How is online schooling/work going for you?

[PavellumPendulum]

I'm a university student and ever since the pandemic started, my classes have all been online, same as my work as a tutor. I know that younger students have been on and off in my country, switching between in person and online constantly. If you're a student or you've had to start working online, do you prefer it? Does it work better for you or is it more of a mixed bag?

Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with online learning. I love not waking up early to get on public transport (2hr bus ride to uni STINKS) and I do save a lot of money by not going out as much. However, I also get really depressed staying in my room for 8 hours a day in front of my computer and not being able to really socialize at uni makes me feel like I'm missing out on the university experience .

 

[Spammy]

Fortunately for me, my company doesn't monitor my status and notify my supervisor if my status on Microsoft Teams gets flipped to "away." I have to be responsive to emails and answer my phone, but luckily I can work at my own pace during hours. Not having to commute is nice. Isolation is a real kick in the pants though, although when I was a technician I somehow managed to be isolated and overwhelmed on crowded construction sites so that's just changing the shape of the problem and leaving it in place.

 

[Nemopedia]

It was exciting at first, but I slowly noticed that I'm one of those people who needs an office to curb myself. Else I will just turn in crazy hours of overtime without it feeling like so and harm my eyes from staring at a screen all day and reading all night.

Now that my occupation has been labelled as essential we get to go in even if we test positive when we are fully vaccinated.

Other than that, the isolation did slightly kill me as well. Even as a strong introvert. I need my colleagues to throw all of my ideas against. Walls don't answer.

 

[Mojo]

I live by routines, so working from home really made it difficult for me to follow them.
Working pre-covid this was my day: I wake up at 6 am, I go to the gym for an hour, I take a shower after gym and eat my breakfast. I'm in the office for my work hours and then I come home to relax.

Working from home, I just roll out of bed and I'm on my laptop 8am - 4pm and then I'm off to sit by my PC to play games until I go to bed again. I barely go outside, I barely feel motivated to do anything. My work also requires me to look at the products that we sell in order to understand how they work when our customer service has a question. I also analyze products for different reasons so I need to be in our lab and analyze the product. I'm almost fully working at the office again and I feel so much better.

So for me, I really need to be in the office to stay focused and be able to help with quick answers! :3

 

[Reina]

I have a few pros and cons with working from home.

A few things I love are (1) the flexibility with my kids. Working from home really enables me to care for them, pick them up from school and all that. (2) I get to spend more time with hubs who also works from home. (3) I get to finish my errands and not waste a weekend. (4) No one hour commute.

Cons: (1) sometimes I end up doing more housework than actual work. (2) Kids can be distracting. (3) I lose focus sometimes. (4) Sometimes I don't have all the necessary tools to do everything I need to do from home versus if I was at the office.

 

[XIII]

So I actually work two jobs. Sunday through Wednesday, I'm at the prison, making sure the gang bangers get their food (kitchen security,) and I get to talk people down from doing stupid thing (crisis negotiator.) We have more fights and overdoses than I care to say, but it's natural being a maximum security prison.

My other job, I'm a contractor, and for one client, I help her manage her calendars and I'm helping her develop some projects, and my other client, I'm a project developer. I've got to say, I absolutely love working from home. Going from one extreme to the next is like a total kick in the face, but a very welcomed kick in the face.

I've always been a super recluse, though. My biggest draw back right now is that I don't have an actual office; my office is in my bedroom, and it's....rough. But, my husband and I are closing on a house soon, and when we do, we'll have an office (and I get to quit the prison job, yay!). And my goal is to fill it with plants and give it the most 'outdoorsy' feel. Lots of bright pictures of scenery (I collect artwork, and have a few lovely scenes of the forest.) I always make sure to stay in contact with friends and family though. I think that's what a lot of people have the hardest time with, is staying social. We all have to give ourselves some time to ourselves and time being social; humans are social creatures, after all!

But working from home allows me to spend time with my kids. I get to take them to school, work all day, and go and pick them up. Plus my husband gets to have a bit more freedom with his work schedule. I also don't have to worry about whether I'm going to come home or not. I've been assaulted once (nothing too terrible,) but we've had a couple of officers killed in recent times by inmates. I just want to be able to come home safely, and if I have to deal with a home office job to get that kind of comfort, I'm cool with that. Plus, my pay from home is double my salary at the prison.

 

[IceQueen]

I would say that online learning is a blessing and a curse. Being able to not get dressed and go to class is a heavenly experience but its also SUPER easy to zone out, like I am doing right now, in class. Its also really easy to fake the scores/google things. On the other hand my university is currently in person and it is going as well as a nuclear dumpster fire. People are getting covid left and right and the university is like 'we did nothing and it didn't work?!' No shit sherlock. They have attempted to give out N95 masks but I have no idea where they are on campus if there are any left. And then there are those that keep pulling the mask below the nose anyway because they 'can't breathe with it on'. Honestly online learning has a time and place and as much as it sucks going online for 2 weeks would have saved a lot of people getting covid. I think the aversions to going back online will hurt in the long run.