I’m going to try to make a trend of this, doing it before work in the morning.

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Day three of Telecommuting: My co-workers are starting to suspect I’m actually another cat.

Honestly, I think Oli may be worried and Merit thinks I’m just sick again, and Theo just ignores everyone during the day.

But I was going to talk about supervision. 

For me, this is pretty much exactly the same as being at work – because my boss is always remote (well, a few times a year he visits the office, but with the border to Canada closed, it’s going to be a while). For most of the admins, there won’t be a lot of difference, because the professor that supervises them is either usually just in their office or not even that.

I mean, except the one extrovert in the office.  I imagine she’s going to go mad.

(we did Meyers-Briggs at Admin Excellence Training summer of ’18.  She was like “OH this explains so much” when everyone else at the table came back Introvert.)

But with all that, I still found myself checking the calendar to see if my boss was “at a conference” (he’s got at least two that are tele-conferences now.) yesterday.

As far as I can tell, no.  

But Oli did his best to fill in boss’s virtual absence anyway by sitting on my desk and staring at me.  Good kitty. I feel well supervised. 

How about you?  How do your supervisors feel the need to fill in that gap?

I’m still sitting in the armchair doing Pre-Morning Things again, so this is Before Day 2. 

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Today I’m thinking about meetings.

 When I’m in a meeting at person, I have to do at least moderate performative attention-paying (ditto for training).  I have to look at the person and pretend I’m making eye contact and try not to look too distracted. 

I mean, I generally doodle maps, as anyone who has seen me post “in a meeting” maps can tell, or if I’m too close to the presenter, I just doodle generally, but there has to be some looking at them. And, in general, I have to TRY not to look too bored. 

When I’m working from home, I get to do something to distract the bouncy half of my brain while the other half listens.  Performative attention-paying is “make sure I formulate an interesting question and ask it at least once” which I try to do in meetings/training anyway.  When it’s interesting meeting/training I can engage pretty well and I don’t get talked over or interrupted in chat the same way.

(grumble grumble grumble)

And when it’s three stultifying hours of meetings I am in to show willing… well, let’s just say there’s been a lot of progress on my Minecraft railroads and stations.

That’s a long way of saying meetings are nicer by Zoom when you are an introvert with ADHD. 

(And life is easier in general once I learned those were things about myself that were both true and acceptable, or at least, that *I* could accept them and the rest of the world could be faked around easily enough.)

The Dilbert will continue until morale improves. 

What’s your favorite or least favorite thing about telecommute meetings?

Technically BEFORE Day one; I’m still sitting in the armchair doing Pre-Morning Things.

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 Day One of Telecommuting (long-term, rather than, say, when I worked from home Friday because my co-worker made me sick again) 

Clothes. 

Last night I found myself regarding the closet, wondering what I was going to wear to work. 

Then I realized: my pjs. 

(I always find this a funny way to put this, since what I wear to bed is a pair of armwarmers and that in the winter). 

My bum-around the house flannel pants and favorite cami, in this case (I need to do laundry), the green flannels with the tear in the upper leg from where I sit cross-legged and the faded camo cami (It was on clearance!) that sort of matches. 

Working from home is a little weird 😉

Sure, some Zoom meetings I’m still going to have to put on a cardigan and brush my hair for, but for the most part, as long as you contribute, people don’t ask questions about why you don’t have the camera on. 

Especially when the school is so focused on a) getting all the professors ready to teach their classes via Zoom (zoom is like skype, only… not?) in a few weeks and b) working on getting people less equipped to telecommute and less urgent about it than I am.

(I needed someone to tell me it was okay and someone to set up Remote Desktop in case I needed it). 

Personally, I’ve never been one of the people who needs specific clothes for a productivity ritual.  Tea, yes. Not clothes. 

What about you? If you’re starting a work from home, how are you handling the clothing issue?