How are you being impacted by COVID-19?

Might be a sensitive topic for some, but I am still curious how others are being affected by the virus outbreak.

The largest impact on me has been my employer's decision to split the company in half and have rotations for working remotely for one week at a time. My kids are in primary school which has not been closed yet. All of the events I had planned have been cancelled including conferences, concerts, training, and parties. No shortage at the grocery store yet and there is plenty of toilet paper.

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DatabaseHead

UnixGuy said:

expected to work 50% less hours...however, to be fair, currently our work load is close to nothing...so it's fair.

honestly, stacking shelves now is more lucrative, but I can't complain. my situation is better than most people

There are a lot of stock positions available, I could see quite a few IT folks transitioning to that type of work before things begin to pick back up (especially if you have previous experience). I'm expected to wear a level 3 mask in the mornings and take temps and ask illiness question over all the staff, so while I am 100% my role is changing dramatically for part of the day.

All the fulfillment centers are operating and hiring like crazy. Pay rates are even going up, both base and over time.

Good time to be a nurse if you want to make bank and risk Covid. Some hospitals in NYC are paying nurses 10,000 a week to work in the COVID riddled floors. Not sure how long this arrangement would last, I would think at least 2 months..... Maybe 3 - 4.

I found this article about layoffs.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/03/as-tech-layoffs-surge-some-support-emerges-for-those-without-a-job/

The way it sounds any IT work is literally 50/50 at this point of being laid off.

I was chatting with a recruiter friend of mine back in St Louis Missouri (Where I used to live) and he said Panera, Enterprise Rental, Brown Shoes and some other fortune 500 just decimated it's contractor base and employees are either being told to take reduced rates, less hours, furloughed or out right released.

Scary times on multiple fronts.....

DZA_

DatabaseHead said:

UnixGuy said:

expected to work 50% less hours...however, to be fair, currently our work load is close to nothing...so it's fair.

honestly, stacking shelves now is more lucrative, but I can't complain. my situation is better than most people

There are a lot of stock positions available, I could see quite a few IT folks transitioning to that type of work before things begin to pick back up (especially if you have previous experience). I'm expected to wear a level 3 mask in the mornings and take temps and ask illiness question over all the staff, so while I am 100% my role is changing dramatically for part of the day.

All the fulfillment centers are operating and hiring like crazy. Pay rates are even going up, both base and over time.

Good time to be a nurse if you want to make bank and risk Covid. Some hospitals in NYC are paying nurses 10,000 a week to work in the COVID riddled floors. Not sure how long this arrangement would last, I would think at least 2 months..... Maybe 3 - 4.

I found this article about layoffs.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/03/as-tech-layoffs-surge-some-support-emerges-for-those-without-a-job/

The way it sounds any IT work is literally 50/50 at this point of being laid off.

I was chatting with a recruiter friend of mine back in St Louis Missouri (Where I used to live) and he said Panera, Enterprise Rental, Brown Shoes and some other fortune 500 just decimated it's contractor base and employees are either being told to take reduced rates, less hours, furloughed or out right released.

Scary times on multiple fronts.....

On a more personal note, one of my best friends had their salary reduced by 10% and only if you had an legitimate cause, you could be exempted (he's an engineer for a large engineering firm). One of his colleagues recently purchased a house (prior to COVID-19) so definitely he's getting exempted. I'm lucky enough that my partner and I haven't been subjected to reducing our salaries so we're very fortunate in that sense. She also told me that NYC hospitals are posting respiratory therapist roles for 7k USD a week to your point DatabaseHead. Even so, it's like do you have a choice of making 300k CAD equivalent a year (sustaining at that rate) or versus death? The world has been turned upside.

DatabaseHead

DZA_ said:

DatabaseHead said:

UnixGuy said:

expected to work 50% less hours...however, to be fair, currently our work load is close to nothing...so it's fair.

honestly, stacking shelves now is more lucrative, but I can't complain. my situation is better than most people

There are a lot of stock positions available, I could see quite a few IT folks transitioning to that type of work before things begin to pick back up (especially if you have previous experience). I'm expected to wear a level 3 mask in the mornings and take temps and ask illiness question over all the staff, so while I am 100% my role is changing dramatically for part of the day.

All the fulfillment centers are operating and hiring like crazy. Pay rates are even going up, both base and over time.

Good time to be a nurse if you want to make bank and risk Covid. Some hospitals in NYC are paying nurses 10,000 a week to work in the COVID riddled floors. Not sure how long this arrangement would last, I would think at least 2 months..... Maybe 3 - 4.

I found this article about layoffs.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/03/as-tech-layoffs-surge-some-support-emerges-for-those-without-a-job/

The way it sounds any IT work is literally 50/50 at this point of being laid off.

I was chatting with a recruiter friend of mine back in St Louis Missouri (Where I used to live) and he said Panera, Enterprise Rental, Brown Shoes and some other fortune 500 just decimated it's contractor base and employees are either being told to take reduced rates, less hours, furloughed or out right released.

