Hmmm...Seems People Don't Want to Go Back to the Office

[Anderton]

There's been a flap about Apple employees wanting more flexible working hours. I've heard anecdotal reports of people quitting on the spot as soon as they're ordered to return to the office full-time. Meanwhile, other companies (like Twitter) are already modifying how they see the balance between working from home and going into an office.

 

The reality is that some people are far more productive not working in an office. They don't have the distractions of persistent ad hoc meetings, or office politics. If they are expected to be creative, they can shut down for a few minutes, do something else, and come back refreshed. I've worked at home virtually all my life, except for my three-year stint at Gibson. At least for me, working 8 hours straight diminishes productivity (and quality of work) dramatically. Back in my studio days, sessions were 3 hours, and I think that nails it as an optimum time to work straight through on something. I'll typically put in three hours on a project (not timed, I can just tell that after about that amount of time, I'm going to start going downhill), and do something like take a walk, swim, tidy up, play some guitar, whatever for a while. Then I come back with a mind reboot, and do another three hours or so, usually on a different project. I might put in a few additional hours at night that are more like R&D than "work," or finishing up loose ends, which also increases productivity.

 

My sense is that many others fall into the same kind of schedule. I have a friend who takes a break in the middle of the work day, and vacuums his pool. It takes care of something he needs to do anyway, and clears his head.

 

There are so many other advantages. Time not spent commuting gives people a much better work/life balance. Companies don't have to invest in costly commercial real estate big enough to handle everyone in an organization. There's more parking, less traffic, cleaner air, etc.

 

This isn't to say working only from home is best. It's all about balance. It's good to go into the office from time to time, do the social piece, have face-to-face meetings, etc. But it should be up to the people working as a team to decide when this will help advance a project.

 

So the big question: "But if people work at home, how do we know they're really working? Big brother needs to keep an eye on them." Well, I think it's the same as software: people are basically honest and will pay for it, even if not copy-protected, and the people who are going to steal it will figure out some way to steal it. The proof is in the results. When I was managing the staff at Electronic Musician magazine, I sent one of the employees home to work on his article, because I didn't want him distracted. The publisher blew a fuse. "How do you know he's really going to be working if he's at home?" My answer was "because I'll have the article first thing tomorrow morning, which won't happen if he stays here."

 

Results are all that matter. If an employee feels they give better results, and if their performance proves it, by deciding when they can be most productive and creative at home, and when they can be most productive and creative by going to the office, they why not let them make that decision? I bet in the long run, it would also decrease employee turnover, and foster a closer connection with the company, because most people would be grateful for the show of trust, which in turn would increase loyalty.

 

Am I just hopelessly naive, or does this make sense?

[Doerfler]

Time not spent commuting gives people a much better work/life balance.

 

[Dave Bryce]

I"ve been working at home for more than 10 years - can"t imagine anything that would get me to give it up.

 

As the OP knows only too well, I refer to it as the Craig Anderton model...because that"s where I learned that such a thing was possible.

 

Thank you, Sensei...

 

dB

[Chip McDonald]

(Yeah, this is another long one. It's something that preoccupies my thinking a good amount every single day.....)

 

 

I've been paying for a lease on an office I've not used for over a year now.

 

My guitar lessons room is a 10' square space. Early January 2020 I had put up a clear shower curtain across half of it; it WAS COMPLETELY OBVIOUS what was happening in China in December 2019 *was AIRBORN*. I got a lot of flack for doing that, including from 2 doctors and a nurse I was giving lessons to at the time. I remember the week it suddenly wasn't a Funny Chip Thing, and then the next week I vacated my office - and then the following week the lockdown.

Right, so don't listen to me, I'm not a doctor, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night either, but...

 

I've been telling people I'm not giving face to face guitar lessons at my office/studio until the daily infection rate is below 10,000, and stays there or downward for 2 weeks. My reasoning is that thereabouts is where it was prior to the first surge. I think it's reasonable to presume that reflects a saturation point where the *actual* R0 goes well over 1, to the point you're rolling the dice with encountering it.

