This is Microsoft Teams, the virtual office software many businesses are using to allow their workforce to work from home... and I loathe it.
With Teams, your home is your workplace... but you're always on call. If I'm at work, I have limited communication with my boss and colleagues throughout the day, because I'm often off somewhere else doing something else. Doing the job. And everybody trusts me to get on with that.
Because I'm working from home though, if I don't reply to a message or answer a call as soon as it comes, the inference is that I'm skiving off. Teams makes every one of us into anxiety slaves, feeling guilty about taking a comfort break or spending time with our family instead of answering that ultra urgent question that I might not have answered until the next day if I was at work, but now every response has to be NOW.
I hated this job before the lockdown... I hate it ten times more now.
This track jumped into my head the other day and it's been worming its way between my ears ever since. Do you remember perfect days? A perfect day? If you do, if you had one - or maybe more - I bet they seem a hell of a long time ago right now, don't they?
I want to tell you something
It's not a secret or anything
You're not alone in being alone
At the end of a perfect day
Do you want sign language?
Don't want a knuckle sandwich!
Now you can love or you can hate it's just
The end of a perfect day
It's a pain you have to bear
And it's always going to be there
But if you disappeared tomorrow
Then the world would carry on without you anyway
No it's not a pretty world out there
With people dying of their own despair
But in a written testimonial you'd say
You never really knew them anyway
(And Johnny Marr, he plays guitar.)
Video doesn't play for me, but doesn't matter, it's Kirsty and Johnny, so I already know I love it.
ReplyDeleteFixed it. Don't know why it did that, but blogger was doing very odd things yesterday.
DeleteI feel your pain: I jacked in my latest job a couple of weeks back - after less than three months. Life's too short to be miserable. Here's my perfect Perfect Day.
ReplyDeleteGood one. Maybe there's a Perfect Day Top Ten out there.
DeleteI recognise a lot of what you describe Rol.
ReplyDeleteI bet you do.
DeleteIt sounds awful; I sympathise. Why is it that the default setting for some people is suspicion rather than trust? It just makes them control freaks. I also wonder how busy they truly are if they expect/are waiting for immediate answers. When I'm busy I'm spinning plates and imagine everyone else to be too.
ReplyDeleteCan you, along with other colleagues, diplomatically of course, get to state your case and voice your concerns?
Screaming into the void, C, screaming into the void.
DeleteI hated the change to the paperless office a couple of years back, so jacked it in back then. I know I would have never coped with Microsoft Teams and home working either. Ironically the noisy open-plan hot-desking workplace doesn’t work anymore so had I hung on in there, it might have turned full circle.
ReplyDeleteI had hoped being at home would have worked better for you but of course I forgot about being tied to the technology - Surely things can only get better? It’s time now.
Well, they can't get much worse. Yes, I bet social distancing has killed hot-desking, so that's one benefit at least.
DeleteThat's the bane of working at home. We are told we're trusted, and with a couple of exceptions, I know all my colleagues to be diligent. But the moment a message or skype call (yes, I'm in the transition phase) arrives, you feel like you need to drop everything.
ReplyDeleteMost of my online meetings now start with a message from me saying "kettle's just boiled - 2 seconds".
The novelty of being at home is fading - I'm really looking forward to getting back in the office (and drink less coffee)
I think I've got away with it so far.
I hate my workplace, but I'd rather be doing the job there than here. I like to keep a solid wall between work and home; that's gone now.
DeleteWork/Life balance is the favourite buzzword.
DeleteI seek Work/Life DIVISION
Don't we all.
DeleteRD
ReplyDeleteEven back at the office meetings now tend to be via Teams to combat social distancing issues.
It’s the new e-mail
You'd almost wonder if Microsoft invented coronavirus to sell their hip new product.
Delete