How are your workplaces coping?

[El Presidente]

it's a warzone out there 

Being in business right now is bloody challenging.  Take a rampant Omicron variant and combine it with 7 days mandatory isolation.  from airlines to sporting teams to restaurants/hosptality, hospitals/aged care.....you can be left non operational in a matter of days. 

I don't know what the solution is but we don't want to be doing this every 6 months as a new variant emerges. 

How screwed up is it in your neck of the woods? Same issues? 

 

 

[Cigar Surgeon]

We're coping, but I'm pretty tired of working 10 hour days to make up for shortfalls. 

Real talk: we are going to be repeating this cycle every 90-120 days until we either have a vaccine that can handle all possible variants (the Walter Reed vaccine looks promising), or Governments stop playing UN World Politics and block or heavily restrict all travel from nations that have low vaccination rates, which is where the variants are coming from.

 

[Cayman17]

About 90 percent of our workforce is remote now. We still have unvaccinated people coming into the office, though.  The worst is dealing with daycare and Covid protocols. Two people who work at the center where my boys go have already tested positive for omicron. We had to isolate with them (I got no work done) for seven days which was dumb because they would not tell us anything about the exposure and the boys had zero symptoms.  Tired of this sh*t already. 

[Strangg1]

We have been 98% + WFH worldwide since March of 2020.  Only people in the office are essential, and we have had 6 people pop covid+ in the last 2 weeks. With only 40 or so people total in the building throughout the day. Must be vaccinated, social distance and wear a mask to even walk into the building.  Contact tracing in effect via bluetooth badges.  

[Corylax18]

I've spent most of my time as a professional managing people remotely. After my first couple years managing crews on job sites, I moved into the office the majority of the time.  30-40% field travel in 2014. I've been a heavy/frequent user of things like zoom, teams, sitetracker, etc for years now. The biggest transition for my team is that we now communicate with each other almost entirely through zoom and phone calls rather than face to face. Our team has done an amazing job transitioning, but our European and Australian teams are starting to get a bit panicky. We've schedule then cancelled about 4 or 5 trips each way over the last couple years to transfer knowledge and help them get their projects kicked off. Its added tremendous cost and stress to the project. their schedules are also starting to slip as well. 

I've been 30-40% domestic travel (usually M-F trips), 55-65% remote and the remaining 5% in the office since March 2020. I would prefer that we never go back to a 9-5 daily commute, 5 days a week in the office. I thought people where crazy to do it before the pandemic, living without it has only reinforced my original feelings. 

Our project costs have exploded here in the US though. Like 30-50% above the initial costs we anticipated in 2018/19. Labor is expensive and hard to find than ever, electric panels/parts an pieces, even basic PVC pipe. Add in another $12-15 billion dollars worth of competition from the "New Big 3" building out their 5G networks and its made my job extremely challenging.

[Greenhorn2]

Workplace is packed with workers running 7 days a week. If you fall over dead from exhaustion they scoop you up , throw your carcass in the side ditch, swear up and down you never showed up and hire your replacement the same day. As long as they make their millions.

[HarveyBoulevard]

2021 was our best year ever.  2022 is stacking up to be even better.  Never stopped working in person.  Remote working is not an option and I don't like it anyway.  I like getting into the office and so do all the employees.  66% of the staff is vaccinated and 33% is not.  No masks in the office and no social distancing.  We do wash hands and hand sanitize.  Everyone has gotten sick at some point (flu, cold, stomach bug).  No COVID yet but I am sure it will come.  Will handle as necessary when it presents itself.  Office is small and superbly dependable.  Everyone is cross trained so if we lose a wheel, we can keep running.  I encourage everyone to get vaccinated but no one is forced to do so.  If they get vaccinated, I will pay if they get sick and hold their jobs.  If they don't get vaccinated, no guarantees.

[Bijan]

1 hour ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

we are going to be repeating this cycle every 90-120 days

At the present rate there won't be anyone left to infect in 90-120 days.

1 hour ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

or Governments stop playing UN World Politics and block or heavily restrict all travel from nations that have low vaccination rates, which is where the variants are coming from.

I don't see this happening not only do you have to block those countries but any country that lets people in from those countries too. Not to mention blocking your own citizens abroad which most countries can't do regardless which is probably half of travelers. So this part looks hopeless to me. If Australia, etc, couldn't keep omicron out, there's basically no hope for Canada.

[bassistheplace]

If someone is ill, they are asked to not come to work until the symptoms are gone. (just like all the other diseases and viruses we deal with every single day).

We think it makes sense to protect the elderly and high risk people and have worked with our team from the beginning to accommodate such. Other than that, we're living our lives and understand the inherent risks in life on planet earth.

We go out and work hard everyday to serve our customers and provide for our families. What a concept...

[Chas.Alpha]

Dunno. Lead plumber is out with COVID. Painting crew called out today with the flu. I called my safety manager for advice, but he tested positive for COVID.

I lit a RASCC just in case... 😳

[Ej456]

We have been back in the office 100% since summer 2020. 

[Duxnutz]

Holiday week of Christmas to New Year was a train accident in the airports. Combine that with a Jan 4th vaccine mandate for my employer and we’re super short. Perfect storm really. 
 

I’m in Arizona on vacation and it actually seems pretty normal here but in Hawaii, hospitality (restaurants and hotels) are having a tough time. 

[BlueRidgeFly]

I'm 100% remote, attended on-site meetings occasionally until COVID. But I had to get an ID renewed today at a client site, first time I've been there in almost exactly two years. They require all personnel and contractors to be vaccinated, and masked while on-site. They have fired most of those not in compliance. Things seemed fairly normal there today otherwise.

