WFH related, what do you do when?

[Justaonetimeting]

Your technology lets you down? My internet seems fine to me, no problems with streaming Netflix etc but for some reason my connection to the work system just doesn't work every now and again.
I try starting and restarting. I know it's not the laptop as I got a new one from work very recently and had similar issues before on the old one. It just won't load the desktop. I've spoken to IT and they just blame the network, most of my colleagues have similar problems.
My question is what do you do when this happens? I just go into the office but I grow a bit resentful of this as it's not my fault and also with two children home from school I try to get started at 5am so I can do something with them in the middle and then log back on at 4 and work until 7/8. It's just not possible for me to go in the office at these times.
Surely other people have had similar issues since last March? Do you just say 'sorry it's not working today'? I feel so frustrated when it happens, as I genuinely want to crack on. Today I've had to ring round and find someone to have my kids so I can go in as I have so much to do! Really I should be able to say 'sort the network out' and not have to do this every other week.

What is the nature of your work and do you have to be connected to the network to do your work? I rarely connect to my work VPN, most of my work is done on websites, email or Teams. I also have tasks like researching which involves reading books etc so I've always got something to do.

I f they can't fix it over the phone they either send a new one and collect the old one and i do what I can on my work phone in the meantime or I take the laptop in for them to are around on. All of it is on works time.

If I tried logging on at 9am and couldn't get hold of tech til 11am that's just their hard cheese- I was available to work.

@MoiraNotRuby yes, it's all very sensitive information so all kept on a central database.

How old are your kids ? The main issue is that you haven't arranged any holiday childcare. I assume working in the office isn't such a problem when they're at school.

Are you relying on WiFi? I have to use an Ethernet cable for a consistent reliable connection

@SnarkyBag the laptop has built in internet or something. I can connect anywhere.

Meant to say I have to use a Ethernet adapter to connect it do the USB port on the laptop as most don’t have Ethernet ports any more.

My workplace mainly has us all working on our own laptops or whatever with a small number available for those who have no computer. There are days when works network is down and it won't connect, even though my side says Internet is fine. Very frustrating, but you have to report the issue to IT and just keep trying until issue is resolved. If that should take all day then its works problem not mine, (apart from having more work to do the next day). However my office is still closed due to covid.

I met my boss know and stay contactable on my mobile, I always have reading or planning work to do so I get on with that, I also copy teams invites to my home laptop so I can always get to meetings when needed. Other than that there’s not much else I can do because our office is still closed, if it wasn’t I’d go into the office because the kids are in childcare as usual on my working days.

[quote Justaonetimeting]@SnarkyBag the laptop has built in internet or something. I can connect anywhere.[/quote]
If it's using a mobile internet connection this will probably be less reliable than wi-fi or Ethernet. Are you allowed to connect it to your home wi-fi instead of using mobile internet?

Just a suggestion - no need to do it if you do not want to!

Purchase a powerline adapter
Find the nearest power outlet by your hard router and plug in the parent powerline adapter
Connect the hard network cable from your router to the parent powerline adapter
Find the nearest power outlet by your work laptop and plug in the "child" powerline adapter in that outlet.
Connect the hard network cable from your work laptop to the child adapter
Now you have a hard network line that cannot be dropped unless there are issues on the network line from your provider

Sample product for a powerline adapter - amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01LXOZ4EN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1]]

It depends how badly you want to continue working from home. If you keep flagging it and making it clear how much productivity the slow network is costing, they might invest to upgrade it.... or they might curtail working from home. It's a risk.

My workplace network gets slow sometimes but it's never unusable. There was one day I had no WiFi as I'd switched providers (old one turned off my connection at midnight, the new didn't activate until 7pm) so I hotspotted my phone and used that for the day. Not sustainable long term unless you have shedloads of data.

Check with colleagues it doesn't happen to them, if so it may be at work's end. If that's not it and you can't sit close enough to the router to run a cable then I recommend a mesh network, you can get them with a powerline too but I now have a seamless network across my house with no interruptions. Cost me about £100 but that's only 2 weeks commuting!

