Working from home, I was "stalked" by the company with a camera

Ignition Dimension (ID: chaintruth) original

Produced by Burning Finance

Author | Ma Shuye Cao Yang Xie Zhongxiu TaoTao

Yu Chaojing Kong Yuexin Lv Jingzhi Zhang Lin

Edit | Cao Yang

Working from home may have become the norm for this year's workers.

"Get up and work", "fully save time costs, transportation costs", etc., have become the source of happiness for many workers to work from home.

According to the "China Telecommuting Development Report" released by Zhaopin, after the epidemic, about 90% of job seekers prefer that the company allow employees to work from home, and about 30% of the job seekers' companies have begun to allow remote home work, and the epidemic and related prevention and control measures have objectively promoted the process of remote home office implementation of enterprises.

In fact, as early as the Spring Festival in 2020, many enterprises have begun to implement home work. It is reported that first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen have become the main cities that release home office recruitment positions. In the Little Red Book search for "home office good things", there are more than 20,000 related notes, and the atmosphere of the desk, the stylish aromatherapy and the eye-catching green plants are the exquisite study rooms of many workers, which also triggers the public's infinite yearning for home office.

However, the free, stylish work from home is someone else's, and it has nothing to do with you. In Zhihu, on "Why is working from home more tiring than going to work?" The number of post views reached 940,000, some netizens directly called "almost collapsed" in the answer, and many netizens complained that "communication efficiency declines after working from home, work hours are extended, and life chores occupy energy" and so on.

Recently, due to the implementation of home work in The chaoyang district of Beijing on May 5, it has been on Weibo's hot search, which has triggered a hot discussion among netizens about working from home. As of press time, the topic has exceeded 170 million readers, and many netizens in the comment area have shared the status of working from home.

Although some netizens said that "working from home can sneak fish and finally take a nap", more people said that they have suffered from various home symptoms, "not only the 8-hour work system has become 24 hours a day online, but also the meals for three meals a day have long been tired, just looking forward to going to work early." Others faced with the sudden blockade of the company park, because there is no office equipment to open the "wandering office" mode.

In this issue of the tavern, we chatted with some of our friends about their home office status. Some of them had to send their children home to avoid being disturbed; some had to move their equipment from the company overnight, and even had to move to be able to stay home. In order to avoid the sound of decoration upstairs, some people can only choose to go to the hotel to open a room; some people are "stalked" by the company with a camera, which is originally at home but is always under the supervision of the company; some people directly change from kitchen white to "kitchen god". ......

In the future, perhaps working from home will become a new office trend, but the status of working from home for workers may be more worthy of attention.

Five video sessions a day

Working from home is more tiring than going to work

Amy | 26 years old company Pr

My imaginary home office state is to sleep every day until I wake up naturally, without makeup, wearing pajama slippers, and turning on the computer to code words directly. But in fact, my home office scene is to open 5 video conferences every day, not only to wear makeup, but even "touching the fish" has become a luxury.

On May 4, the company issued a notice that due to the impact of the epidemic, it began to work from home on May 5. This makes me very happy, thinking that the commuting time saved can be used to sleep lazily, work from home and do not need professional high heels to wrap themselves, can work comfortably, as long as the daily work is completed on time, the boss does not care whether I am lying down or lying on my stomach, listening to songs or eating snacks.

However, it turned out I was "too naïve". At 8:00 a.m. on May 5, the company group issued a notice, at 9 o'clock on time to open a video conference, sleepy eyes I quickly got up to wash makeup and clean up the room, breakfast did not have time to eat to sit in front of the computer to listen to the boss to arrange the work. After more than half an hour, the meeting finally ended, I took off my coat and changed into my pajamas again, made myself a cup of coffee and began to make breakfast, and by the time I had finished breakfast it was already half past ten.

I turned on the computer, just worked for about ten minutes, the group notification rang again: 11 o'clock open "alignment" meeting, also in the form of video conferencing. I immediately "bounced" off my seat, changed into my professional outfit again, and put on lipstick. The first thing the owner said when he came up was how the work of the morning decoration was progressing.

"Please, what progress will be made in an hour and a half." I thought to myself. "The file has been sent and is still waiting for feedback from the other party", "The project push"... Colleagues have their own arguments, but overall it sounds like there is no progress, but none of them say they have not yet started work.

