Shiftless Work

At the beginning of the month, my work group officially relocated to a new office further north. Since my commute was determined to be among the highest, I joined the few that were given the option to work from home a few days a week.

I have to admit so far the arrangement has been pretty good. My commute time to the new office on the days I have to go is just over an hour. It sucks, of course. Plus I'm not a big fan of the new seating arrangement. Basically the height of the cubes is about the length of our chairs and unfortunately we seem more squeezed together. But the new building is pretty nice. The cafeteria's larger, the fitness center is larger, a Starbuck's provider is in the building, as is a post office center. I'm treating it like I'm at a new job, except it's not.

The days I get to work from home are great as well. I do find that I get more work done and not only that but I can work from my bedroom if I wanted to thanks to the wireless router I installed. I get to lounge around a bit more too though I definitely have to make sure things still get done. The company even made us sign contracts that they can revoke the work from home privilege at any time and require us to work full time in office.

So I know I can't get comfortable. The company has continued to lay off more employees and the latest round that was announced last week affected two people in our group, including Ling. Luckily for her, though, she's being transferred to another group. The other person affected has another couple weeks to find a new position within the company, though in talking today, it seems like he may already be gone. I'll know for sure tomorrow in a weekly status meeting for a new project we're both in.

Shockingly enough I wound up getting a small 3% raise and a larger bonus last week. But as mentioned with everything happening, I'm not deluding myself into a false sense of security.