Here they close the office and say to work remotely from wherever you are. Which strikes me as worse. Like, if my power goes out or home floods I am not going to take my laptop and find a co-working space at a shelter. If it’s bad enough we shouldn’t drive it’s likely bad enough we shouldn’t work.
“Our records show your laptop has been powered off for the last week? What happened”
“My house is gone and I needed to find a place for me and my family to live.”
“Hmmm. Okay, but just remember we’re a team here and everyone needs to contribute to be successful! Try to let us know next time you’re going to be away, okay?”
On a scale of 1-10 how accurate was I
Ha! Yes once we were working extra days for an audit - I try to work in the office only and leave my laptop there, had worked Monday though Saturday, long hours, took Sunday off, the boss of my boss yelled at my boss (who was a devout Christian) because I left my laptop at the office. He told me and I looked him straight in the eye and said “I don’t work on Sundays” and he absolutely backed me up.
But now that upper management have families, in general the flexibility does run in both directions. Most consider it a benefit to be able to work remotely, I’m sort of an outlier in that way (because the office is so close to my home, the space there is a benefit to me).
But yeah pretty close - people are working today until the power goes out.
They give me those days “off.” I take those days off. I’m already WFH, but I spend the time prepping for the storms and then taking care of my kids and making sure they feel happy and safe. We make a movie marathon out of it. We download stuff to tablets for when the power goes out. We get out the air mattress and sleep together in the living room (my bedroom is under a tree). Work is not going to interrupt me taking care my family.
I know that I am in a fortunate situation that allows me to do something that many can’t. I don’t take that for granted. That said, I do make it happen.
Yes, “off with pay” is the appropriate work status. My work is actually pretty flexible with us, I just hate working from home now because I have to drag everything out and set it up somewhere, particularly bad for a storm because everything from outside is also stuffed in the house.