The meeting was short and ended in just 15 minutes. And a colleague should not pay attention to the mobile phone, so missed this meeting, the boss also directly named at the meeting, and said that the home office synchronization work progress is very important, to always pay attention to the group dynamics. With these two meetings, I also became more careful, I did not dare to take off my professional clothes, and I always had to pay attention to the dynamics of the group, and my work efficiency was lower than in the office.

Subsequently, the company held video conferences at two, four and six o'clock in the afternoon, knowing that our company only held one meeting every Monday and Friday.

Working from home is not as easy as I thought, and I feel exhausted after a long day. There was not much progress in the work, and the brain cells were all used to cope with the leadership check.

Now, I am looking forward to the day when I can go to work at work, so that I can occasionally "touch a fish" in the pantry.

Working from home, I was "stalked" by the company with a camera

Charles | 32 years old Internet company brand

The day before, I was still a natural choice worker, and when I learned that I could work from home, I was fiercely excited. Unexpectedly, working from home, I was not the "lucky one" I imagined. When I saw the company's strict regulations on home management early in the morning, I found that this so-called office freedom was basically bad news - companies should use cameras to stalk us from morning to night. I thought to myself, no different from guarding a prisoner.

According to the company's regulations, first of all, we need to install a software developed by the company's in-house technicians, and after logging in, the computer's camera is always turned on. We had to work in front of the screen for 9 hours from morning to night in this completely exposed state to complete the day's man-hours. During this time, there will be a special colleague who will be responsible for inspecting our work, and if we are found not in front of the computer twice, or do not appear for 30 minutes in a row, we will deduct our wages.

What's more, this monitoring system also sets a rest time for us very "humanely", but this time cannot be counted in the working hours. If I start work at 9 a.m. and eat at noon from 12 to 13 p.m., I can set the system to be unmonitored during this time; but at the same time, my work time will have to be postponed to 7 o'clock. But in fact, the working hours of the unit are nine to six in the morning, and the lunch break time is also counted within 9 hours.

And that's not all. Just when I tried to log in to the system developed in-house at 9 a.m. on May 7, I found that because the technology was not good, I could not log in at all. I immediately gave feedback to the technical department, but after an hour, no one replied. Fearing that I would be charged for not working enough hours, I asked other colleagues and found that almost a dozen people had similar problems.

In this way, what used to be only needed to be "monitored" is now anxious about being deducted for not having enough "monitoring" time. But if I was really fined for delaying working hours because the software was too difficult to use, then I might have to consider complaining.

To prevent touching fish at home

The boss used "36 counts"

Jane | 24 years old book planner

On the morning of May 4, after seeing the news that some subway stations in Beijing were closed, our whole company was thankful, "We are not in this area", "My health treasure green code has no pop-up window", "Residential quarters and near the company can still be in and out normally"... We are all relieved that we can still go to work normally after the holiday (the nature of the work is more convenient in the company).

Then, in less than half a day, things suddenly took a 180-degree reversal.

In the afternoon, we were notified that the subway station near the company was closed, and the street also informed us that the number of people in the office building should not exceed 25%. In this way, we went from "chosen workers" to home workers, and everyone had to go to the company to get office equipment on the evening of the 4th.

Because of my "foresight", I took the computer home before the holiday, so I avoided running to the company at night to get the computer. But things did not become smooth sailing, in order to prevent employees from working from home when they would touch the fish and delay, our boss can say that the use of "36 meters".

The most noteworthy is the "duty meter". Because the boss "knocks on the blackboard" to explain, even if most people work from home, every day each department still has to arrange one-third of the people to go to the company on duty (to help colleagues send couriers to deal with documents), so personnel should communicate with department leaders and arrange a good schedule.

Therefore, although the epidemic prevention policy is constantly updated and constantly affects the duty arrangement of our company, it cannot "shake" the determination of the boss to let us go to the company office, which leads to colleagues in the personnel department urgently making the N version of the duty schedule in one day.

On the evening of the 4th, the first round of rotational duty schedules were given in advance. But because of the policy change, soon the 50% attendance rate could not be achieved, and they quickly updated the second edition, and I was scheduled to go to work on the 6th. After I planned the bus route, the company received a street notice saying that in order to reduce the risk and achieve zero as soon as possible, employees had better work from home, so the second version of the schedule was invalidated.

However, due to the need for someone to go to the company to help send and receive documents, the personnel department quickly issued the third version of the duty list in the group on the 5th, reducing the number of people on duty to single digits. As a result, because the health treasure of other colleagues who wanted to be on duty was popped up, the number of shifts began to repeat again, and finally the personnel department had to rearrange the fourth version of the duty schedule, this time I was assigned to the 7th duty. Finally, the duty schedule was settled.