 

I've read a LOT of studies on the mechanics of covid spread, I've watched 2 courses on aerodynamic air flow in buildings from MIT, and the epidemiological studies on the statistics of transmission. I've discussed it with 2 friends who are epidemiologists, doctor friends, and my nuclear science wife that does statistics on things much scarier than SARS-COV2. Without a doubt, if I sat in my room 30 minutes at a time with students 5 days a week, I would be breathing COVID virion at some point every week. There is no way around it. And no, the weather in Augusta Georgia goes over 100 routinely, circulating air from outside is not an option unfortunately.

 

The question is viral load. I'm vaccinated via the Dreaded Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vax; but the problem is

 

VARIANTS.

 

There is actually two curves right now: SARS-COV2 Mk. 1, and now SARS-COV2 alpha, beta, etc.. The variants, from what I can glean, are now dominant.

 

The variants are not covered well by the vaccines, if at all.

But that's beside the point:

*I don't want to be infected, period*. People are talking about vaccine side effects, when we ALREADY KNOW SARS 1 caused lifelong lung damage, and we also know COV2 can damage effectively all of your organs, including the brain. People talking about having it, being sick for 2 weeks and "now I'm 100%!" is misleading. You don't know that, and probably won't know that for more than a decade.

 

So no, I'm not going back to my office. I don't want even a "mild" case. And the reality is, what is going around now are VARIANTS. Effectively we're at the same point we were at back in March 2020. The *variant curve* is buried in the data, but it's going UP, not down. And there is an illusion the vaccines have created, and the start of what might be considered "proto-herd immunity": everyone is safe, and if you get it, it will be "mild".

 

I know people that's died. But I also know people of all ages that have been debilitated by it. I also had a woman in her 60s that had to quit lessons because she literally told me "I just can't focus on anything now after having this covid thing, I can't think straight". I've got another student back from covid, in his 20s, who was one of my better students - who can't seem to keep major and minor bar chord forms straight anymore. Another guy that had it a few months ago - he comes back, we have to go over some old stuff. He can't remember interval shapes anymore. It's been months, any each lesson is basically me showing him a chord, asking him to tell me the intervals I'm showing him - and 10 seconds later he's forgotten what he said. This wasn't an issue before. He's 30 years old. And it's not just those 2, I've seen this with others.

 

I claim *I'm seeing the effects of "mild covid"*. These effects are not obvious. The 2 guys above kind of know they've forgotten things, but they don't seem to realize they're not remembering what they were just doing. They sound "fine". But without a before and after example of examining how they thought about things, their memory capacity and cognition, it's not something that's going to stand out in day to day activities.

 

 

Most all of my students are asking when I'm "reopening". All of my leads all end with "you're giving face to face lessons now, right? I'm vaccinated". I think we're in the closest thing to a lull we may have for a long while, but a lull never the less. Partially illusory; with the vaccines, 50% vaccinated in the States (not in the South, though...) there is no doubt many infections going unreported. Who is getting tested anymore? I have had students out sick with "just a cold", "allergies I think" - but do they really know? A 20 year old nephew in law is sick, coughing, "it's just a cold" - well, is it?

 

The moving average today is at ~12,500 infections a day. That alone is enough for me to keep doing lessons online at home, but I'm going to play viral epidemiologist again and suggest it could very well be double that. But if the rate goes below 10,000 and stays there past 2 weeks, without a new variant exponential, I hope to partially reopen by August?

 

Maybe.

 

Not fully, I expect 3 of 5 days will still be online. If people don't want to show me their vaccination card, no lesson. I'll have my shower curtain up. And masks. No, I don't care what the CDC says, I'll debate anyone there (and I know people that are scientists there.....). What I've learned, though, is that I've lost about half of my students before this because of people having to move away (a good portion of my clientele is local military related). I should have been doing online lessons lonnnng ago. And maybe a third of my clients now are out of state, so there's that. And until a few years ago, I needed my office location simply because I needed a place to hang a sign out that could be seen on the street in a relatively high traffic area, but most of my business now is either word of mouth or by Google.