[quote Justaonetimeting]@SnarkyBag the laptop has built in internet or something. I can connect anywhere.[/quote]
From the sound of it you may be using a SIM in the laptop.

Options could be:

1. the SIM
   It connects by itself but is reliant on the phone network, 3G, 4g, 5G etc
   The network signal may be better on a different network but your company may have a contract with a single network

2. wifi from your home network
   This will be as good as your connection
   (Or also public wifi points when out)

3. Ethernet cable into your home network
   Again this is as good as your connection, but isn’t affected by thick walls etc that can reduce the strength of a wifi signal

(Assuming it’s a windows laptop)
Go to the bottom right for your network options which may be similar to mine attached

Once lockdown eased last year DH and I invested in second internet line - with two of us working from home and ds doing online college we thought it was a good idea.

If I have IT problems I can call our IT team to help, but generally I am quite good at trouble-shooting myself. As a pp said, sometimes connection difficulties are at the work end anyway.

Also I have a work mobile so if it really all goes wrong with both of our internet lines, I can set up a mobile hotspot to work on.

Have you got a multi-port adapter connected?
I thought I was really clever propping my laptop up on top of the connector I use to plug in the mouse, keyboard, monitor etc but it turns out there's some sort clever wifi wizardry inside the adapter that knocks the wifi out on the laptop.
Took me hours of furious googling to find that out, getting more and more frustrated as whenever I unplugged the laptop to try the wifi in a different room it magically worked!

I've had similar issues when using Teams, other work colleagues had also have them. Our IT department said it is a Teams issue and nothing to do with our networks.

I find my home wifi is fine for everything, including 2 gamers, except Teams meetings. Are they particularly heavy on the wifi? I use the hot spot on my work phone and let work pay for it if needed.

Yes I had this - my SIM had stopped working - so I now connect to my home internet - still go via VPN (Social work so confidential info) but IT okayed me using home internet

I work offline and report to IT unless they are already aware of network issues. I think my set up is the same as yours - working on my WiFi but via the team network.

You only have two options - ignore the advice telling you to use a cable to connect etc. I doubt if you have admin rights on your laptop and even if you did and knew how to reconfigure the system, changing how you connect would probably result in your company's firewall blocking you.

You could ask them to set it up so you can use your home network which may be more stable - but they may refuse.

@Justaonetimeting

Your technology lets you down? My internet seems fine to me, no problems with streaming Netflix etc but for some reason my connection to the work system just doesn't work every now and again. I try starting and restarting. I know it's not the laptop as I got a new one from work very recently and had similar issues before on the old one. It just won't load the desktop. I've spoken to IT and they just blame the network, most of my colleagues have similar problems. My question is what do you do when this happens? I just go into the office but I grow a bit resentful of this as it's not my fault and also with two children home from school I try to get started at 5am so I can do something with them in the middle and then log back on at 4 and work until 7/8. It's just not possible for me to go in the office at these times. Surely other people have had similar issues since last March? Do you just say 'sorry it's not working today'? I feel so frustrated when it happens, as I genuinely want to crack on. Today I've had to ring round and find someone to have my kids so I can go in as I have so much to do! Really I should be able to say 'sort the network out' and not have to do this every other week.

A couple of times when I was teaching from home my internet went down. I couldn't live teach so my HoD had to upload resources for the pupils to do. It was so frustrating but there was nothing I could do. If it had continued I would have had to go into school to teach. Luckily after 2 days it resolved itself.

My new administrator kept complaining of IT problems. I was sympathetic at first, but It got to point where I had to say to them that if it keeps happening they may have to work from the office.

We dial in through a portal system Zoho assist so ours is entirely dependent on the robustness of that connection rather than our internet.
Consequently we are working very very slowly at times - today there is lag of seconds every time you type / click in a box etc.
But as someone else pointed out - you don't want to complain about it if you're still enjoying WFH

My office is open and if we can’t work effectively at home for any reason, we are required to go in. If it’s a one off network goes down etc then most just make up the hours later but for regular issues they are told to return to office. I hotspot off my mobile if my internet goes down, so I don’t have to go to the office (I have to pay for it myself, but it’s cheaper than the train)