Now wouldn't it look great the govt. telling their own direct workforce that they can't avail of them.

If you are that interested in the PS then why not sign up for the next competitions. My equivalent in the private sector currently gets paid 70k more a year than me. I'm not sure they would take the pay cut and conditions to sign up.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355453#Comment_118355453

Where exactly did I throw anyone under a bus or suggest that anyone else shouldn't WFH?

Congrats on your public health qualifications that allow you to make better judgments on those travelling from the UK than NPHET? Do your judgements apply to the entire period of Covid, when I've been unable to assist family with an overnight bed, btw?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355529#Comment_118355529

Was I showed that here? Was I showed that for every box room and every bed? Was I shown any solution to paying heating and lighting bills? Was I shown any solution to having safe space to WFH for those who don't live in a safe environment?

But great to hear your solution for people born and bred in the suburbs that they should move to Leitrim, away from their family networks, just so that you can save an hour or two on your commute. Now that's throwing under the bus...

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355564#Comment_118355564

why do you stay if you can get 70k more in the private sector?

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355641#Comment_118355641

I work with two contractors who do exactly the same job as me. They are on 70k more however.

Lillyfae

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355622#Comment_118355622

Suffice it to say, I'm more qualified than you. NPHET are providing advice, they are not implementing rules. That's down to the government, who have to weigh up more than health concerns, hence not stopping UK visitors even when they should.

Have you been unable to assist your family because of a desk in your spare room? Do you know what a couch bed is? Are you very sure that your direct reports are not shopping on Amazon right now? It must be weighing on you very heavily not being able to look over people's shoulders from your box room.

Cyrus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355710#Comment_118355710

if i was in your shoes id be going to get that extra 70k myself.

Gusser09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118355739#Comment_118355739

Yeh it's an option. However during the bad times I am happy with the conditions I have etc. I'm not whinging about it btw. Just making a point that some thing the PS is some sort of employment paradise. During the boom times it's not that attractive to be fair.