 

So I don't really need my present office location. At least not paying for one located off of a main/secondary street.

 

PUNCHLINE: I had just reupped my office lease in 2020 in early February, before it was obvious what was going to happen (even though I had speculated "this" was going to happen to friends!!!!! Ahrghhh). Not only that, but I reupped for 2 years in order to save $20 a month on my rent, and to keep it from going up even more for 2021. So my lease will run out in April 2022 - hopefully I'll be back in it before then, but regardless I'll have to decide "do I really need to be leasing this place?".

[KuruPrionz]

I have a job that turned into a work-from-home job and shows no signs of turning back into an office job.

During our worst period of Covid, the Governor mandated that offices run at 25% capacity. So they closed the doors to the public and set up some staff with laptops and iPhones to work remotely.

 

I'm maintenance coordinator so almost all of my work involves using the internet and the phone. I really like it, part time so 4 hours at a crack usually. Sometimes 6 or sometimes 3.

Part of the fun is that it is not possible to do much quickly no matter what. The only rush jobs are leaks and other disasters that will get worse the longer you wait.

 

Everything else is tedious, Association management (Condos and HOAs) required protocol that prevents swift action. Often, one must do detective work to figure out if/when/who/what needs to be done and how.

 

Sort of the Ministry of Silly Walks in the real world. I stay busy.

[Mike Rivers]

I"ve been working at home for more than 10 years - can"t imagine anything that would get me to give it up.

 

As the OP knows only too well, I refer to it as the Craig Anderton model...because that"s where I learned that such a thing was possible.

 

There's a big difference between Dave Bryce working for The Dave Bryce Company and someone working for Apple. As an independent rep, engineer, producer, writer, and lover of sound and music, you're the only one responsible for the success of the company. and you're the one who pays your salary or what amounts to one. Your business is built around you and the work that you do - nobody else.

 

The Apple employee who prefers to work at home doesn't have such a big responsibility toward where the monthly paycheck is coming from, but they want some means of measuring the likelihood that the employee is actually contributing something to the company. That's why they might want to see the real person who is receiving the pay checks. The Dave Bryce Company has that metric every day.

 

I worked nearly all of my career for the US Government - a very secure job though not necessarily the best paying one. The Gov't, in general, was very much against employees working from home, and if you didn't come to work, they assumed that you weren't doing your job. That was liberalized during my last few years - if I had nothing else to do but review a contractor's proposal, for example, I could do that from home, and I occasionally did that, but usually for a good (for me) reason, like that I was able to book a band to come in for recording during the normal workday. As long as I got the job done satisfactorily and on time, the office was OK, as long as I didn't beg off coming into the office too often. And sort of like TDPCo, I was the one who would have to live with what we agreed to when reviewing and encouraging the bidders to revise their proposals to give us what we really wanted.

 

After retiring, I worked as a contractor for Mackie and submitted a weekly "time card" to report how much time I spent working for them. They paid me by the hour so some months the check was bigger, some it was smaller. That worked out pretty well for me but I was happy to get a regular salary for most of my career, with a retirement program that paid me a reasonable percentage of my salary for not working when the time came. It allowed me to build up a healthy reserve of money for periods like now when I'm not getting any money for freelance work. It's a blow to my ego, but not to my economy.

[Notes_Norton]

Other than when I'm on the gig, I work from home, and put in more than 8-hours per day. But I'm self-employed, and most self-employed people put in more than 8 per day.

 

Right now we've only been offered outdoor gigs. Since I was about 40 years old, I targeted the senior citizen market. In South Florida it's a good, steady, and enjoyable market to target. This age group is highly vaccinated, and nervous about indoor gatherings, and that's fine with me.

 

My other business, making aftermarket styles for Band-in-a-Box is 100% Internet order now (It started out mail-order) so there is no reason to rent an office when the back room of my home does just fine. And the commute is short, fewer than 10 steps from the kitchen

 

If I were a corporate employee and could work from home, I think I'd prefer that.