Scary times on multiple fronts.....

On a more personal note, one of my best friends had their salary reduced by 10% and only if you had an legitimate cause, you could be exempted (he's an engineer for a large engineering firm). One of his colleagues recently purchased a house (prior to COVID-19) so definitely he's getting exempted. I'm lucky enough that my partner and I haven't been subjected to reducing our salaries so we're very fortunate in that sense. She also told me that NYC hospitals are posting respiratory therapist roles for 7k USD a week to your point DatabaseHead. Even so, it's like do you have a choice of making 300k CAD equivalent a year (sustaining at that rate) or versus death? The world has been turned upside.

No doubt man upside down is an understatement. I was just informed that I will be managing all the data that flows out of our pharmacy dispensing machines (they have a special name but for the sake of the audience kept it straight forward). This is a task that is usually done by a pharmacist but since the pharmacist are all expected to go back to work some hours on the floor that leaves a vacancy in their roles. I'll get help on decision (of course) but will be relied upon heavily.

So I am monitoring employees who may have the illiness and taking on a pharmacist function. Not against the law or anything just not normal.....

Hey I have a job and get 100% so I am staying really positive. With that said it could change for ANY OF US, NO ONE IS EXEMPT. Just saying....

UnixGuy

tough times we live in. I don't qualify for welfare (I'm not US-based) because our family combined income is above the threshold. There are still places hiring so now If I get say 1-3 months contract, that will pay more than my full time job for the equivalent time of 6-8 months, so right now I'll accept any job.

UnixGuy

Currently talking to a SAS software company...they seem to be safe since their product is widely used and they're well funded

any thoughts on SAS companies?

My current employer is a consulting firm and they're hit hard since most clients cancelled work so they have no income

DatabaseHead

UnixGuy said:

Currently talking to a SAS software company...they seem to be safe since their product is widely used and they're well funded

any thoughts on SAS companies?

My current employer is a consulting firm and they're hit hard since most clients cancelled work so they have no income

I think that sounds like a good move on your part. I'm not sure of their full portfolio of products, but I've used their SAS program to perform ETL functions on external data sets. It's sort of like SQL syntax, you can do moving average, different statistical functions etc....

Years back they owned the Gartner quadrant for stat tools, since then other products have caught up. With that said..... Lot's of large companies still use the product, like in the US finance, insurance companies. Big big hitters.

That company has already built in roads into a lot of companies so it's a very mature product. I think it sounds like an exciting opportunity.

What's the role you are apply or looking at?

UnixGuy

DatabaseHead said:

UnixGuy said:

Currently talking to a SAS software company...they seem to be safe since their product is widely used and they're well funded

any thoughts on SAS companies?

My current employer is a consulting firm and they're hit hard since most clients cancelled work so they have no income

I think that sounds like a good move on your part. I'm not sure of their full portfolio of products, but I've used their SAS program to perform ETL functions on external data sets. It's sort of like SQL syntax, you can do moving average, different statistical functions etc....

Years back they owned the Gartner quadrant for stat tools, since then other products have caught up. With that said..... Lot's of large companies still use the product, like in the US finance, insurance companies. Big big hitters.

That company has already built in roads into a lot of companies so it's a very mature product. I think it sounds like an exciting opportunity.

What's the role you are apply or looking at?

My bad, I meant to say SaaS not SAS

DatabaseHead

UnixGuy said:

DatabaseHead said:

UnixGuy said:

Currently talking to a SAS software company...they seem to be safe since their product is widely used and they're well funded

any thoughts on SAS companies?

My current employer is a consulting firm and they're hit hard since most clients cancelled work so they have no income

I think that sounds like a good move on your part. I'm not sure of their full portfolio of products, but I've used their SAS program to perform ETL functions on external data sets. It's sort of like SQL syntax, you can do moving average, different statistical functions etc....

Years back they owned the Gartner quadrant for stat tools, since then other products have caught up. With that said..... Lot's of large companies still use the product, like in the US finance, insurance companies. Big big hitters.

That company has already built in roads into a lot of companies so it's a very mature product. I think it sounds like an exciting opportunity.

What's the role you are apply or looking at?

My bad, I meant to say SaaS not SAS

Hehe

Sorry can't help you there!

Kickstone

UnixGuy said:

DatabaseHead said:

UnixGuy said:

Currently talking to a SAS software company...they seem to be safe since their product is widely used and they're well funded

any thoughts on SAS companies?

My current employer is a consulting firm and they're hit hard since most clients cancelled work so they have no income

I think that sounds like a good move on your part. I'm not sure of their full portfolio of products, but I've used their SAS program to perform ETL functions on external data sets. It's sort of like SQL syntax, you can do moving average, different statistical functions etc....

Years back they owned the Gartner quadrant for stat tools, since then other products have caught up. With that said..... Lot's of large companies still use the product, like in the US finance, insurance companies. Big big hitters.

That company has already built in roads into a lot of companies so it's a very mature product. I think it sounds like an exciting opportunity.

What's the role you are apply or looking at?

