Reboot: Telecommuting...

Tomorrow, I plan to start telecommuting (one day a week) again... I initially began the practice back in 2012, to save on my weekly commuting expenses - a day of working in my underwear was definitely a bonus as well.

But I didn't telecommute at all in 2013, I had a far lighter workload last year & quite honestly, it was easier for me to physically report to work than come-up with fictitious activities to put on my daily telecommute action plan, lol. I always intended to get back to telecommuting, but just got out of the habit I guess.

Now, my to-do list here at work is once again full of bonafide assignments to complete, so I'm comfortable documenting my efforts from home again. The weather seems to finally have broken in the area, so along with the warmer temps, comes the added desire to goof-off a bit more during the work week, a telecommute day should help alot in that regard.

The last time I was telecommuting regularly, Wednesday was my scheduled telecommute day, this go-round, I'll be tabbing Thursday as my preferred stay-at-home day. It's a little closer to the weekend, plus physically returning to work each week on a Friday sounds pretty good to me.

Earlier this year, I began driving to work (rather than take the subway) a couple days a week, so now that I'll be telecommuting on Thursdays, that leaves just 2 days a week that I'll have to deal with extremely busy Metrorail system (& it's lovely patrons) - yet another bonus & I'll take it :-D

Death, Taxes & (Apparently) Snow...

The year I became a full-blown adult (i.e., a college graduate with full-time employment), my feelings on both snow & filing taxes changed dramatically. 

I now hate both since I rarely benefit from either event nowadays. Since I'm often battling both during the month of February each year, I hate February too! 

Lol, ok - perhaps hate is too strong a word, but just bring-on the springtime already! We've had a pretty cold & snowy winter in the region, I promise I won't complain about it being too hot this summer. Ok, I probably shouldn't make that claim either, lol. But I do prefer extreme heat, when faced with the option of that, or the bitter cold! 

I've been driving to work more frequently, as opposed to taking the subway, so that means I've been driving in wintry conditions a lot more than I 'm typically used to. I find my car is best operated on clear, dry pavement, lol.

On top of that, I've been pretty anxious to run as if late, but that would require that the sidewalks or street shoulders be clear of packed, icy snow - I'm not a huge fan of being struck by vehicles while jogging, so I'm very much looking forward warmer temps! We've been getting slammed by snowfall so often this winter, I can't even complain about the county's method of timely snow removal.

As far as my displeasure (I think that word works better than hate) of filing taxes - it's quite simple, I don't have enough sh!t to claim, so my state & federal refund (if any) is never what I'd like for it to be. It cuts even deeper to see folk waving their huge refund checks in the air, praising their tax preparers & celebrating the ill-gotten gains - clearly, I need to STFU & just get with the program, lol! Soooooo... who's unemployed with a kid (or 2) that I can claim?

Early Bird...

So... I've been on my early arrival at work kick since the new year began, as part of my effort to be a more productive worker this year. 

Accordingly, I've been waking religiously at 5 am, Monday through Friday, and leaving home between 6 & 6:30 am. 

My body is even cooperating now, I've awakened on several occasions over the past 2 weeks without the assistance of an alarm clock. I'm able to drive to work & park in about 35 minutes, that time of day. My ultimate goal each morning is to arrive at work before 7 am, that way I'm out the door again no later than 3:30 pm. I'm able to beat the evening rush-hour pretty easily now & I'm usually home in a jiffy. I could definitely get used to using less gas & fighting far fewer people on the roadway. 

I've really been enjoying the benefits of being home so early. The extra daylight each evening should really come in handy when I began running again this spring. Aside from that, I've been accomplishing much more in terms of running errands & completing various tasks around the house since beginning this new tour of duty. I'm hoping that I'll be able to stick to this plan for a while.

Out Of Office Reply...

I'll have use or lose leave (& a lot of it) for the very first time in my professional working career. 

It's about 100 or so hours (roughly 2 & a half weeks) of annual leave to burn, so I've been racking my brain trying to strategically pick the best days to stay home over the next 2 months. 

Now I know to plan/spread-out my annual leave, as best I can anyway, over the course of a year - that way I won't end up taking chunks of leave at the end of the year to avoid losing it. We're allowed to carry-over 240 hours of annual leave (pretty standard, I think), but clearly a staycation, at minimum, is now mandatory for me - noted.

