Haven’t worked in office as an independent consultant or an employee in over 10 years. If I heard that I had to ‘earn the right’ I’d walk immediately.
Better option may be to create a culture that encourages flexibility and enables remote work as a default. You may find that it helps your bottom line; overhead, recruiting talent, and productivity just to name a few. Remote by the founders of 37Signals is a great read on the business merits of remote work (understanding that this doesn’t make sense for all businesses).
I used to be in that camp, mainly because the company I worked for was not liking work from home. When you introduce new options, culture tends to favor tradition over change. That’s fine if the intent is to remain an office-centric company. Work from home can remain a “privilege” and benefit for top performers if that’s the chosen culture.
I’m not in that camp anymore because I learned myself that:
If I hire someone I can’t trust to work autonomously and remotely, I made a bad hire.
If I can work from home but my reports cannot, that sends the message that I’m better than my reports.
If I’m doing due diligence on giving consistent and regular feedback/follow-up (positive and negative) to my reports, they’ll know the expectations I have as their boss and will either work to meet them or not. If not, they’ll go into whatever organizational performance improvement process that exists.
It’s really all about culture. Some companies hate remote. Others see it as a fringe benefit only their top performers should be able to enjoy. Others see it as the foundation of their company culture. Leaders dictate culture by their decisions and actions. Simple as that.
It’s also worth noting there’s a difference between “working from home” and “working for a distributed company”, but the two often get conflated with “remote work” thus muddying what it means.
The former offers the ability to work from home as a benefit of the job that may be taken away. You’re still required to adhere to all company normalities, including working hours, calling into meetings, etc.
The latter is that working from home model the company is built upon because everyone does it.
I’ve been having 1 or 2 Zoom meetings a day. I cannot make the AirPods Pro keep a Bluetooth connection for very long. I gave up and started using either my Logitec headset (I hate the look) or wired earbuds. In both cases the built-in mics are fine and I get no complaints.
I’ve had similar trouble with my second-generation AirPods. I ended up leaving my AirPods connected to my Mac and used my noise-cancelling Sony headphones for music and podcasts on my iPhone.
Ron - i have used both my AirPods Pro and my older, 2nd Generation AirPods for hours at a time without a problem. Maybe try unpairing and repairing them?
They’re open back (so not great for loud environments) but have a quality sound and microphone. Open-back is nice because it feels like you’re having a more in-person conversation.
Yeah, working - and everything else - from home! I’ve used my jack-of-all-trades / workhorse Mac for a long list of tasks since it was new (in 2011) and work from home was sure on that list. With all of the “from home” modifications we’ve had to adopt recently, the ol’ Mac has been used for more and more, but here’s one I never experienced before: e-Church (or would it be iChurch?) Yep, we’ve actually been “attending Mass” on the iMac, with a few modifications to the workstation of course to help get us in the right frame of mind. Ok, it’s no St. Patrick’s but it works in a pinch!
Likewise, all of our services are now online. While the messages are substantive there is no substitute for in person worship and Christian community, which cannot be replicated electronically.
@cornchip, what did you use to map the pickup comparison (and get a 4000px-wide image)?
Your post inspired me; so I did a 3-way recording, comparing the 2nd Gen AirPods (not pro), the wired Apple EarPods, and a Sure MV51. Would like to post similar graphics.
Nothing fancy—I uploaded both of them to https://clyp.it/, which made those pickup images. I screenshoted them on a 4K monitor with the browser at full width. They weren’t the same length so I put them in an image editor side by side and shortened the longer one so the timestamps were lined up.
Our worshipping community (which worships at the motherhouse of a local community of sisters, so not a parish, exactly) has been gathering via Zoom for Liturgy of the Word (for those unfamiliar: the first half of Catholic Mass; it includes Scripture readings and a homily or sermon). It’s been such a large group “gathered” that we have to restrict open mics to before and after liturgy, and mute everyone but leader, readers, etc. during.
And of course it isn’t the full Mass. I’m sure there are a good number from our usual Sunday gathering who are watching a streaming Mass instead/in addition.
But we can see each other and talk to each other on Zoom, and it does considerably better than I expected at keeping us connected.
AirPod batteries severely degrading around the two-year mark seems to be the norm. That’s the price we pay for having an awesome device with tiny rechargeable batteries. I’d start thinking about a new pair, and not sweating it too much.
Zoom meeting tips from a Florida Circuit Judge in Fort Lauderdale – which includes please dress appropriately. See his letter to attorneys here —https://tinyurl.com/t8tlwmh
Well… crazy idea but what about investing in growing your employees‘ abilities to work from home and support those who are used to a different style of work and/or aren’t that tech-savvy? But what do I know…?
Because we are dealing with 600 people and “grow abilities” doesn’t happen in 2-3 weeks. We also had many employees actually asking to come back to the office, not wanting to work from home. While the switch to home-work was effortless with some groups, some are really struggling.
No it doesn’t but it can happen over a few months, especially as @times_reader mentioned by investing in training. If not for all employees, train your managers and managers can help coach their reports.
