
Ask HN: How well do you think your team handled the start of lockdown? - Gormisdomai
Did your team take it easy in the face of all the uncertainty? Or did they pivot to covid-19 related work and double down on productivity? Now that you have hindsight do you wish they had done anything differently?
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lagilogi
I informed my supervisor that a lockdown was imminent and that we should
prepare for it, e.g. set up users' VPNs, do a test run to identify needs, etc.
My supervisor told me to mind my own business and not encroach on her
authority, in writing.

The stay at home orders came in two days later.

She violated the order a number of times because she had no readiness for
remote working. She forced a number of staff to violate it as well.

My employer is not an essential business.

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anotheryou
Caring for children is an issue for those having them (basically slashing
productivity in half). Also too many calls that could be async communication.

Other than that it works amazingly well.

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cafard
Pretty well. Half a dozen guys from IT went into the office on March 16 to
prep laptops and a printer or two for staff requiring them. The building
shortly went into lockdown, with only an engineer visiting a couple of days a
week. I'm not sure that anyone from IT has been back.

I don't do much support, but I know our guys have been doing a lot of Zoom
training and support.

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cableshaft
Our department was already 100% remote for the past two years since corporate
shut down our office... so yeah, things haven't felt too different, except our
clients have pushed back some of their campaigns (not cancelled them though,
at least not yet) because of the virus, so work is somewhat light.

Good thing, too, since it's been harder to focus with everything else going
on.

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CM30
Fair enough I guess, we already had people working from home once or twice a
week. So it was pretty easy to adapt to the lockdown overall.

Actually having enough to do has been a tad challenging though, since quite a
few customers have pulled funding for digital marketing and web development
work in the pandemic, especially those struggling in the events industry.

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Awelton
It's been a complete disaster. Email and phone response times have quadrupled,
if anyone bothers to answer at all. I think everybody is playing video games
for a living now. Most conference calls involve someone's dog barking in the
background. I'm extremely introverted though, so I couldn't be happier.

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ksj2114
We were fully remote before quarantine so there was no difference, but we've
had to change our marketing strategy.

Also shameless plug but we released fun side project to make us all take
breaks in timed video chats: [http://hallway.chat](http://hallway.chat)

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thisistheend123
\-- did they pivot to covid-19 related work and double down on productivity?

This kind of expectation from my employer is what pisses me off. This is pure
MBA type manager talk that normally expects that an employee working from home
is going to be more productive and in thinking so builds undue pressure on
employees who are already uncertain about their family, health and future.

I reject this question.