The most important point is that in order to prevent us from delaying, the boss has issued a new regulation, so that we must turn in the daily newspaper before 7 pm every day, report what work we have done in the day, and delay in submitting the daily newspaper will be invalidated. But because my day's work is difficult to measure, bits and pieces such as daily work communication, sending and receiving couriers cannot be written in the daily newspaper. So every day from 1 to 6:30 p.m., I had to rack my brains to write daily newspapers.

Now, working from home is only 3 days, and I am crazy looking forward to being able to go back to work normally.

Normal work "996", stay at home after "007"

slightly | 31-year-old worker in a large factory

I live in Shanghai, and a cleaning aunt was diagnosed in the community at the beginning of March, so we entered the closed state earlier than other places in Shanghai, and I also started a life of working from home.

I'm in an interaction design role, and a lot of the work has to be done on the professional equipment that the company has equipped. So, on the first day of receiving the sealing notice, I contacted my colleagues who had not yet been blocked to deliver my computer and host to my doorstep. At that time, my colleagues thought that I could come out in a week at most, and I could just use a notebook to make up for it.

However, it turns out that the sealing control continues until now.

The design post is considered to be the "B B" position within the company, and our daily work is to complete the task of the project system. Before coming to Byte, I had heard that "only one byte and the heart can beat", but to be honest, my daily overtime is not a lot, working at most once or twice a week until about eight o'clock, and working overtime to a certain time there are meal allowances and taxi fares, so I did not feel that I was in a frightening factory environment.

But what I didn't expect was that after working from home, I really experienced the hardships of the big factory, and the working hours became "007".

When I was in the unit, behind my colleagues and project managers, what uncertain questions could be solved by turning my head and asking, but after staying at home, all the big and small things had to be solved by pulling an online meeting. Sometimes, the two projects I am responsible for are scheduled to meet at the same time, and no one can move the time, so I can only be online with various office apps at the same time, and I can really "listen to the eight directions".

In the past, when you left the office, you basically didn't receive information about your work. Now, in the middle of the night, I often receive notifications of project meetings, or ask for information about the progress of the project, as if after staying at home, I am tacitly considered to be a "worker" who is online 24/7.

In addition to the on-call work status, cooking is also a time-consuming thing. I used to work until twelve o'clock to go downstairs for a meal and then take a break, and continue the afternoon work at one o'clock in the afternoon. Now in order not to live on instant noodles every day, I need to start washing vegetables, thawing meat, stewing rice at ten o'clock, washing dishes after eating, and going inside and out for nearly two hours.

Now think about it, before watching some Vlog videos to record the environment of working from home, I always feel that I can't leave home, and the years are quiet. But after I stayed at home, I realized that it was simply chaotic and boring.

For the sake of working from home

I spent the night looking for a room to move equipment

Cai Cai | 24 years old online English teacher

At 6 p.m. on May 4, I was playing a game at my colleague's house, and I received a notice from the leader to let all the teachers go back to the company to get the live broadcast equipment, and the moment I received the news, my whole person "exploded".

Because of the nature of my profession, the performance of the general laptop can not meet the requirements of the company, in order to ensure the quality of the live class, I must go to the company to remove the host, display, keyboard, mouse, camera and other equipment in the live broadcast room. Because my colleague's house was at least two hours away from the company, and the company notice could only wait until nine o'clock, I was scared to put down the game and run to the company. That night, my sister and I hummed and carried home two sacks of equipment. When we got home, our arms and legs were tired and sore.

Although the equipment was moved back, I needed a quiet, spacious room to work from home, and that was the thing that bothered me the most.

I was living in a shared house, there were three rooms, on the one hand, working from home did not guarantee the complete quiet of the neighbors; on the other hand, I lived with my sister, in the past, because we had different schedules for work, the room was mostly only used by one person, but it did not feel crowded. But now we both have to work from home, two people are crowded in a room of more than ten square meters, and there is no extra space for me to set up a live broadcast room.

Moreover, our house is rented on the second floor, usually the sound of grass repairing downstairs, the sound of changing the screen window I can hear in the room, now I have no other choice but to move to change the house. So, after I arrived home at 10 o'clock that night, I began to think about finding a house.