[Cigar Surgeon]

2 hours ago, Bijan said:

At the present rate there won't be anyone left to infect in 90-120 days.

I don't see this happening not only do you have to block those countries but any country that lets people in from those countries too. Not to mention blocking your own citizens abroad which most countries can't do regardless which is probably half of travelers. So this part looks hopeless to me. If Australia, etc, couldn't keep omicron out, there's basically no hope for Canada.

I'm not referring to Omicron, but the interval for variants that appear and then spread and reinfect. The Delta variant peak was late October, early November. Omicron will peak by late January, early February. Then mid April to early May we'll be on to the "Theta" / "Decepticon" variant.

We lucked out this time that it had a high transmissibility but low mortality compared to Delta. I doubt we'll be that lucky the next time around. 

[Bijan]

15 minutes ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

I'm not referring to Omicron, but the interval for variants that appear and then spread and reinfect. The Delta variant peak was late October, early November. Omicron will peak by late January, early February. Then mid April to early May we'll be on to the "Theta" / "Decepticon" variant.

We lucked out this time that it had a high transmissibility but low mortality compared to Delta. I doubt we'll be that lucky the next time around. 

Oh yeah, I just mean even if we close every single border except one, chances are whatever country that happens to be will have tons of whatever new variant comes along a month or two later as you say. Just look at Canada and the US we were 100% delta two months ago, and closing in on 100% omicron now. Even the toughest border policy would only delay the inevitable by a month or two. And realistically we aren't going to close the US border again, and the US is not going to close most of their borders, so...

[Corylax18]

36 minutes ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

I'm not referring to Omicron, but the interval for variants that appear and then spread and reinfect. The Delta variant peak was late October, early November. Omicron will peak by late January, early February. Then mid April to early May we'll be on to the "Theta" / "Decepticon" variant.

We lucked out this time that it had a high transmissibility but low mortality compared to Delta. I doubt we'll be that lucky the next time around. 

Just get the Vaccine!!

Everything will go back to normal!! 

You can trust me!! 

😉

[Cigar Surgeon]

Just now, Corylax18 said:

Just get the Vaccine!!

Everything will go back to normal!! 

You can trust me!! 

😉

Wake me when the majority have the vaccine. 

[Pharmacovigilant]

I work in an inpatient hospital pharmacy at a large health network. Things had been relatively normal until a couple months ago, but now our department is getting crushed by high census levels and staffing callouts.

[Corylax18]

9 minutes ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

Wake me when the majority have the vaccine. 

In Colorado we're at 77% with one shot and 66% fully vaccinated. But we're days into a streak of new record daily case #s. Colorado is one of the "healthiest"(least unhealthy?) states in the country too, lots of wide open space to distance.How high do we need to get? Most of the unvaccinated are children, so its not like we have 45% of our adult population walking around un vaccinated. Yet, the news is still busy every night telling us how the hospital system is about to collapse. We've made zero progress, in nearly 2 years. None.

https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/state/colorado

[Bijan]

15 minutes ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

Wake me when the majority have the vaccine. 

We're at 80% to 90% vaccinated here and the effectiveness at preventing infection/symptomatic infection against omicron with two shots is between 0 and 12% more effective than being unvaccinated based on recent data from Quebec and Ontario. I think hospitalizations are 12x lower in the vaccinated so it's useful but it's really not helping stop omicron from spreading.

My doctor friend says the vaccinations stop the spread narrative is dead now.

[Cigar Surgeon]

Just now, Corylax18 said:

In Colorado we're at 77% with one shot and 66% fully vaccinated. But we're days into a streak of new record daily case #s. Colorado is one of the "healthiest"(least unhealthy?) states in the country too, lots of wide open space to distance.How high do we need to get? Most of the unvaccinated are children, so its not like we have 45% of our adult population walking around un vaccinated. Yet, the news is still busy every night telling us how the hospital system is about to collapse. We've made zero progress, in nearly 2 years. None.

https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/state/colorado

I'm not an epidemiologist but I think experts have said from the start (2020) it's going to take very high vaccination rates of 88%+. So 66% is not going to cut it.

Alberta has made enormous strides one we started to hit 75%+ fully vaccinated. The strain has been off the hospitals, ICU rates steadily dropping. I understand the frustration, I echo the frustration, but there's no other path forward. 

[Bijan]

4 minutes ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

I'm not an epidemiologist but I think experts have said from the start (2020) it's going to take very high vaccination rates of 88%+. So 66% is not going to cut it.

With the initial variant it would have been maybe even less. With Delta it might have been theoretically possible maybe but practically impossible... Omicron would need much more than 100% vaccination so it's now mathematically impossible, and not only practically impossible.

Edit: this is in terms of preventing COVID transmission and not in terms of hospital capacity. Vaccines are still effective at reducing severity.

[Corylax18]

15 minutes ago, Bijan said:

My doctor friend says the vaccinations stop the spread narrative is dead now.

That's my biggest problem. The goal post are moving. As mentioned before, we need to "get lucky" with this next variant and hope its more similar to Omicron than others. The vaccines where supposed to stop this thing, until they didn't. No they are supposed to lower the severity, until they don't. 

13 minutes ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

but there's no other path forward. 

Agreed, but what a depressing reality. I hope the newer vaccines being worked on turn out to be more effective. The current crop may be holding the virus at bay, but it seems like we're just treading water. 

[LordAnubis]

lucky to be working in software space at the moment. Our company staff do whatever they want. Most work from home.

[DeskSmkr]

“oh no, not again? Really? Ok what regulations must be followed now? Are we congruent? Ok, fantastic!”