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Thursday: hanging things on walls
Dec. 9th, 2021 11:00 pmI finally reconfigured the Lego Wreath in hang-on-wall configuration (I had put it away in Table Centerpiece configuration). It is up. I keep meaning to get the other wreaths up. Maybe tomorrow.
Also, R. put the Echo 15 up on the wall. It is so much better than the DAKboard at doing what I wanted done, and now I have the counter space back from where the previous Show saw on the counter. The speaker on the wall is surprisingly effective, also, it is pretty, and the touch screen is lovely.
Also, the Nathan Pyle stretched canvas arrived.
https://nathanwpyle.threadless.com/designs/strange-planet-crystallize-blue-background/home/fine-art-print
When I saw someone post the cartoon online (it is an homage to Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!), I was like, I want that on my wall! Which is not a thing I usually think about cartoons or, really, words of any sort. But here we are, and it’s hanging in the entry hall and I love it.
I finally read articles about the 900 person Better.com article. _Of course_ this is a Sofbank funded operation. I’m pretty sympathetic in some ways, if the people who were laid off were laid off (in part) due to productivity / number of hours worked issues. I’ve been hearing that from other people who are newly in line management roles AND who are tech savvy and able to actually dig into hours worked by remote workers. TO BE CLEAR these are not situations (in the ones I know about) in which someone is also dealing with major chronic illness or caretaking ill family members or have toddlers. These are — literally, in one case — people who are prioritizing multi-hour midday bike rides over … working, and, you know, telling their team they are “taking the day off” one day per week (fine) but then not consistently reporting that as Day Not Worked (NOT FINE!). If Better.com had that kind of, oh, I’m paid for 8 but averaging 2 hours a day, then yeah, layoffs really needed to happen. Maybe there wasn’t enough work for everyone, maybe people were mooching / slacking, but sure, lay them off. And honestly, I have much less of an issue with layoffs around the holidays than most other people because I’ve gotten way too angry over the last few months about which holidays are paid days off and which holidays you still have to work — and which holidays people act like we can just get rid of /don’t need to acknowledge at all.
HOWEVER, the WARN act still exists, and 900 people is a lot, so there was sniffing around the edges going on; Better.com has apparently extended the severance to 60 days.
Also, if you have a job where you can work remote, and so far line management has been unable to tell when you are working and when you are NOT working, and you are patting yourself on the back for being able to effectively push back on the stupid end of surveilling remote workers, just keep in mind that if your job requires you to be interacting with cloud services / servers / wtf, it’s probably going to be possible at any point in the future to retroactively explore how much work you actually did and when, so you know, make sure you are super productive with those hours you do choose to work.
Also, R. put the Echo 15 up on the wall. It is so much better than the DAKboard at doing what I wanted done, and now I have the counter space back from where the previous Show saw on the counter. The speaker on the wall is surprisingly effective, also, it is pretty, and the touch screen is lovely.
Also, the Nathan Pyle stretched canvas arrived.
https://nathanwpyle.threadless.com/designs/strange-planet-crystallize-blue-background/home/fine-art-print
When I saw someone post the cartoon online (it is an homage to Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!), I was like, I want that on my wall! Which is not a thing I usually think about cartoons or, really, words of any sort. But here we are, and it’s hanging in the entry hall and I love it.
I finally read articles about the 900 person Better.com article. _Of course_ this is a Sofbank funded operation. I’m pretty sympathetic in some ways, if the people who were laid off were laid off (in part) due to productivity / number of hours worked issues. I’ve been hearing that from other people who are newly in line management roles AND who are tech savvy and able to actually dig into hours worked by remote workers. TO BE CLEAR these are not situations (in the ones I know about) in which someone is also dealing with major chronic illness or caretaking ill family members or have toddlers. These are — literally, in one case — people who are prioritizing multi-hour midday bike rides over … working, and, you know, telling their team they are “taking the day off” one day per week (fine) but then not consistently reporting that as Day Not Worked (NOT FINE!). If Better.com had that kind of, oh, I’m paid for 8 but averaging 2 hours a day, then yeah, layoffs really needed to happen. Maybe there wasn’t enough work for everyone, maybe people were mooching / slacking, but sure, lay them off. And honestly, I have much less of an issue with layoffs around the holidays than most other people because I’ve gotten way too angry over the last few months about which holidays are paid days off and which holidays you still have to work — and which holidays people act like we can just get rid of /don’t need to acknowledge at all.
HOWEVER, the WARN act still exists, and 900 people is a lot, so there was sniffing around the edges going on; Better.com has apparently extended the severance to 60 days.
Also, if you have a job where you can work remote, and so far line management has been unable to tell when you are working and when you are NOT working, and you are patting yourself on the back for being able to effectively push back on the stupid end of surveilling remote workers, just keep in mind that if your job requires you to be interacting with cloud services / servers / wtf, it’s probably going to be possible at any point in the future to retroactively explore how much work you actually did and when, so you know, make sure you are super productive with those hours you do choose to work.