 

Notes

[nursers]

I worked from home as a corporate employee for 5 years straight and found it ok. Then a new job back in the office which took some adjustment. Then COVID hit and my 5 year 'apprenticeship' of home-based corporate work paid off. I moved into a new role last year that's so intensive time-wise that going back to the office more than a day or two a week would make it hard to meet the role's requirements. Things have certainly changed

[Dave Bryce]

I"ve been working at home for more than 10 years - can"t imagine anything that would get me to give it up.

 

As the OP knows only too well, I refer to it as the Craig Anderton model...because that"s where I learned that such a thing was possible.

 

There's a big difference between Dave Bryce working for The Dave Bryce Company and someone working for Apple. As an independent rep, engineer, producer, writer, and lover of sound and music, you're the only one responsible for the success of the company. and you're the one who pays your salary or what amounts to one. Your business is built around you and the work that you do - nobody else.

 

That's true...now...

 

That's not the way my working at home started though. It took doing so for a bunch years before there was a "Dave Bryce Company". I started ADAM Audio USA from my house in 2001. I worked for Summit from home for years, then for Wave DIstro from home for years.

 

That gradually evolved that into it's current form...but not without a bunch of work.

 

dB

[Anderton]

The Apple employee who prefers to work at home doesn't have such a big responsibility toward where the monthly paycheck is coming from, but they want some means of measuring the likelihood that the employee is actually contributing something to the company. That's why they might want to see the real person who is receiving the pay checks.

 

Most of the people I know who currently work from home had defined gigs before the pandemic hit, so they had specific tasks that needed to be done. The metric for them is "are the tasks done" and if so, the company knows they're doing their job.

 

I think the main potential for problems comes from new people joining a company, and expecting to work from home. There's a whole onboarding process and social element that needs to happen during that process. Unless the metrics are defined - "we need a press release every Monday and Thursday, and social media maintenance on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday" (the metric for the latter measured in clicks and engagement), then I think starting a gig from home could be difficult.

[GovernorSilver]

I was hired into my latest job last fall, so during the pandemic/lockdown era. New work laptop arrived on my doorstep on the morning of my first day on my new job. Onboarding as a remote worker was a new experience for me, but not that much different than the usual onboarding experience, in which the newest batch of employees are made to watch videos and get various lectures on HR benefits, expectations for entering time (if any), etc.

 

This employer did not advertise my position as a 100% remote one, nor did I accept the job offer with the expectation of 100% telecommuting. Management wants employees back in the office, but it will be in phases. First phase is 40% occupancy of the office space. I guess further phases just bump up the percentage.

 

Also, there appears to be quite a bit of leeway on the part of individual managers as far as whether or not to require their employees to come back to the office, and if so, how often on a weekly basis. My own boss is in a different city from me, so it makes no difference to him if I come into the office at my locality, or not. His boss, who was formerly my boss until he promoted the other guy to now be my boss, is not insistent at all on everyone under him going back to the office. He seems more than satisfied with his team's productivity as an all-remote team. He just wants to know if anybody under him wants to go back in, and on what day, so he can also be there. His boss seems to want us to come in 1-2 times a week, but I guess that's still being worked out. I haven't heard anything about making everyone do 5 days a week again in the office.

 

My cousin is moving to this area because his wife got a new job with NIH. NIH is an organization that likes to have its people in-office, but a lot of them do lab/research type work, handling live cultures in vials and that sort of thing.

[Mike Rivers]

 

That's not the way my working at home started though. it took doing so for a bunch years before there was a "Dave Bryce Company". I started ADAM Audio USA from my house in 2001.

 

2001! Was it that long ago? You put ADAM speakers on the map in the US! I remember big exhibits and smaller exhibits at the trade shows but the one that I remember best was a time when I was at your booth and the Music Police came by telling you that you had to turn down the volume. You said you didn't, that you were just at the limit of 85 dBA. They pulled out there SPL meter, and darn if it didn't settle at 85 dBA. I was really impressed (well, with the speakers, too).

 

I worked for Summit from home for years, then for Wave DIstro from home for years.

 

That gradually evolved that into it's current form...but not without a bunch of work.