I quickly chose three suites on the rental APP and made an appointment to see the house the next day, the agent brother also specially did a Beijing permit to drive to see the house, three hours we ran three communities, signed the contract for the new house at 2 pm, and moved into the new home at 6 pm.

The first thing to do when you go to your new home is to install a computer, and then you need to pass the test of the company's speed measurement software, and both are completed to meet the conditions for working from home. To be safe, I moved my router in the living room to the live broadcast room. At nine o'clock the next night, I was relieved to see the wires and assembled equipment crawling on the ground, and the empty and gray new home was piled with seven or eight cardboard boxes and sacks, and nothing had been packed, only my live broadcast room could be used normally.

Photo/Equipment moved back from the company Source/Vegetable Courtesy photo

This may be the obsession of the workers, the world is the biggest part-time worker, fortunately, our live class teachers are basically working from home in the later stages, and I can also adapt in advance.

The sound of decoration exploded overhead

I can only go to the hotel to open a room

26 years old Self-media

This round of the epidemic in Beijing, I almost became a "natural choice to beat workers".

On May 4, I was surfing in Little Red Book when I came across someone saying that the Beijing subway was out of service, including the one that arrived at our company. At that time, I couldn't believe it, and thought it was a rumor, so I went to the authoritative APP to inquire, and finally confirmed that the subway station was indeed out of service, and the area behind our office building was also classified as a control area.

After I forwarded these messages to the company group, the company did not respond in time, but sent a notice to check whether it had been to the control area around the company. At that time, I thought to myself, it's over, and I started to think about how to get to the company. Taxi is affordable for me, and there is still a station 1.5 kilometers away from the company that is not sealed, and it is not a big problem to walk past.

But thankfully, an hour later, the company sent out a notice: work from home. I was relieved. But unexpectedly, life is like a roller coaster, and the happiness of working from home has not yet arrived, and I am disturbed by the sound of upstairs decoration.

On May 5th, the first day of returning to work after May Day, and the first day I worked from home, I set an alarm clock at nine o'clock in the morning and prepared to get up and work. But unexpectedly, the renovation family was also in a hurry to start work, and at eight o'clock in the morning, the sound of the electric drill rumbling above my head sounded. The neighborhood I rented was still an old neighborhood, and there was no elevator, so there were renovation workers moving things up and down, banging on the stairs with a huge clanging sound.

Thundered...... Whoops... All the sounds surrounded me, I felt like a cement pile about to be poured on the construction site, and everything made me collapse.

I just wanted it to stop quickly, so I remembered that at the beginning of this outbreak, there was a renovation worker who was one of the transmission chains, and there was a regulation to suspend home renovations. But when I checked, I found that the regulations have been cancelled, and the existing regulations are only to guide the post-epidemic decoration regulations, such as nucleic acid, reporting and so on. Then I checked Beijing's management regulations, but I also learned that 8 o'clock to 12 o'clock, 14 o'clock to 18 o'clock can indeed be renovated.

It seems that there is no hope for the renovation to stop, and the only thing that can be done is to let yourself escape. If it is usual, I can still go to the café to sit, but now Beijing restricts dine-in, and I can't even go to the café. It was nearly nine o'clock in the morning, and I had checked some bookstores, and it was not yet open. Finally, I thought about the hotel, even if I can't stay in the hotel, I can stay in the hotel lobby.

Photo/Takeaway from the hotel Point Source/Courtesy of The Hotel

So I booked a hotel about two kilometers from home, 300 yuan a night. Luck to the hotel is also very good, may not be good market now, there are not many guests staying, so less than ten o'clock to check me in, but also gave me a promotion.

Entering the room, feeling the tranquility, I suddenly felt like I was born again. At that moment, I suddenly began to miss the office, but turned my head to think that there was still danger in the immediate vicinity of the control area, so I could only pray that the upstairs would be quickly loaded.

The first step in working from home – moving children

Thousand Grid Bird | 30-year-old media worker

Because of the nature of my work, I didn't need to go to work every day, just clock in on time on a fixed meeting day every week.

However, I did not enjoy this "no-class" gospel very well.

Before my child went to kindergarten, I needed to spend two hours with him every morning, and then I "left home" with my computer. The sweet shops and cafes around my home, and even KFC and McDonald's were once my "offices."

In September 2021, the child reached the age of kindergarten. After sending my children to kindergarten every morning, I can finally start a beautiful day of working from home comfortably, and no longer need "guerrilla office".

