My boss was telling me today that he has to remind people to take time off because we're still stuck in that mindset that "going to the office" is the actual "work" part, even though our group has actually had a slight uptick in productivity since WFH starting March 9. We're WFH at least through the end of the year now. Damn we are lucky to be able to do this.

From the get go. I was pushing the conversation on this and we had some people blowing it off. This was in February. I kept pushing it and then we got word from higher up that they had a plan. All the naysayers literally sat up. It got their attention. I’d been pushing on this for a good two weeks.

We are in NJ - we started with 25% of staff in the office in mid may. That's a shortened day - staggered arrival. Three days a week.

July - 30-40% in the office - same shortened day/staggered arrival. 5 Business days in the office then five WFH - rotating.

Our restrooms, office, etc. etc. - everything has plexiglass, we have a nurse checking us when we walk in.

Our production teams had their lines doubled to create social distancing, plexiglass in between stations, staggered arrival, staggered breaks, and two shifts (we normally do one).

We build cloud servers so we haven't taken our foot off the gas the entire time. Down time was very low as we have been considered essential since day one - but the closed days were really to make our office, production and warehouse facilities all plexiglassed, check the ventilation, deep cleaners, uv cleaning, etc. etc.

They better give you ppe - like I get mask if I don't have one when I arrive to work, temp check, sanitizer all over the place etc. etc.

They are taking one hell of a risk if you don't HAVE to be there. Lets put it this way - my Analysts are not in the office. I see no need - and they aren't leadership interacting with other leadership. Over my dead body are they coming back in.

We do have PPE everywhere and as I posted below they redid the AC so it doesn’t recirculate.

Should be half in the office, half work at home - rotating.

And suggest that others do the same.

If you get to close the door, keep it closed.

Ask if they can turn up the air replacement on any central air/heating.

Apologies for the unsolicited advice, but this is from stuff I’ve been reading lately.

No recirculation. In, cool, and vent out. We got our electric bill and were like “NO ONES BEEN HERE” then we realized that it was from the new AC set up.

Right now only one of us is in the office in our area. A few times we’ve overlapped and there’s the “shootout stare down” as I call it where two people pause and we figure out who’s going where.

There’s actually efficient heat-recovery systems now, I think they’d work on cool also. But that would be a big overhaul to the AC system. I wonder if the AC industry is thinking of that.

Most systems are designed for a 20 to 25 degree air temp drop... So if it's 80 degrees outside, the air coming out of the vents should be around 60 degrees. But if you have toasty days, it could be a much different story. Hope it works out okay.

Big building too. Our power bill increased quite a lot.

and we have a spacious new office building where almost everyone has nice offices.

Our company is not going to risk it...best job I have ever had.

We don’t have elevators. Everything on ground level. Elevators are a serious headache from what I’ve read and heard. Apparently Medical College of Virginia downtown is a nightmare with the elevators, a doctor told me.

We do provide services and if we don’t provide those services it may be determined that we aren’t needed anymore or at least not in the same number of staff.

It’s really about providing services. We actually kept going during this via virtual. Pretty impressive flexibility and resourcefulness to do that.

I'd hoped that everyone able to work from home would continue to do so, not only for covid safety, but to save time, money, & carbon emissions.

Stay safe!!

We are downsizing to a much smaller satellite office.

She does NOT want to go in. Given what she does there’s really no reason for her to not work at home. I’ll be surprised if she goes back in this year at all. I think a lot of organizations are going to rethink the standard office model now. Those community desk work space things are probably gone forever. We’ll see.

Having put together conventions that is an industry that could really get hurt. Hotels built for that are likely going to have to adjust. You can do conferences virtually even if you have a group of people in one room socially distanced and watched on a big screen.

My wife hates it, because I have taken over her craft room. If she and my daughter clean out my daughter’s room on the second floor, I’ll move up there. She is living with a boyfriend at his place.

Three people. 4 bedrooms and and extra room instead an open foyer over the front door.

My wife picked the room and I’ve been trying to get her to move to one of the extra bedrooms.
We actually have an extra bedroom that we don’t use for storage. We’ve been really good about that.

Seriously, good luck with return to work.

I hope masks, etc., are part of a new dress code and that the company is taking ventilation, etc., seriously.

I’m in the office now. I have a box under my desk that I can kick off my shoes and put my feet up.

Yes. Masks are required. Lots of steps taken it’s just going to get crowded in here.

It's poor management's traditional fall back.

The premise of the plan is something like this, screw everything up so badly, it's hard for the casual observer to miss how horribly you've screwed everything up. Then shrug your shoulders and say, "Well, mistakes were made and it's gotten too bad for us to pay the enormous price to fix. So, the only thing left to do is carry on exactly as we were before we messed everything up." I believe this is the plan at this point and it has been the plan almost since the beginning.

It's a kind of responsibility loophole that's used in the United States far too often. If it isn't, it should be a criminal offence.