 

I remember when you disappeared from ADAM at the shows, I don't recall Summit (too far out of my price range for gear I didn't really need) and I recall seeing you show up at the Wave booth for f few years. So, yeah, it takes time to build up a reputation and a style, as well as have the technical knowledge to be on top of the products. I expect that it takes a while before you can start working for several companies and you must have made your changes at the right time. I admire your success. What's next?

 

And, out of curiosity, what did you do before ADAM? I think that's the first place I met you.

[Mike Davis]

Do people in corporate office jobs actually do 8 hours a day of productive work? I"ve always wondered.

[RABid]

One day while playing croquet with friends in my back yard I mentioned how I love Microsoft Link and was implementing it agency wide. "I hate it" one of my friends immediately replied. "Because of that program my boss and coworkers can tell if I am at the computer working and if I don't respond almost immediately to a message they know I am not at my desk." This was about 10 years ago and he worked from home. Link keeps him honest, and he is still working at home.

 

This is typical. Some people do great working from home, some do nothing, and some like my friend do well if monitors and/or specific measurable goals are in place. In my small town nice houses sell within 24 hours of being listed. I've met people from Detroit, Denver and all over California who have moved into the area. My nephew put his house up for sell and moved to the next county. In the current economy it should have been very hard to sell. 2 story fully brick home on a well landscaped 4 acre level lot with a two story metal building that is a combination garage/storage unit and summertime kitchen. Someone from California bought it without seeing it in person, and then hired the lawn care and landscaping people that my nephew was using. The person has a good job but works from home. His wife also works from home. While they are giving up good weather and social activities of California, they are also giving up high income and property taxes, out of control politics, traffic, crime, and getting a house for a small fraction of what it would cost in California. That's IF you could find a level 4 acre lot.

What you can get for $379,000 in Kentucky.

 

All made possible by the people who brought you work at home opportunities.

[GovernorSilver]

Do people in corporate office jobs actually do 8 hours a day of productive work? I"ve always wondered.

 

Former boss/mentor advised me to plan on 6 hrs/day of productive work, as 2 hrs are usually lost to coworkers and randos interrupting your time, plus meetings, taking care of bodily needs etc.

 

That's 6 hrs. a day max. Often it can be less, depending on what distractions you have, like not having a good night's sleep, worries about your kid, etc.

[BluMunk]

My take, as an "office drone" who's been working from home for 14 months now: I'm just as productive/unproductive at home as I was in the office. Maybe folks with busy homes (kids, etc) really have more distractions, but I can waste time on line just as well from both locations, and at home at least I can get up, do some small project for me, or otherwise waste time in ways that can be productive or re-charging and allow me to return to tasks for my employer feeling like I had real "me" time, as opposed to when I'm in the office, where there's a culture of always having to look "on" because other coworkers are watching, regardless of how productive you are.

 

I don't know if that makes any sense; bottom line, the down time at home is just massively better than it is in the office. I don't think I take more of it, but it's much more rewarding.

[Mike Davis]

Do people in corporate office jobs actually do 8 hours a day of productive work? I"ve always wondered.

 

Former boss/mentor advised me to plan on 6 hrs/day of productive work, as 2 hrs are usually lost to coworkers and randos interrupting your time, plus meetings, taking care of bodily needs etc.

 

That's 6 hrs. a day max. Often it can be less, depending on what distractions you have, like not having a good night's sleep, worries about your kid, etc.

 

Now that"s interesting. When I segued from musician to minister a couple of years ago, I pretty quickly found that a 3 hour block early in the morning and a 3 hour block early in the afternoon are the sweet spot for me on my WfH days.

[Dave Bryce]

2001! Was it that long ago? You put ADAM speakers on the map in the US! I remember big exhibits and smaller exhibits at the trade shows but the one that I remember best was a time when I was at your booth and the Music Police came by telling you that you had to turn down the volume. You said you didn't, that you were just at the limit of 85 dBA. They pulled out there SPL meter, and darn if it didn't settle at 85 dBA. I was really impressed (well, with the speakers, too).

You're too kind...thank you, brother!