But this happiness did not come long, at the end of last year, the epidemic in Beijing was relatively serious, and children who had gone to private kindergartens harvested the same winter vacation length as public kindergartens - one month. There was no way, I could only choose to "run away" again, or a café, or simply choose to go to the company and commute to work on time. But in the end, it is much more comfortable than working from home this time.

However, such days did not last long. On May 3, I received a notice from the kindergarten class group, "Due to the severe and complex epidemic situation in Beijing, according to the requirements of the epidemic prevention and control of the higher level, the opening of the school originally scheduled for May 5 is now postponed for one week, and the home independent activities are tentatively scheduled to start on May 12 (Thursday). My first reaction was, "It's over, the café can't dine in, I'm going to go to the company on time again." ”

But what I never expected was that on the afternoon of May 4, I received a notice from the company, "Due to the needs of epidemic prevention, all the small partners work from home." "When I saw this notice, I immediately thought of the child's big problem." Kids and I can't be in the same room", "What should I do?" "Where can I go?" A series of thoughts immediately circled in my head.

Figure/Circle of Friends screenshot Source/Thousand Grid Bird Courtesy Photo

But in order to be able to spend time with my children every day, I chose to go to my brother's house on the first day of working from home. But even more tragic things happened, on May 5, the brother's unit building was sealed by all staff because of a positive case, and after the nucleic acid was negative, although the brother was released from the sealing, he needed home health observation. In this way, my last "safe haven" also fell, and the last remaining method was to send the child back to grandma's house.

Now, I do wish to work from home without my children interfering, but this also means that for a long time, at least until the children return to school, I was the only one at home.

To be honest, my biggest feeling now is that I have taken the initiative to enter the "home isolation mode".

Work from home for a month, from Xiaobai to "Kitchen God"

Wuyang | 26 years old and operates in a large factory

As we all know, Shanghai has been sealed for 14 days after another, and I have adapted to the state of working from home early. For more than a month, the most painful thing for me was not to grab vegetables, but to cook.

Since I usually don't cook, my kitchen only has a hot water kettle that barely counts as a kitchen utensil, and for the first 2 days of home isolation, I survived on small snacks. At that time, I was optimistic that the sealing time would not be too long. But soon, the sealing period began to be extended, and I finally "ran out of food".

"Does anyone have a pot they don't use at home?" Because I was really afraid of starving to death at home, I sent a message for help in the group. Luckily, a neighbor soon delivered a small pot that I didn't use, along with dish soap and a sponge brush.

Getting the spatula "equipment" is only the first step, and how to make a dish of potatoes and carrots sent by the aunt of the neighborhood committee is the key. After ten minutes of "big eyes and small eyes" with these ingredients, I had no choice but to open a remote connection with my mother. Under my mother's "cloud command", I clumsily used a fruit knife to peel potatoes and carrots, and then tried to cut them into pieces of about the same size.

Since there was no rice cooker at home, I had to put the rice in the pot and cook it directly. However, due to the lack of mastery of the heat, the rice paste pot was caused, and I began to rush to rescue the pot again. When I finally had homemade carrot and potato soaked rice, I realized that two hours had passed.

At that time, I realized that being able to cook was the most basic survival skill. So, I began to slowly learn to cook, starting from breakfast, learning to make noodles for myself, mixing cold dishes, and when I encountered difficulties, I asked my mother for support. After mastering simple cooking skills, I began to "get rid of" my mother's remote guidance and search for tutorials like "3 Minutes Quick Cook" on platforms such as short videos.

Now, after being imprisoned for a month, I have still become a "little kitchen god" who does not even talk about the pot.

Photo/Birthday meal cooked by yourself Source/Wuyang courtesy photo

It turned out that the carrots I hated the most had also changed from being boiled with difficulty in cutting pieces to "plucked carrots", "curry carrots", "carrot steamed cakes" and other fancy foods. A few days ago, for my birthday, I exchanged a can of Coke with a handful of shallots and a few millet peppers, and made a pot of fragrant boiled meat slices, plus golden fried tofu.

From working from home in Shanghai to now, I have accidentally lit up the "kitchen god" skill, and making fragrant meals for myself every day is the only "bitter pleasure" at present.

*The caption and some of the illustrations in the text are from Visual China.

*In the text, Qiange Bird, Wuyang, Cai Cai, Shire, Jingyi, Xiao Jian, WeiWei, and Amy are pseudonyms.

*Disclaimer: In no event shall the information herein or the opinions expressed herein constitute investment advice to any person.