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With virtually everyone working remotely these days, it seems that the 8am to 6pm window that most of us had allocated to work time is getting blurred. I was always accustomed to having one or two work calls a month scheduled for 11 pm or 6 AM to accommodate colleagues/clients in in Asia or Europe but is seems that now that everyone is working at home, others assume that we are always available and accessible and the frequency of work calls outside normal hours has increased. I value my “off time ” and have increasingly pushed back against those intruding on that personal time with stuff that clearly can wait for the next “business day”. It must be even more difficult for those with young children at home and are trying to juggle their time with kids’ remote schooling and their professional responsibilities .
Hopefully, one of the first things that happens when we start returning to “normal” will be returning to a “normal’ workday and colleagues respecting the boundaries of others. Not everyone has the ability to simply say “no” and not fear for their job security and/or repercussions. same for business travel. I, for one, will probably not be comfortable getting on an airplane for business or personal travel until their is a vaccine with proven efficacy. I wonder how “understanding” employers will be once we “reopen”. .Do not answer business calls during personal non-business time.
(Hopefully that rather simple idea will help.)
I worked until at least 11pm every night last week except Friday when I stopped only a half hour before candlelighting. I also worked about four hours today. It is exhausting. But I am glad to have a job. So many people don’t.
Those without employment can be earning, now, $1,313 every week they’re unemployed in NJ. $713 from the state plus another $600 from the feds. In NY the maximum is $1,104 ($504+$600) each week of unemployment.
Some people are making more on unemployment today than they earned on their last job. (The $600 additional unemployment each week from the federal government is that same amount regardless of what the person previously earned.)
“Do not answer business calls during personal non-business time.”
That could be very bad advice for many, Until work schedules return to “normal”, employers are expecting the employees they can still pay to be highly flexible and ultimate team players.
As most frum families have lots of little people running around, I suspect that it will be necessary to develop mini-offices with sound-proof cubicles, either in homes or perhaps as a business outside the home, to support teleworkers. The same might hold for teachers and perhaps for students. There also is the issue of bandwidth, since if one has six children each doing different programs, one needs six computers with adequate broadband.
Gadolhadorah, virtually everyone is working remotely, except, of course, the hundreds of thousands, if not much more, working in law enforcement, fire departments, healthcare, factories, farms, driving trucks, stocking shelves etc. These people don’t have the luxury of working from home while at the same time putting themselves medically at risk. I’m sure they, plus the doctors and nurses working 18 hour shifts and the EMT’s would really sympathize over your blurred lines .
Repaired
While you value your off time, many working moms don’t have any at the current time. (Do they ever?) Since school age children are home and there is no daycare, many women and some men are putting in “office hours” after their children are done classes or once their spouse finishes work and can take over the childcare. It’s frustrating for everyone and my colleagues also mentioned getting calls at all hours. I have my limits with phone calls but do email from when I get up until I go to bed. It’s the payoff for the benefit of flexibility.
I have maintained a home office for decades and only spent about 15 hours a week in our law offices (that is a benefit or perk of being the boss).
The business phone line in my home and those now routed to employees’ homes is answered by an auto-attendant after hours and it states our hours and that we are now closed. Please leave a message and it will be addressed when we are open. We don’t do criminal law, so there has never been a need for after hours emergency phone service and we don’t do personal injury work with commercials telling potential clients we are always there, call 24/7.
Our business email have an auto-reply for after hours that lets the sender know we are closed and the email will be read and addressed during regular hours.I do not intrude on my employees after hours unless it is truly an emergency and then would contact them via text or email to personal account and ask if possible to call me.
Employers do not pay employees for non-working time and have no right to expect them to be on call 24/7.
That said, at least 3-4 times a week either my eldest son or I are on the phone/computer with clients in China, necessary due to the time difference. BUT, we are owners/partners, not the ‘paid help’ and this is poart of our chosen business model.
Be lucky that you have a job. 25% of us don’t due to the economic terrorism wrought by the lockdowns.
Dak: Some unemployed folks are making more being unemployed with the current special unemployment insurance than they earned during their pre-pandemic employment.
GH: Have you discussed this issue with your boss/employer? Ask him (or her) how they really want you to handle it. If on a pre lockdown day you were not expected to deal with phone calls/e-mails between 9:00 PM and 7:00AM you should not be required to do it now as you are telecommuting.
G: There’s a real issue of people upset that they have to go to work when they could stay home and collect more in unemployment than their wages. Also, there’s certainly a percentage of people deliberately staying out of work in order to collect the current historically high unemployment benefits. I don’t think anyone will dispute these two points.
Staying home for inflated unemployment checks makes no sense. The supplement ends in July and new jobs will most likely not be easy to find yet at that time. Anyone not grateful to have a job now needs a reality check. And if a pandemic isn’t enough of a teality check they need to take on a musser seder.
Regardless of whether history ends up seeing the Covid 19 crisis as a medical crisis, or an example of government overreaction and unjustified panic, the impact of increased use of the internet for teleworking and distance education will remain. Increased telework opportunities may prove very significant for frum Jews (e.g. ability to live in our preferred area regardless of where the job is, not having to interact with co-workers who are intolerant of frum lifestyles, etc.), and distance education offers many other opportunities (e.g. access to Torah education regardless of where you live, possibilities of getting secular studies without going through the yeshiva world). This is the true long term impact of Covid19.
Akuperma, distance Torah education has existed for quite some time. 15 years ago I was visiting the Chabad center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The host couple showed us how Chabad had surmounted the long standing problem of educating Chabad children in far flung areas. They had interactive classes over a network with other chabad kids
To: anonymous Jew
It is interesting that Chabad pioneered in frum home schooling for far-flung Chabadniks. A leading producer of home schooling among the goyim (used by many Yidden who are home schooling as well), started out with a major audience being “missionaries” in far flung locations wanting an American education for their children.
Covid19 could result in facilitating Jews leaving New York City (apparently the world center of Covid19, probably because of the inherent problems of forcing so many people into such a small area).
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