 

I remember when you disappeared from ADAM at the shows, I don't recall Summit (too far out of my price range for gear I didn't really need) and I recall seeing you show up at the Wave booth for f few years. So, yeah, it takes time to build up a reputation and a style, as well as have the technical knowledge to be on top of the products. I expect that it takes a while before you can start working for several companies and you must have made your changes at the right time. I admire your success. What's next?

Again, thanks. The handful of companies I work wth right now are a nice balance, I think.

 

And, out of curiosity, what did you do before ADAM? I think that's the first place I met you.

Short version:

 

I started selling keyboards at Daddy's Junky Music Store (1984), then toured with Miles Davis as keyboard tech (Tutu tour). Worked for Kurweil in Waltham MA doing sound design and tech support, then E.U Wurlitzer selling pro audio and keys. Moved to the West Coast (SF Bay area) in 1992, worked for GC, then Bananas at Large before Kurzweil grabbed me again for the West Coast in 1994. Alesis recruited me from Kurzweil in 1995 to rescue their synth division from the original Quadrasynth. They moved us to LA, and I stayed there running their keyboard division until right before Alesis got sold to Numark et al when I ended up going to ADAM, who happened to set up next to me and Alesis at their first Music Messe in 2000.

 

dB

[Nowarezman]

I've known a lot of people that really don't take well to working at home. They tend to be the more extroverted types that thrive on the buzz and bustle of the workplace.

 

Also - some jobs are stunningly boring and the only thing that gets workers through the day is a bit of social context, chatter, and occasional antics by co-workers.

 

The work I do takes mental concentration in a quiet space - a home with a baby and a pre-teen and a golden retriever puppy would not be so great a context. But a home of two empty nesters who have separate workspaces - like we do - works great.

 

You also need to be a self-starter and self-organizer to work at home. There are just a whole lot of people who need a social context for motivation, and a set of workplace rules and procedures to keep them reasonably on track.

 

You can come to love a workplace outside the home - I loved most of the retail shops I worked in when really young. Not all, no. But not all workplaces are soulless de-humanizing sweatshops or dull, florescent-glare cubicle containers where absurd middle-school level office politics set the tone. 'Tho such certainly do exist.

 

Workplaces, like schools, provide a lot more than what the strict missions of the places entail. People make friends, find romances, learn about life, people, and the world in general. Lots of stuff goes on that resonates way beyond selling stuff or making stuff or designing stuff, etc. Maybe the older you get, the easier it might be to make do without a workplace context - you've already got friends, family, interests, a big context that has accrued over a long time. But the younger workers - my guess is that the lack of a social side to a job would be a real deprivation for so many of them.

 

nat

[Anderton]

I pretty quickly found that a 3 hour block early in the morning and a 3 hour block early in the afternoon are the sweet spot for me on my WfH days.

 

That pretty much agrees with what I said about 3-hour sessions being optimum during my studio musician days.

[RABid]

I've had coworkers that I really wished they worked from home. Then me and others could get more done.

[Nowarezman]

I've had coworkers that I really wished they worked from home. Then me and others could get more done.

 

Ain't that the truth. Like being trapped in an elevator with Terry Bradshaw and Gilbert Gottfried. That's a management problem in my book. Of course, if it's management that makes it impossible to concentrate, or keeps shoving things in your face at frequent, random intervals, that's trouble....

 

It's those young first-level-up managers that lord it over the hoi polloi that, in my work experience, made for the most misery in an office context. Bossy, dumb, or smart but clueless, lazy or hyper, no sense of scale, plays favorites, brown-noses, insecure and egotistical in one bundle - a curse on the workday. Please promote them out of here!!

 

nat

[Mike Rivers]

Do people in corporate office jobs actually do 8 hours a day of productive work? I"ve always wondered.

 

It all depends on how you define "productive" and who defines it. We're not making widgets. I can honestly say that in none of my office jobs have I ever worked (productive or not) on office work 8 hours a day. However, most days I felt that had made some progress in one way or another.

[Chip McDonald]

I'm grateful I can sort of get by working at home.

