Who's working? Who's not?

Boneroni

Tom Curren status
Mar 5, 2012
12,093
1,912
113
44
Goleta
I work for a county education office, in the communications/reprographics department.
I do mostly cost accounting, invoicing, graphics/typesetting and website work.
I do some printing and finishing, but can't do that from home.

I worked from home all last week. We have a new website launching soon, so there's plenty of remote work to do.
Also, my boss was at Disneyland with his family the day before they closed, so I kinda wanted to stay away from him.
(fyi, my boss is an old-skool south-bay punk rocker. grew up with the pennywise guys and still plays garage punk with his neighbors in Orcutt. some of y'all probably know him. )

Pretty sure I was the first one to work from home. I managed it by telling our director about the travel my wife and daughter just got back from and the fact that they had cold symptoms. I got the okay to come get my work computer and my files while no one was around last sunday.
 

encladd

OTF status
Oct 8, 2019
349
504
93
Sh!t. I'm sorry to hear that.
Thanks, I'm set up fairly well so I can handle it. Wanted a career change anyways. Life was going too fast.

Company laid off 20% of the workforce. I'm just one of millions yet to come.
 

hammies

Duke status
Apr 8, 2006
15,587
14,215
113
People who's jobs are suddenly worth millions:
Grocery clerks, truck drivers, pharmacists, anybody in health care from orderlies to doctors, pizza delivery guys.

People who's jobs are now worth pretty much zero:
Pro athletes, IG influencers, anybody in the travel industry, Kardashians
 

mundus

Duke status
Feb 26, 2018
36,724
15,942
113
People who's jobs are suddenly worth millions:
Grocery clerks, truck drivers, pharmacists, anybody in health care from orderlies to doctors, pizza delivery guys.

People who's jobs are now worth pretty much zero:
Pro athletes, IG influencers, anybody in the travel industry, Kardashians
Just shows how upside down the world is regarding compensation, when stuff gets real who do we really need?
 

xmesa

Nep status
Jul 25, 2014
552
221
43
I was laid off yesterday.
sorry to hear this. glad that you're set up for a while.


my girl is a surgery nurse and she hasn't been scheduled for a week, her cases have been cleared for next week. This is a problem for us. I'm sure there will demand for her in other areas but she is in surgery for a reason. she doesn't know what to do.

I am searching for some kind of remote position for her ideally - there has to be a need for telehealth-based RN's right now.



I'm not impacted, yet... but i am worried about keeping my job.

90% of my office has been told to work from home, we have two operations people in the office but keeping distance. we are not open to the public. We are a smaller private company based in Korea, we're new to the US market;

I'm an IoT / GPS tracking systems engineer + product guy ...I'm usually in my office M-F for a few hours at least - but i normally work from home when i need to get actual work done, so i'm lucky that this is not a big disruption for me and I can be more productive than normal.
 
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VonMeister

Duke status
Apr 26, 2013
20,251
6,976
113
JOE BIDENS RAPE FINGER
My kids go to private school and learning has moved to online. Teachers have two hour daily blocks of instruction via Zoom, and then blocks of availability for questions Monday through Friday.

All the public schools around us are just closed. I don't know if it's a union issue or what.
 

Surfdog

Duke status
Apr 22, 2001
21,768
1,988
113
South coast OR
I've been working from home exclusively for at least 15+ years now. I was working for a very small service bureau company since 1992. Worked at Western Digital a few years prior, and others prior to that. Now my own biz, since Jan 2019.

I design Printed Circuit Boards (PCB's) for a wide assortment of tech companies. Anywhere from servers/motherboards, to casino gaming systems, to laser eye surgery, to trucker camera safety systems (we worked on these years before they were in cars today), some military stuff I have no idea what it does (they have to kill me if I did), to R&D high speed IC development test boards. I do CAD only, no PCB fab or assembly. I don't bench test, that's the EE's jobs. I don't even own a soldering iron. So, all I need is a computer and internet access. I learned PCB design when tape-ups on large light tables was common. It was actual physical artwork. PCB design systems cost $100k back in the early 80's. Few but corpos could afford that. Everything is data now, done on PC's, and shipped in the ether.

The owner decided to go into semi-retirement at end of 2018, so I'm taking a fair amount of our customers on myself with my own biz now. It's been an eye opener how much extra costs/taxes go out being your own boss, but write-offs too. I'm making more, but not as "much" more as you might expect, after taxes, paying own med insurance, etc;.

