I did, pretty much everywhere we stayed during our winter travels this season was ski on ski off. You really don't have much choice other than to stay right near a lift if you want maximize daily ski time while still being fully productive at work.
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Vermont Skier Visits Down Significantly Due to COVID-19
- Thread starter thetrailboss
- Start date
I did, pretty much everywhere we stayed during our winter travels this season was ski on ski off. You really don't have much choice other than to stay right near a lift if you want maximize daily ski time while still being fully productive at work.
Hawk
Well-known member
Well those studies do not apply to me. The people that are letting me down are the WFH people on my projects. The people that are in the office with me are coming through big time. Much thanks to them. No thanks to the WFH crew.
Agree 100% !!!!!
IT and Central Businees Office are definitely slowing things down as they WFH
What used to take an hour is now 1-2, sometimes 3 days.
Just plain ridiculous.....
kbroderick
Active member
In my experience, family situation also matters. As a single guy, it was relatively easy to get out for two hours at opening bell or as a long lunch break, then make up the time in the evening. Now that I've got a wife and a one-year-old, getting work done between 5 and 7 p.m. is damn-near impossible.
Type of job also matters; the days when I have taken an extended lunch and skied or even taken the dog for a walk often made it much easier to get unstuck on problems I'd been banging my head against in the morning. I'd expect that to carry through to a lot of thought-based jobs; it obvious doesn't work so well if you're answering sales or support calls and need to cover those hours.
thebigo
Well-known member
Our local elementary school shut down for two weeks following Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I worked full time, skied wildcat/attitash from 12-2 everyday and taught second grade. I was on my laptop most nights after midnight. I am glad we did it but it was exhausting; every minute of the day was optimized but my work did not suffer.
thebigo
Well-known member
Everybody that stares at a screen for a living should take a solid hour in the middle of the day to hike/swim/ski/lift/walk the dog. It is not healthy to sit still all day and a healthy workforce is a more productive workforce.
Tell that to the teenagers who are staring at a 6" screen 10-12 hours everyday......
$$$$$ for the Ophthalmologists and Optometrists
Family situation absolutely matters. My son was fully remote for school the entire year and my wife was awesome about staying on him to ensure all his work was getting done. Without either scenario our extended travels would not have happened.
Hawk
Well-known member
I think everybody has gotten soft over the last year and I half. I spent the better part of 25 years commuting and working large construction projects 10 to 12 hours a day. In my line of work site visits and in person visits are pretty much mandatory unless you want things to get totally F-ed up. Which they did. Again this whole thing is perspective. If you have a total desk job then that is what you know. The rest of us have to deal with people that aren't making it easy and wining about work life balance. What is that. LOL
Smellytele
Well-known member
If you are doing site visits and in person visits why can't you work out of your house?
Hawk
Well-known member
Because there is a large potion of Construction that is done in the office and in person. I do not have a large format plotter at my house for drawings. The sheer volume of hard copy paperwork can not be done at home. Try opening up a 250 meg cad file at home and not in your office. I also like to negotiate changes and costs in person because over zoom it does not work as well and you can not impress your position as effectively. I don't have thousands of dollars to spend to get state of the are computing, network, memory and printing capability so office is my only option. You don't have connectivity problems, audio or visual problems or the dreaded computer reboot or software issues if you are in person. That is my reality.
That makes sense in your case, but really it is more of an equipment / infrastructure issue that you have and not so much a working from home issue per-se. There will be plenty of people with similar hurdles but also plenty who do not have those connectivity and equipment issues who can be just as (or more) productive from home than they can be from an office location.
thebigo
Well-known member
When I first started working remotely, long before Covid, I recollect the lack of a C / D size printer to be an issue. We used to print everything, the drafter would assemble this huge packet and send to the checker, they would pass the packet back and forth a few times before finally sending it to my desk for approval. Inevitably I would find additional fixes and the packet would begin the cycle again.
Now we book a review in Teams, set our status to busy and share our screens. There are no interruptions, phone calls, people leaving early, far less people out sick. We reviewed and approved a full suite of drawings, routings and BOMs yesterday afternoon in about an hour; that packet would have been shifted around the office for days using the old system.
I recollect being concerned over the lack of physical check print in the record but it has turned out to be an overall positive not negative. Checkers used to use the check print as a crutch, no more crutch, blame is shared equally if there is found to be an error.
The large file problem was also an issue for some time but we engaged IT and developed workarounds. I regularly share 1+ GB files with our European operations, sure they take a few minutes to load but fortunately, given the time difference, the files arrive while I am still asleep. I boot up first thing in the morning, start the download, make my coffee and by the time I sit back down the download is complete.