 

We need to think about what COVID would have been like 15, 20 years ago. Pre-internet, pre-free long distance phones, pre-24 hour news.

 

It would have been very different in the 70s. As a story it wouldn't have developed until the surge started in April. It would have taken over a week before everyone had any idea something different was going on. Weeks more for action to be decided, it would have been like Italy by May.

 

On the other hand, I think the government back then would have decided to immediately lock down - *until it was figured out, and safe*. Masks would have been mandated. I believe it would have been taken much more seriously. A lot more people would have been dead by July 2020, but then it may have been over by the end of last year, ala New Zealand. But the toll on the economy would have been devastating.

 

No phone calls to relatives in another state.

Food distribution? Who would have been working?

How long would utilities hold out? The power was a sketchy thing here in S.C. at one point last year; more primitive, analog systems requiring more human attention, how long would things have lasted?

 

I couldn't have worked as a guitar teacher. My wife's scientist position at a DOE nuclear site could not be done off-site, but HAD to be done; COVID took it's toll on people where she worked, but in this scenario - I'm not sure how any would have survived.

 

Worst of all - NO VACCINES.

 

People have already forgotten how grim things were for awhile last year. That's an interesting phenomenon that I suppose has always been around, during times of war, but I've not experienced: people forget.

[Chip McDonald]

then toured with Miles Davis as keyboard tech (Tutu tour).

 

 

... there had to be a sampler bank named "MILES VOCALIZATIONS/GRUNTS"....?

[Anderton]

People have already forgotten how grim things were for awhile last year. That's an interesting phenomenon that I suppose has always been around, during times of war, but I've not experienced: people forget.

 

People have very short memories these days. I was going to comment more, but I forgot what I was going to say.

[Dave Bryce]

then toured with Miles Davis as keyboard tech (Tutu tour).

 

 

... there had to be a sampler bank named "MILES VOCALIZATIONS/GRUNTS"....?

Nope. Adam Holzman had an Akai 612, but it was only used for the orchestra hits on Tutu.

 

Besides - we didn't need samples - we had the real thing.

 

dB

[GovernorSilver]

Do people in corporate office jobs actually do 8 hours a day of productive work? I"ve always wondered.

 

Former boss/mentor advised me to plan on 6 hrs/day of productive work, as 2 hrs are usually lost to coworkers and randos interrupting your time, plus meetings, taking care of bodily needs etc.

 

That's 6 hrs. a day max. Often it can be less, depending on what distractions you have, like not having a good night's sleep, worries about your kid, etc.

 

Now that"s interesting. When I segued from musician to minister a couple of years ago, I pretty quickly found that a 3 hour block early in the morning and a 3 hour block early in the afternoon are the sweet spot for me on my WfH days.

 

My work day was more like that when I worked in the office.

 

Under the current work from home lifestyle, there isn't as much separation between work time and personal time. I start my morning with exercise, work about 1-2 hours, do early lunch if I didn't eat breakfast, then alternate between work and personal activities - a walk in the neighborhood, household chores, an errand, etc. So far my management seem satisfied with my productivity, which is measured in terms of what I commit to getting done from week to week and whether I do, in fact, make my commitments.

 

In reference to another post I did play the game of waiting for my boss or client to leave the office before leaving for the day. But in the current situation, the equivalent of that is checking which people are online in the company chat app, and nobody seems to care who is online past 5 pm.

[pinkfloydcramer]

then toured with Miles Davis as keyboard tech (Tutu tour).

 

 

... there had to be a sampler bank named "MILES VOCALIZATIONS/GRUNTS"....?

Nope. Adam Holzman had an Akai 612, but it was only used for the orchestra hits on Tutu.

 

Besides - we didn't need samples - we had the real thing.

 

dB

 

I remember you saying that Miles was convinced you were John Belushi.

[Dave Bryce]

I remember you saying that Miles was convinced you were John Belushi.

Not exactly. As far as I know, he never bothered to learn my name. Called me John because he said I was "the same motherfucker as Belushi"...

...which - especially given my personality and appearance at the time - was not entirely incorrect.

 

dB