PureDWTS Season 29, Week 10 – Power Rankings

I apologize for the atrocious lateness of these rankings – while I’ve been working remote at my 9-5 since mid-March, I actually had to go into my office this week for what’s called an “action workout”; for those not familiar with lean production practices, it’s basically utilizing employees as a sort of think tank to solve in-house problems. The problem being addressed: how we’re going to free up 25K sq feet of space for a new production line in our roughly 75K sq foot building. The upside? I am now going to be working remote permanently, owing to the fact that they need to annex quite a bit of office space on site πŸ˜‰ The downside? A week’s worth of long, contentious discussions, me pretending to know how to work in CAD, countless Powerpoint presentations, and one very sh*tty cardboard and styrofoam 3D model πŸ˜› But it was totally worth it for the knowledge that I won’t have a morning commute, I won’t have to get all dressed up every morning, I will have a lot more flexibility in my schedule, and when I scream into the void in frustration, nobody will complain (except maybe the dog and the cat) πŸ™‚ Has anyone else’s employer had a peculiar change of heart about remote work since the pandemic hit? A colleague asked my boss back in January (before anyone was really taking COVID seriously) if she could work a few days per week from home, and he said (with a straight face) “No, we need you here, it’s impossible for your job to be done remotely!!!” Fast forward to March 16, when we all got pulled into a conference room and were told that any of us that had the means to do so should start working from home immediately due to COVID, but we should be cleared to return to the office by June; June comes and goes, and in July we’re told that we won’t be coming back to the office before October (at the earliest). Β Then 2 weeks ago, suddenly the discussion turned to “So, how would you feel about working from home permanently? You’re cool with it? AWESOME! When can you come clean out your desk??? The subcontractors will be here Monday to start planning out the remodel!” Amazing how it took a pandemic to make my very old-fashioned employer see that working remote can be beneficial to both employer and employee. Read more..