So far, did pretty good for first year, last year. This year started off a bit slow, but picking back up, and customers "say" they have more coming in the months/quarters ahead. I'm a one man show, and do it all for them in PCB design deliverables. My worry is having customers slam me all at once. But usually the work flow seems to balance out, with projects coming in as another is wrapping up. Sometimes, I am working on 4-6 projects at a time at all different stages of completion. Sometimes I'll go a week or 2 with nothing to do. At times they're just updates to existing PCB's that just need a few tweeks. Other times major over-hauls of the layout. Or, all new projects, some that take 6-8 weeks, or more (large motherboard types). Some only a few days (simple little po-dunk circuits).

Any time a new IC comes out, you need a new circuit board to put it on. So, that's my job security, the last almost 40 years now I've been in this industry. The evolution of the PCB industry is crazy. Parts so small now, hard to imagine they can even solder them on a PCB without shorting, even with automation. The PCB fab and assembly industry is mind-blowing.

I've built a pretty good rep, with little to no errors or mistakes on my end of the design. I also catch a lot of EE schematic errors, and they thank me immensely. One even called me a "god" one time. Didn't know how to take that. I'm kind of the Vidal Sassoon of PCB design with EE's, i guess? If they don't look good, I don't look good. They keep coming back, so I must be doing something right?

I feel very fortunate, especially in times like these, where possibly millions will now be out of work for a few weeks. Hopefully no more than that. If this goes on for months, it will be the most devastating thing to happen to this country in our lifetimes, if not it's 250 year history. Great Depression, or worse. We need people to get back to work ASAP. This is the opposite of a financial meltdown like we had in 2008/2009. That was over-inflated housing and banks getting greedy off it. Then the house of cards came crashing down when the jig was up.

This is a 9/11 of invisible forces, and we'll inflicting the economic damage on ourselves. We're telling people NOT to work, instead of people NOT ABLE TO FIND work. No way around it now, it's done. Some states (most dense populated ones) are shutting ALL down. We need to stop the political finger pointing and come together and help each other thru this insanity.

OK, that was WAY more than I needed to say.
 
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racer1

Tom Curren status
Apr 16, 2014
12,922
14,981
113
Honolulu, Hawaii
I run a digital marketing agency and a bunch of ecommerce stores, already worked from home - no office. Everything has slowed down, but there's still revenue coming in. Currently building digital things to sell that are quarantined related and largely scalable. Expanding to more ecommerce sites/stores and pivoting strategies for my clients. I've lost a couple big retail clients (that don't do online) since this started, but it could be A LOT worse.
 
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casa_mugrienta

Duke status
Apr 13, 2008
43,213
17,642
113
Petak Island
sorry to hear this. glad that you're set up for a while.


my girl is a surgery nurse and she hasn't been scheduled for a week, her cases have been cleared for next week. This is a problem for us. I'm sure there will demand for her in other areas but she is in surgery for a reason. she doesn't know what to do.

I am searching for some kind of remote position for her ideally - there has to be a need for telehealth-based RN's right now.
She is going to be called back to provide bedside care.
 

rts265

Phil Edwards status
Oct 19, 2007
6,190
1,307
113
So I should go in? Damn it’s really a hard decision. I wish they’d shut down metro line
 

Dekerwild

OTF status
Jul 28, 2017
333
343
63
Work from home...sales for Medicare Insurance working with the elderly population which I don’t think would be a good idea to do in-house personal visits at this time...probably going to have to reinvent the industry going forward, more virtual visits which I think is where it was heading eventually due to more “OK Boomers” tech savvy folks...thank god I’ve been doing this for 10+ years and now have a book of business that I think could continue to pay me for 3-5 years without doing any additional enrollments...love my career, hate to see this happening with 10,000 people turning 65 years old everyday in the US and probably losing a few clients due to natural causes...
 

HatterasGlass

Michael Peterson status
Apr 6, 2008
2,082
1,067
113
Commercial construction management and self-employed residential construction GC on the side.
Absolutely balls to the wall busy. No shutting down or slowing up in sight.

Leaving it up to the respective trades if they want to work or not.
If not - the Owner gets notified and they will deal with delays.
Force Majeure in full-effect.

Keeping the trailers sanitized.
Hand sanitizer in all the porto johns.
Locks on the TP holders.
 
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SrPato

Miki Dora status
Jul 12, 2005
4,962
1,220
113
San Buena Ventura
I work as an IT professional in the State’s Appellate Court system. Trial courts have dropped to a skeleton work force last week which means our cases have dropped drastically. The Justices and most attorneys stayed home last week. Yesterday I informed the court that I will not be back next week so that I can look after my family and myself. Thankfully a majority of my work can be done remotely which I’m taking advantage of. My wife , on the other hand has lost all of her work. She does replacement cost evaluations for high value homes and estates. Rich people travel a LOT and love to spread germs around. The insurance companies just announced that they are canceling all inspections until further notice. The bright side is that she can’t sit still too long and has already painted more than half our house.