Ramble and legs by Emmjay. Working from Home – WFH
Todays’s production brought to you from the Pig’s Arms’ working from office.
Reflecting on how western economies have become dominated by services as opposed to manufacturing, it strikes me that even small scale manufacturing can follow services into decentralised places.
Perhaps not so much the home, but in small hubs. Recall the charm and utility ! of localised specialist places – Saville Row, Akihabara and any number of bookshop enclaves holding out against the Genghis Khan Amazon. A local cafe that gets things exactly as we like them.
3D printing is offering amazing opportunities for specialised manufacturing, but it’s hard to imagine printing oneself a new toaster.
The labour side of working from home should spawn a clutch of PhDs. As far as my work in IT is concerned, our small team has really embraced WFH. Our boss is incredibly supportive, trusts us and is open to suggestions about how we could project the practice into the future.
But I do have some sympathy for people writing about Zoom fatigue and I find fascinating the psychology drawing distinctions between onscreen and real life face to face communications, purporting to explain causes for this fatigue.
Frame of reference is really important in this discussion. I am mindful of middle class privilege and stage of life as major determinants of whether WFH does in fact work. Or having a decent internet connection. WFH is clearly not such a windfall for people living in cramped accommodation especially with children, or folks living a tad off the beaten data track..
Returning to the benefits of city folk not commuting to work, we see echoed important concepts like “ food miles” – the benefits of consuming local production – namely cutting down the cost and ecodownside of transporting stuff all over the planet as well as the evils of cash cropping in third world countries.
The pandemic has starkly demonstrated that unfettered travel carries with it more than people and freight – and we are told that Covid-19 is a glimpse of the future for a planet groaning under the weight of far too many humans.
WFH then, can be viewed as a small, but valuable step in the right direction provided that we don’t turn off Zoom and go and make another baby.
—ooo—
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
“Huddling Place” by Clifford Simak (1944) is another good read on isolation and “WFH”.
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Thank you, Waz. Interesting times! Kind regards, Emm.
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Mike, are you aware that all the comments have disappeared?
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Hi Mate. No, I’ll have a look around tomorrow. Thanks for alerting me. Any more info ? Missing everywhere or on one post ?
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I’ve worked from home for years. Doing proofreading, as assistant editor of a journal, research assistant and prior to that typing masses of university lecture notes and student marks records etc. One needs a good desk, computer, copier/scanner/printer, phone at desk and room for coffee.
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Yep that’s right. A dedicated space.
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Happy in a way to be working from home. Helps me to be closer tot the family. Hope you are doing well!
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Indeed, AB. Going quite nicely. Our kids live a long way away 6 hrs north west – and two delightful little guys 2 years and 7 weeks. Other daughter is in Hobart. So it’s always been online almost all of the time 😊
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Nice ugly boots. Working from home works if you set up a place for it. I started doing that after my first redundancy in 2003. Set up one room in the office, got a cable broadband connection. Its hard work with plenty of distractions I could turn a 8 hour day into 14 easily. I ended up preferring a mix of working in clients offices and at home.
I’m finishing up with the company I’ve been doing part time work (two jobs in a year) for at the end of the month. Really I now see myself as retired but open to doing the odd project.
One thing about the lockdown is enjoying a slower life, time to do things, it might sound cliche, but I enjoy baking bread.
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Ignoring that baking bread is very hipster, there’s nothing quite like the smell – which is nourishing in its own right.
I’ve taken a shine to using cultured butter . Softer, yellower and tastier than the standard – and waay less chemically than marg. Sorry, I just got this little twinge in my left arm to deal with…… aargh…
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I saw a 1950s ad for butter, recently. ‘So slippery that it lubricates your arteries and veins’.
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Ah, so that’s what cholesterol is really for ! What a relief . Who would want dry arteries and veins ?
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So the butter industry knew even then.
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Nice work, if you can get it, and you can get it if you try, as Foodge, I mean Frank once said.
Eldest is working from home and reckons his boss is just as much a c*&t from home as in person. The difference is being able to cook, play guitar or even ride a push bike at him.
Interestingly, around working from home, I met a bloke at a pub during the depths of the lockdown. I was getting a growler filled, he was trying to sell the idea of delivering craft beer and local wines by bicycle in small local areas. Sounded great, but the local delivery chap would carry a supply of beers and wine in his garage. Dunno about the legalities as the local bloke is essentially running a bottle shop from home, but the concept sounded interesting. Customer searches for an English Imperial Pale Ale, is offered a locally brewed Ale, etc.
Anyhoo, happy homework, kids.
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The implications of a large proportion of people being allowed to work from home will keep hordes of economists, psychologists, sociologists, etc. busy for the next 20 years.
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Too right. Busy working from home 😊
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