In the past I've always made very good use (some supervisors might say too good use) of my accrued annual leave. Aside from taking a summer vacation, I took leave quite often during the other parts of the year & often times, for no reason at all. This year I used more 'slick' leave than usual, didn't take a vacation & now I earn more leave each pay period than I used to.

Granted, it's a good problem to have, especially for folks with kids & such, but not a super-huge benefit for me at the moment. I've taken additional leave for the obvious Thanksgiving & Christmas holidays, but the majority of days were selected arbitrarily. Looks like I'll have some extra me time, watching wonderful daytime television this fall, lol.

Governing By Crisis...

7:27a -- Washington (CNN) – “The country crashes into the debt ceiling at midnight, and there is no deal yet in Washington.”

It's now day 16 of this silly government shutdown & I'm finally pissed enough to blog about it. What on Earth is our Congress doing??? 

This is exactly why the 2 party system in this county needs to be addressed & revamped. Our elected Republican & Democratic officials are simply too driven by their respective party lines & NOT the very constituents who voted 'em into office. 

The constant bickering & hostage-taking by these politicians is tearing this country apart. Every 6 months there's a potential shutdown due to the ongoing congressional in-fighting & ironically, very few folk on the Hill would even be affected by any of the resolutions that have been sent forward for a vote, so this pisses me off that-much-more.

Everyone is busy posturing for political leverage, while the citizens of this country spiral deeper & deeper into a full-on panic. Yesterday's bright idea was a bill that promised enough funding for the government to operate until December or so, then we'd have to do this all over again.

Sure they'll tell you the idea is to reach another, more long term, agreement before reconvening in December, but this current state of the shutdown was never supposed to happen either, so I take very little solace in any future promises from this (or any) crop of politicians.

Municipalities all across this nation are hemorrhaging & no one from any party -- yes, including you Tea Party -- is doing a damn thing about it, if it doesn't clearly paint them as the hero for saving our country, that is. Everyone wants to wear the white hat, but no one wants to fall on their sword.

Help us lord…

Casual Wednesdays...

So tomorrow is the 1st day of an experiment I'm conducting. I'll be telecommuting from home tomorrow & will continue to do so for the next couple of Wednesdays as well. 


If I'm able to stay disciplined & actually complete a day's worth of work from the couch, I'll commit to telecommuting 1 day a week for the foreseeable future. I've got quite a few buddies who love the traditional alternative work schedules they've got at their jobs, but honestly, I'm not really willing to work the 9+ hours per shift required to earn the day-off every-other week. I barely manage to stomach my current 8-hour shift as it is, so I'm positive I'd be ducking-out early, each day, if I was expected to be there for 9 or more, lol.

So we'll see how this works out for me. Kinda reminds me of being back in high school when teacher's would give us those open-book tests. I always felt nervous about 'em, some things are just too good to be true, lol. I'm supposed to document what I've accomplished from home - that ought to be... interesting.

If this new wrinkle does become a regular part of my work schedule, it'd be pretty helpful. I normally ride the subway to work Tuesday thru Thursday, while I drive on Mondays & Fridays. So if I can save subway fare & parking fees each Wednesday simply by drafting documents & responding to emails between loads of laundry, while frying bacon in my underwear, then I'm ALL for it!

Not to mention the freedom it would give me to run many midday errands that might normally be inconvenient or bothersome during rush-hour or weekends. Doctor/dentist appointments, appliance repair service, runs to the cleaners, oil changes, so on & so forth.. could ALL be done on Wednesdays. Then there's the ultimate prize, the extra sleep I'd get :-D

Sure, some supervisors or management might feel like telecommuting would be less productive for worker-bees, but there's actually been a lot of research showing how the quality of work actually improves when employees have alternative work schedules - then there's the money saved on the employer's end, so... why not? 

I guess only the application of said theory remains. At any rate, I've got my secured VPN access squared away, emails & calendar items from the work computer seem to be syncing flawlessly with the home computer & mobile devices - plus, the Sup is very much on-board with everything. I've even installed Microsoft Word on my Mac (forgive me Steve, unfortunately Word remains a necessary evil in the workplace, lol).