Who’s doing it? How’s it going? What’s your work from home set up? How are you telecommuting? How hard did your employer make it for you to do your job?
It seems a lot of people are doing it now. I could do it forever, but given how the employer has approached it, I doubt it will last. I’m trying to do a really good job in and maybe one day they’ll let me do outsource work.
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Depends on your job. What is it?
A research and development technician (like in chemicals, etc.) cannot do work from home. Needs to be at the lab.
Salespersons, teachers, and many other jobs can work from home.
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I’m a university teacher (technically not a professor, but basically a professor), I’m doing it
Fine for me, but not getting much response from the learners and not sure what is going on with them. I’ll keep preparing for next week and if it doesn’t work out I know my boss wants me to do some policy work anyways so I’ll just shift to that.
I’d prefer to be going into the office, but part of that is because I’ve been working from home for the better part of the past 8 years and it was nice to have a separate work life with colleagues and things again. Now I’m back to laptopping it in my pajamas.
Currently, just a laptop at a workstation in the hotel room I’m temporarily staying at. My work was already being done on the laptop in the office anyways. I’m using Moodle with the students and yesterday got set up to start using Teams as well when the time comes for meetings.
They told me to teach online and they had the software available. They didn’t complain when I went in on Monday to get my computer and then just left, nobody has asked me to come in, so I guess I’m permitted to work at home. Professors typically have a lot of autonomy and I’ve been good about going into the office since I started about 8 weeks ago, so I don’t think it will be an issue.
That said, because I share an office space and we’re both online teaching, the noise and the masks off mean it makes sense for only one of us to stay in the office and he was there first. If they ask me to go back I’ll ask for a private office.
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You wear pajamas? How cute! 
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Match with your umbrella.
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I’m on holidays, escaped from Taipei to Taichung and I will start to work in 3 weeks fully remote, and I need go to office in Taipei once a month, maybe twice. I didn’t even setup my desk yet. I’m a software magician, probably will move to Taichung and work remote forever.
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I am on day two of WFH and still getting used to it. I have been advised by my friends in the states that have been doing it for a year to:
- Change out of your pajamas
- Do not work in the same room you sleep/eat
- Separate yourself from others in the house
My current set up is just my work laptop and mouse, but will look to make upgrades in connecting to a monitor and mechanical keyboard if we are in for the long haul.
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Some people have home labs, but I don’t mix anything stranger than paint. I thought about building a distillery but didn’t have the room.
Of English or something else?
Did your school already have an online learning system? I can see using Moodle to teach at short notice if you’re teaching a language, but if you’re teaching engineering or similar it seems like it would take a lot of preparation in advance. Moodle is good but there’s a big learning curve.
Sometimes I wish I had learned something useful like that that I could really do anywhere for any company.
What if you eat in every room.
Probably good advice, I’m working my way up to a shower
since I live in a hotel room, this means i’ll be showering in the office (because the bathroom is the only other room)
fortunately, my only company is a statue of buddha. sadly, i don’t even have a cat for company 
The hard part of WFH is remembering to put on your shirt before joining a web meeting.
Three days in and it’s becoming easy, but it still sucks. I much prefer the office.
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I worked before for 3 years remote. Setup your office in a place where you can have privacy, and create a routine like you are really going to work, with starting time and end time, otherwise you overwork without even notice.
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pants optional, just remember what you choose!
yeah, i’ve read routine is key and this is one of the things i liked about going into the office.
Like in my case, I have saw myself working 18 hours in a day without even notice. Routine is a must.
Currently of English as a Medium of Instruction, so I’m teaching professors to teach in English; I have pedagogical content for them as well as useful language, and a lot of pronunciation work
Yes, they’re well set up
Depends on the preparation that you have down and how you teach. For profs who just read the slides to students in lectures that is pretty easy to record and put online. For profs who do a lot of group work in class Moodle isn’t great (but most engineering profs don’t, anyways).
i have a strong background here, but I suspect the reason my students (the professors) aren’t doing the work and sending their recorded practice lessons is because they’re all trying to figure out how to teach online.
OT, but is that at all connected to Tsai’s hope of making Taiwan bilingual?
Combination of that and the university strategic plan; I believe I do get a salary bump from the government under the bilingualism plan, but I work directly for the university who is trying to be more international for a variety of reasons.
It’s month 15 of teaching university classes from home here in Vancouver, BC. Best advice I can offer is to get an adjustable (sit/stand) desk … or even just a standing desk. I think I’ve sat three times since I bought this one in September. I now prefer standing, and it’s way better for my back than sitting for 8, 10, 12 or 14 hour days (the last referring to the first full term of online teaching last fall).
If you think online teaching may continue, take a few online courses on teaching and learning online: Athabasca University offers some free ones that may help.
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This is great advice. Depending on workload, I can easily do up to 12 hours without noticing the time. If we do end up staying in for longer than two weeks, I am ready to set the Google Home to remind the household to turn off work.
Luckily, I am not alone at home, so there’s a mutual agreement to eat together and I also try to get in some casual gaming/Netflixing before going to bed and starting it all over again the next day.
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