Today solidified my decision to work at this nonprofit.

Our leadership (all much younger than me) met yesterday to put together a plan in light of current conditions.

Today we had a staff meeting (with one self quarantined member on video).

Sadly, we have 'postponed' all public events for now. We discussed personal health both physical and mental, work at home plans and what to do to continue to serve our community.

We have a plan and we will continue to work as long as we can to get food to those who need it most, especially now. We may be dropping food off at door steps to our most vulnerable community members. That may mean that those of us in the office will be called on to work our farm fields or drive trucks with deliveries. We are all more than willing to do what needs to be done.

I left the meeting feeling so grateful for the open communication and thoughtful plan. We are all in this together.

What has your employer put into place?

I *am* the employer, and I quite frankly haven't a clue.

My employer only just to the step of moving classes online.

Unlike other universities, it’s leaving dorms and dining halls open, so while students are encouraged to go home, those who don’t or can’t will still have a place to stay and be fed etc. I think that’s pretty good.

I’m my own employer, and it’s a very small business.

The conference I was supposed to teach at this weekend has been postponed.

I scheduled a couple small classes (6 people, 4 people) here in town since I wasn’t going to be away. I’m wiping down the surfaces, and asking people to wash their hands before coming to class. And if they’re ill, to stay home!

I’m scheduled to teach at a couple shops at the end of the month; we’ll see if that’s still happening. One of the shops sent out an email today capping enrollment so we could spread students out over a wider space.

Larger events are canceling/postponing left and right; there have been a lot of emails today.

Hoping small businesses survive.

My husband’s company has an office in Windsor and one in Southfield, MI. He travels between the two. They have told people to work from home when possible. He told them that he will not travel to the Southfield office until things have calmed down. Not because he’s afraid of getting sick, but because we are afraid they will close the border to travellers and Canada isn’t required to let him back in (he’s a permanent resident, but not a citizen). Work is cool with that plan.

quote:

Hoping small businesses survive.

This.

My brother makes his living as a performing musician/guitar teacher. If he doesn’t teach, and he doesn’t play, he doesn’t get paid. My sister-in-law has a more traditional job, so that’s good at least.

I'm technically an independent contractor, so I am my own employer. However, the firm that I work "with" in NYC has said that it will close when and if the New York City public schools close.

Our classes have gone online, so I can work from home.

University staff, however, are still working. And research assistants can work in their labs under some pretty stringent guidelines that include maintaining a six-foot distance from others.

To telework, you need to fill out a form and certify that you will follow the rules.

I have been authorized to telework on Monday and Friday for a long time.

I asked for permission to telework 5 days a week. So far, no response at all.

Well, I’m self quarantine-ing anyway now, so I guess I win?

I wouldn't give them a choice, Cindy.

My daughter's schools closed yesterday for at least three weeks. Today she is there as they try to figure out how to tele-instruct. I told her to insist this can be done from home.

Ohio is pretty low impact so far - 5-8 cases, all up in the northeast part of the state. Hopefully we can keep it that way.

My benevolent employer has asked everyone to work from home as much as possible. I have been. Yesterday I had to go in to the office for an hour or two. There were four people in the office out of our group of 25. When I was leaving, one of my cellmates said he heard we were going to be told, not asked.

Of course, people who work in the factory cannot work from home. The company has been taking extra measures to clean work areas and encourage people to follow all of the public directions to avoid spreading the virus.


Many years ago, the Army Corps of Engineers discovered a leak in an earthen dam about 20 miles from my office building. We are in a river valley and they decided that if the dam broke, we would have less than an hour before the water got to us, and within a few hours, we'd have several feet of water. They erected a 12-foot wall of sand around our building to protect a bunch of sensitive equipment. But they also told us to be ready to work from home on short notice and for an extended period. We all got new laptops and the wherewithal to get them on the company network and be productive.

It turned out that when the dam was being built, they diverted the river through a culvert. Once the dam was finished, someone slapped a piece of plywood over the end of the culvert and walked away. It was the piece of plywood that had started leaking after several decades. The dam itself was fine.

I work at home but have physical therapy twice a week. I am strongly considering not going, mostly because my PT doesn't seem to grasp--or is in denial--about what is happening. She insists they won't close their doors, no matter what, because "our patients need us". But on further discussion it became clear that this is an economic, not a health decision. People's brains are having trouble catching up to reality.

Mr Pique, otoh, works all day in a public building. He could easily be exposed. He was told to look into how everyone can work from home, but they haven't made a move on this. The governor just declared a state of emergency--the university system has gone to online classes--why wait any longer to close public schools and insist people work from home? Because there is virtually no testing happening here, we have no idea how prevalent the virus is in our community. And in most towns, the medical resources are pathetically poor.

Disaster waiting to happen. I want Mr Pique out of that building yesterday.

Mr Jodi is part of the team trying to figure out how to make the Montana University System directive to move to online classes work for where he is. It’s a freaking nightmare, in part because Mr. Jodi’s school doesn’t have the man power that the bigger schools have. So being told: ‘have your associate provost do this, have your ID person do this, have your office of online teaching and learning do this”. They don’t have any of those things.

quote:

Originally posted by jodi:
Mr Jodi is part of the team trying to figure out how to make the Montana University System directive to move to online classes work for where he is. It’s a freaking nightmare, in part because Mr. Jodi’s school doesn’t have the man power that the bigger schools have. So being told: ‘have your associate provost do this, have your ID person do this, have your office of online teaching and learning do this”. They don’t have any of those things.

Can your son help with this? Where mr. Pique works (he's the IT guy) they have a license for a program that allows people to access their work computers from home, and so it's as if they are in the building. Let us know if any of that info would be helpful.

The instructional design guy was just hired, but he’s not going to be here for a month! They are going to have to rely on other universities for some of this, I think, honestly, everybody is just scrambling and doing the best they can under apocalyptic feeling circumstances. It feels like the twilight zone - is this *really* happening?

Got a call from our daughter (graduate school, child and family therapy in Portland) she’s worried because they are required to have a certain number of hours of face to face patient stuff to graduate - not sure what to tell her - everybody is facing the same issues. They will have to change rules, have no idea what it means for her.