WFH, On Calls All Day

[namechangetoxyz]

just for a nosy as i can't work from home (utilities infrastructure) On here i keep seeing people who are On calls/Zoom etc, but what do you actually DO .

I'm an HR Manager so I'm having team meetings, project meetings, meetings with managers, meetings with staff, interviewing candidates, disciplinary meetings, consultations etc. All the things I'd usually be doing if I was in the office.

Oh and no zoom/meetings etc
Basically just answer incoming and make outgoing calls, then log off and done until the next day

Shipping co-ordinator. I bring in container loads of stuff from the far east, Asia and America. Hard going at the moment!

Mechanical engineer - planning work for a big shut down later in the year for which I will need to be on site in person (but planning can mostly be done WFH to avoid risk to site based critical operations colleagues)

The phone lines are diverted to my mobile, I have a full set up in the office. I do customer tech support and book engineers work in. Essentially doing my job as normal except I'm not also acting as skivvy for the engineer which means the office is now a shit tip because there's no one sorting it out.

DH is on teams most of the day. From what I can work out they spend all day talking about the work they need to do rather than actually doing it.

Teach. All day. Was very lovely and was lucky enough to have just six kids not log in. Did laugh as one student replied to my invitation as tentative.

@doctorhamster I get that feeling a lot

I’m in technical project management - all the normal informal how are you getting on with X now has to be in a phone call/teams meeting.

I also seem to get dragged into meetings/calls more easily - before if you were talking with one person about a project and you needed to ask someone else it normally waited until you saw them/emailed them...now you get dragged into the call with them if your needed

All these people that log on to calls, switch mic and camera off then get one with housework...what do you do? What organisations do you work for? What sort of meetings are they? Why don’t they require input? I’m so jealous

I think you are asking why we need to be speaking to people all day, rather than what our jobs are?
For me, I am talking to different project teams about where they have got to and discussing next steps/working through any problems they have there and then and offering solutions. Or I am briefing someone about how to do a task, or calling someone to give them my comments/feedback on a piece of work. Or ringing a colleague to find out the answer to a question about where to find a resource, or to get IT to talk me through using a new system. Today I delivered a long session for colleagues in a different part of the business explaining what my bit does And took part in training over lunchtime on an area of work that I am unfamiliar with.
Does that help?

Technical consultant in a private company. The amount of time i spent on zoom / teams varies from day to day but I have 2 main projects at the moment so have an internal weekly team meeting progress call for 1 of those, plus a client fortnightly one, then 2 fortnightly team meetings for my other project, and a lot of ad-hoc ones for that job as need arises. Then 2 half hour "social" calls a week (which get dropped if there's more urgent work to do!) and anything else that comes up.....office meetings, training sessions (either giving or receiving)......probably no more meetings than when we were in the office but a lot more calls with people I would normally speak to in person.

I'm a management consultant.

My days vary a lot depending on the client. Typically a project lasts ~3 months and I lead a team of 2-3 people.

In terms of zoom, there's normally:

• Daily start of day check-in with my own team at 9am for 15-30 mins to discuss priorities
• Daily 30 minute 1:1 with the junior team member(s) to review their work and discuss progress/questions
• Daily end of day team check in for 15-30 mins to discuss priorities/evening work (we normally work ~12 hour days)
• Daily key client check in for 15 mins
• Weekly team meeting with partners, 1-2 hours per week
• Weekly client team meeting, 1-2 hours per week

Then on top of that, there are often lots of client interviews to gather information, calls with colleagues from around the firm to get data and insights and opinions, internal calls for other office commitments (e.g. charity work), ad-hoc calls with my team members to discuss their work.

I'd say on average I do anything between 30-80% of my day on calls, it depends on the client and the week. Because I manage a team I also often have to join their client calls if they are junior and can't be left to run the meeting alone, which eats a lot of time.

But my best friend is an accountant and typically only has one zoom call a day or less; whereas my DH is on the exec team and is one zoom for 80% of his day almost every day (and as a result often works all evening once the calls are done).

I can't imagine a job with no calls, I like that they break up the day, although it's a fine balance and too many get exhausting.

There are usually action points arising out of the meetings that require us to quietly do some actual work as a result! But sometimes it feels like an endless round of drafting emails to people not in the meeting to tell them what was said in the meeting..

Therapy. I'm a CBT therapist.

I work in communications/PR, everything is now done remotely and we’ve been told not to expect to be back in the office before March even before the current lockdown

Software developer. The more Zoom calls I’m on a day, the less of the project gets done. Which then leads to more Zoom calls, until you are in infinite Zoom hell. Thank god my contract with this client finishes imminently!

L&D/HR. I spend my days delivering online training, coaching, meeting with managers and staff who need support or are planning training for their teams, and sitting in on leadership meetings to help work out how to take things from policy/rules to something managers can work through with their staff. Sometimes it's non-stop, sometimes I manage to block out a few hours to do things like write courses or plan programmes.

Also managing a team so answering questions, having one to one's and team meetings, planning meetings.

I work for a charity with new volunteers, really quite difficult remotely as the personal contact is lost but making it work.

DH an do spend all day pretty much 9-6 on Zoom or Teams, both work in IT.

IT senior comms manager for a finance company - probably on zoom for 50% of my working day.
Our team are based internationally so my work isn’t any different to how it was before

I manage software for clinical trials. Very busy, lots of calls all day

I am a SEN 121, I teach and support my 121 via Teams rather than in the classroom. My 121 is shielding.

Senior civil servant with responsibility for climate action. Back today and had 4 zoom meetings and another 4 scheduled for tomorrow and calls and emails in between. Kids at home too so was kept busy.

I'm a lecturer. Currently on maternity leave, but in first lockdown I was on calls for several hours most days. Teaching, office hours and other meetings with students, plus meetings with colleagues about both teaching and research.

A lot of things which would have previously been a 5 minute chat in the work kitchen ("how did your first years find those exercises?") became proper meetings which take up too much time.

taxi firm administrator here, i answer calls from customers requiring transport, take bookings, update our job schedule and liaise with the taxi drivers. all done from dining room table and was before Covid. inbetween calls do whatever i want. zero hours though so only book what hours i've worked. great work/life balance

Ooh lofu I'm intrigued to know which software - I work in clinical trials too - mega busy at the moment!