Working in person for me meant several trips to Europe per year. At the time it felt necessary and being in my 20s it was awesome, looking back it was absurd. When my kids were born, my option was to figure out a way to work remote with minimal travel or take a few years off. Fortunately my employer was willing to work with me. Ultimately it proved fortuitous because when the world stopped last year, we were ready to go while other organizations struggled to shift from an antiquated in person model. It is typically difficult to track performance for engineers but the financial results for the organization as an entity are black and white, they show our ability to immediately shift everyone away from the in person model gave us a significant advantage over the competition.
In my experience, the switch to a remote model has ultimately proved beneficial for both the employee and employer, which is how an employment relationship is supposed to function.
Hawk
Well-known member
Glad it worked out for your company. You must be a very good manager and I mean that. My company is massive and has A/E services, Structural, environmental, and Construction Management and GC arms as well. Some groups work well together. Others no so much. My opinion is that things are going slow for me and it is directly related to people working from home that have lost their sense of urgency. Review of issues, field reports required by code, RFI answers that need site review, hands on collaboration in the field and in the office that work better in person are note getting done in a timely manner. After 35 years in the business and watching how things have evolved and the new molded expectations, there is no question in my mind that workers that are not in the office being somewhat watched and pushed, do not get it done as fast or as efficient. Having your boss walk down and say where the F is it is very motivating. Being face to face has much more weight when you in that position. I myself and my colleagues and assistants have always done the extra and made it work. Only recently, with the advent of work from home and the hiring of younger and less pushed and motivated work ethic people have I run into problems. I will never be convinced it is good in my line of work as a project manager.
Smellytele
Well-known member
Machiavellian
You should hear all the excuses people are coming up w/ on why they can't return to work, but would love to stay if they could WFH.
For our full service clinics and the main hospitals the notification went out in May that July 1 was the return to the office date.
For our full service clinics and the main hospitals the notification went out in May that July 1 was the return to the office date.
I think that the way of doing business has changed (obviously). Online meetings will never be going away. I can get 15 people in an online meeting in less than a day whereas before it would have taken over a week to coordinate schedules and then someone would be on the phone saying every 3 minutes that they can't hear. Plus screen sharing of documents is much easier than having them in the middle of the table where two people can see them. When people go back it will be an adjustment and I think it will reset a bit as people realize that is it really necessary to have everyone in 5 days a week when a great deal of time is spent in meetings in their office on the computer. I am in for 2-3 days per week.
slatham
Well-known member
Not sure if this discussion was here or elsewhere - couldn't find another thread.
MONTPELIER — Gov. Phil Scott on Friday vetoed a bill that aimed to improve rental housing and safety, saying it would reduce the number of housing options for people at a time when the state is grappling with a critical housing shortage.
Scott, a Republican, wrote Friday that “the solution is not more regulation," adding, “we need to invest in new and rehabilitated housing in every corner of our state.
“We need to lower costs to make housing more affordable and we need to ease complicated and duplicative permitting requirements while we have the funding to grow and improve our housing stock," he added.
He said the bill, which would have required owners of short-term rentals to register their properties with the state, adds restrictions and costs, and targets all rental units in all types of buildings “with few exceptions." Scott added he believed the bill “will discourage everyday Vermonters from offering their homes, rooms or summer cabins for rent" as a way to supplement their income.
MONTPELIER — Gov. Phil Scott on Friday vetoed a bill that aimed to improve rental housing and safety, saying it would reduce the number of housing options for people at a time when the state is grappling with a critical housing shortage.
Scott, a Republican, wrote Friday that “the solution is not more regulation," adding, “we need to invest in new and rehabilitated housing in every corner of our state.
“We need to lower costs to make housing more affordable and we need to ease complicated and duplicative permitting requirements while we have the funding to grow and improve our housing stock," he added.
He said the bill, which would have required owners of short-term rentals to register their properties with the state, adds restrictions and costs, and targets all rental units in all types of buildings “with few exceptions." Scott added he believed the bill “will discourage everyday Vermonters from offering their homes, rooms or summer cabins for rent" as a way to supplement their income.
drjeff
Well-known member
Read a bunch of commentary the last few days about the drive/push to do this (expand "affordable" housing in the Brattleboro area in particular.
Seems to be some big picture disconnect by some pushing this (and in Brattleboro's case it is being tied to some redevelopment of their downtown area to make it both more walkable for residents to get groceries etc, and vibrant socially, and that if more "affordable" housing is incorporated into the planning that the housing will stay "affordable" without government subsidies for potential future residents of potential future projects.
Then there was the entire other side of the debate suggesting that trying to figure out some solutions to the existing homeless problem in Brattleboro (often with a concurrent substance addiction problem for the homeless) maybe should be of a more pressing concern than bringing more people into the area via new "affordable" housing projects and the likely attention that would bring from people outside the area.
Certainly a challenging topic that has lots of layers to address
Smellytele
Well-known member
Downtown Brattleboro is sketchy down by the co-op. Interesting
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