PING – To send a quick, short message over a texting platform (SMS, Instant Messenger, Chat) used to check in, keep someone in the loop about something, or ask about something, with the expectation of a quick, short response from the receiving party.
I’m faced with another unusual scenario. I’m allowed to go to work on site but we are also being encouraged to stay home. Staying home is considered helping the cause. Limiting exposure and thus limiting the stress to the health care system. Not to mention anyone else we may or may come in contact with. I personally can’t even imagine riding the bus, or riding the T, or taking the elevator in a building that employs over 10,000 people on a daily basis. Shortly before the end of the world (as we knew it) I was MFing that T ride where I would stuff myself onto a subway car, stepping on feet, someone breathing down my neck – someone else’s hair in my face – and look at that – my prayers have been answered. No more commute.
I have worked at home before, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned ad nauseum, but for some reason this time seems different. I don’t know if it’s my age, the circumstances, the weather, or all of the above and then some. It just feels all run together. My work is now all mixed up in my life because it’s all in my house. My quiet room is no longer my quiet room – it has my computer and monitors staring at me. Every move I make there is a work related consideration. Since moving my computer upstairs I now have to go downstairs to get coffee, or go to the restroom (or do a load of laundry). I also don’t have a TV in the new office room to stay on top of the news. When I was in the kitchen office space I was only keeping the TV on until 9 am but now I’ll turn it on in the other room and leave it on. That is weird isn’t it? I can’t hear it and I can’t see it but I leave it on. I hate a TV being on all the time. But when I was downstairs with it in my face I had more control. More structure. As soon as 9 am hit that TV was off. Enough news for the day.
On days when it’s not snowing (in May) I do absolutely love the air and light that comes in the front room of where my computers are now set up. But now, if I go to get a cup of coffee downstairs I wonder if someone is trying to “ping” me and I’m away too long. Or should I stay in the kitchen and look at the TV? Am I missing an important news item? Why doesn’t my music on my computer play on my Bluetooth speakers now. It played on my TV downstairs when I was using that as a extra computer monitor. Forget laundry. It was so close when I was downstairs I could take a swig of coffee and put a load in the dryer. But now I’m nervous that I’ll be downstairs too long. Away from the possible “ping”.
A friend recently shared that they got an invitation to a meeting while they were in the bathroom and then got yelled at because they were 5 minutes late to the meeting they didn’t even know about – because they were in the bathroom. Why is it now we feel guilty and get in trouble for going the bathroom?
Sometimes the ping never happens. But I still feel like I have to sit here. Is that an old outdated learned behavior that I can let go of now? I got an email from a work colleague yesterday who said “it is a whole new world. I hope we don’t try to manage it with old rules?” Kinda revelatory isn’t it? Because that’s what we’re all doing. All of us (new to this work at home thing, in this new world) – we don’t know the new rules. Even for those of us that worked at home before it’s like there’s some wild-west new frontier associated with it this time. It’s willy-nilly and we don’t know how to manage.
At least that’s how I’m feeling.
There are positions that are made for work at home and always have been. There are guidelines, there are accommodations for these positions set up this way from the git-go. And there are positions that are ideally positions created for working in an office location. We are taking those latter positions (made for working in an office) and trying to remake them to work at home. Herein lies the conundrum, the challenge, the new world order. The transition seems easy, the transition is productive, but noone is taking charge. No one is leading the pack. No one is making decisions. Everyone is kinda just waiting and seeing what the Governor says…lol. Where is our years of indoctrination of bluecollar thinking from grade school? How do we incorporate our “yes sir, no sir, go to detention for being late after the bell” to this work at home without rules thing.
See what I’m saying?
Then there’s these home related issues:
I need to print something for work so I can review it. I’m out of ink. I’ve never kept a backup. I just run out and get one when needed. Or order from Amazon. This time, I ordered ink cartridges from Amazon. I really miss the two-day shipping. My first ink cartridge order took at least a week and then it was 10 stops away and then it just disappeared. The update said not in stock. How is that possible if it was already out for delivery? And so I ordered again and then it said expect in two weeks. In the meantime, I went to Rite Aid and they were out and I asked if they were getting more and they said they weren’t allowed to tell me when the next shipment was. They were afraid there would be a run on the store if they shared when the next delivery was. For gawd’s sake. So I just kept ordering ink cartridges online from different vendors. They all came the same day 10 days later.
Totally unrelated to work, I ordered a new Kitchen Island. Well, I guess it was related to work because when my office was in that kitchen area I was seeing that I could fit an Island in there and I was seeing how nice it would be to get some of that overflowing stuff into some drawers or cupboard out of site. Not to mention more counter space. The Kitchen Island/Wayfair said it would be delivered by end of day last Friday. It wasn’t. Everyday it’s a mystery where it is. Just today I got notified that it is anticipated it will ship from California on 4/27 (that was last week) I can see from the tracking it’s been in Pittsburgh since last Thursday (5 days ago) Then on Sunday they just stopped updating. My concern now is it will be damaged because who knows where it’s been. And then I’ll have this huge box, that I can’t lift or move, and it will also be in my quiet room, my office, a.k.a the room that collects cardboard boxes.
Recycling is every OTHER week. Boxes take up a lot of space.
All of this activity goes on while I’m working. Kitchen Islands, missing ink cartridges, cell phone issues. Calls from my niece, on my cell, while I’m supposed to be on a meeting call. It’s not her fault that she is calling me on my personal cell. She’s allowed to call me whenever she wants. It’s my phone! But I need it for Teams meetings because my laptop microphone doesn’t work. That would require a trip to Best Buy for them to fix it. Using more of my free time to fix something that is primarily to make working easier.
Let’s talk about this personal HP laptop that is only 1 year old with a broken microphone. I’ll be typing along and all the sudden it’ll go into some visual basic macro command. It is draining my brain. Sometimes it just deletes whatever I’m typing. I’ve brought a wireless keyboard home to help alleviate this mystery of the random keyboard commands, of maybe hitting the wrong keys, or leaning on the keyboard, or whatever seems to be the issue, but this new set up in the upstairs room (with light and air and boxes) doesn’t have room for the wireless keyboard. So I’ve ordered a new desk. It’s a small desk. And when it comes (in a box) I will have to do some serious rearranging. I am hoping it will reduce clutter in the long run and save my mom’s antique secretary from the wear and tear from me actually using the antique desk as a desk.
This is all because I wanted light and air. Maybe it’s better to go back downstairs to the kitchen dungeon.
Well the long and short of it, my entire life revolves around work now. Instead of separation between church and state. There is so much good about working from home, but my brain is turning to mush. I feel like I’m never ever away from it. Every decision is tied somehow to work. Even exercising? Forget it. It’s either too late for me in the morning and I might be late coming back from a walk. Or lunch time? Maybe someone will ping me. After work? After work is a possibility but I’m exhausted most days from sitting here waiting for the pings (not that I don’t actually do non ping related work). The weather doesn’t help. It’s May in Pittsburgh. It is raining and 49 degrees with a chance of snow tonight. In MAY. All the flowers I bought last weekend are now in my kitchen. In the dark.
I was supposed to be leaving for Florida this coming Friday. For a week. My body is sensing the disappointment and wants to curl up in a fetal position somewhere in this house. Away from pinging computers and boxes.
xoxoxo