Not a layoff post just a general observation. I think the rotation between connect week and WFH is kicking my butt. I wake a good hour and a half early to get ready and fight traffic. Sure, I could just maintain this early schedule but I’m not going to and I have valid reasons. Years of late IT work has made me a night owl and there are plenty of nights where I need to be sharp, much sharper than in the morning. So anyway, it’s messing with my sleep and I find myself and everyone around me yawning like crazy. We’re all downing monsters and Redbulls saying how we need a nap. The next WFH week comes and I’m wide awake cranking out work. if I stay up late with work I know I can catch up on sleep if I can just roll out of bed and get working. Often I will just be watching a show with the family and I hear teams pinging on my laptop and I’m right at it working and helping people. So it is what it is, I am significantly more productive because I’m awake when I’m at home. At this point I would rather it just be all work from home or all work at the office. if it’s all work from the office, you don’t get my services while I’m at home. If I’m with my family, I’m not gonna stroll over to my computer when I hear someone panic messaging me on teams. that’s work life balance. And honestly, if you are worried your employees aren’t working when they are at home then you’re a bad manager and have no idea what they’re doing. They could be doing absolutely nothing at the office and looking busy.
5 replies (most recent on top)
Some groups were one or two days a week before Covid. You picked the days. Could change it. Stay home if sick or snowing, not make it up. Miss that. If anything we should have improved beyond that after the pandemic. Not gotten worse.
As an employee of Fidelity, I don’t mind connect weeks. In olden days (before covid) we used to be in office 3 days a week and would prefer that over 2 hard weeks. Agree all 5 days is draining.
Being a slave to that laptop is a bad idea whether you're working from home 2 weeks a month or not. For years I worked with martyrs who worked while on vacation or didn't take their vacation like the whole dept would fall apart without them. Don't waste your time with family while you're not supposed to be in the click. And yes, I know it's different for software folks who are on call. But if you're not on call - STOP IT! It's not worth it ! Take it from a retiree who worked in IT for years both at Fidelity and elsewhere - you can't get that time with your kids back. When layoff time comes you're just an a # in a spreadsheet sorted by salary
Can’t agree more, I’m so tired every connect week from dealing with early mornings and traffic. I’ve learned to treat my work like the days we had desktops, no one is getting any responses outside of normal working hours. I also feel like the majority of my site feels the same way. The office is pretty empty until 10am and then again after 2
It weird that you would still care about doing any amount of quality work for this company.