My bad, I meant to say SaaS not SAS

I liked the idea that you are getting in touch with british special forces :-)

DatabaseHead

Kickstone said:

UnixGuy said:

DatabaseHead said:

UnixGuy said:

Currently talking to a SAS software company...they seem to be safe since their product is widely used and they're well funded

any thoughts on SAS companies?

My current employer is a consulting firm and they're hit hard since most clients cancelled work so they have no income

I think that sounds like a good move on your part. I'm not sure of their full portfolio of products, but I've used their SAS program to perform ETL functions on external data sets. It's sort of like SQL syntax, you can do moving average, different statistical functions etc....

Years back they owned the Gartner quadrant for stat tools, since then other products have caught up. With that said..... Lot's of large companies still use the product, like in the US finance, insurance companies. Big big hitters.

That company has already built in roads into a lot of companies so it's a very mature product. I think it sounds like an exciting opportunity.

What's the role you are apply or looking at?

My bad, I meant to say SaaS not SAS

I liked the idea that you are getting in touch with british special forces :-)

I like your def better.

DFTK13

My pay hasn’t been affected but my hours have been impacted with me working only about 34-35 a week now. I’m thankful that I still have my job. I’ve been using the extra time to study for my AWS CSA - Associate.

chickenlicken09

Have any of you guys that are on furlough had your account disabled? (no access to your email or ms teams). Is it the norm? I was never told this would happen and I had been getting the usual company updates around covid 19 updates and where the company were at etc which I liked. I wasn't informed or anything and feeling a bit peed off with them...I sent HR an email Friday playing dumb and just asking was this protocol, I suspect it was my manager who did it as hes an ass but we will see.

TheFORCE

I'm affected from Covid-19 also. I worked from home for 3 weeks and then 2 weeks ago i got placed in furlough. I haven't tried to log in to my account just in case they have not disabled it yet. But yeah this thing starting to suck really bad right now. I filled for unemployed and have been receiving it for 2 weeks now but i got a 2 year old and a 4 month old plus my wife is a stay at home mom so we are all home lol. Good thing is the my mortgage is paid off for my apartment so we trying to manage our expenses as much as we can. Stay strong to everyone that has been affected, brighter days will come soon.

UnixGuy

Been doing interviews and nothing came out of them yet. I made peace with the fact that i might not get a role now, so i wont be disappointed if more interviews lead to nothing but i'm hopeful

UnixGuy

^^ Spoke too soon as usual. Last week was interesting to say the least. I wouldn't say the market picked up again, but there was an increase in security roles and recruitment.

I managed to get an offer (almost, pending official letter. Police check done). Got myself a significant pay rise, but the role is going to be very challenging (professional services provider). Think a mix of pentesting, architecture/design, risk assessments/policy work, security product delivery, Firewall/IPS/IDS, cloud security. Pretty much everything under the sun and more (hence why the compensation is good I guess, they wanted a unicorn). . I'll need to refresh my pentesting knowledge. Excited to finally start elearnsecurity ptpv4.

What a change in direction this year has been. We had to adapt and pivot quickly.

DatabaseHead

@UnixGuy - Sounds like they did find a unicorn! Hope everything goes well, just curious how long were you in your last role?

On my end, things are lightening up a little bit. Work is starting to increase but those back end task aren't quite as prevalent, taking temps etc.... Thank goodness that's starting to fade.

My boss has it all together upstairs which is great. While she wants to do big things like have me start on project work, she likes the time lines I provided her..... I told her I wanted to spend about 4 months learning the operations piece before jumping into projects, she seemed okay with that.

Something in August is going to come up which will take a lot of bandwidth.

Oh well, employed and staying positive.

denisehilton

I was pursuing a Network security certification which got delayed due to COVID-19. The worst part is they haven't even started online classes yet. All my progress has been lost.

UnixGuy

DatabaseHead said:

@UnixGuy - Sounds like they did find a unicorn! Hope everything goes well, just curious how long were you in your last role?

18 months. This was the only 'negative' in the interview and it has come up. I really need to stick in this role for years. The pay is really good so I shouldn't be leaving for a while

Alisona

I am not impacted. Just take precautions.

DatabaseHead

Just had a lengthy chat with a friend of mine, who works in sales analytics for a large cable provider in the US. Let's just say this was a historically low month in sales. After government handouts cease you are going to see the unemployment rate sky rocket. I just saw LinkedIn layed off a 1000..... Just a small subset of what has happened and even smaller of what is too come.

E Double U

Not much change on my end. Been to the office twice since March: once to gather all of my books because we moved out of that building and the other to meet a new teammate. I feel I am used to this way of living and working now. I even got over my brief period of not being able to concentrate and knocked out AZ-500. Doing some leisure reading now and will begin with ITIL soon.

Fulcrum45

I work for a food manufacturer so we've been going strong with added precautions. My work from home has been 50/50 but since I'm a network guy I'm OK with that.

SteveLavoie

This spring I was in lockdown at home working remotely for 2.5 month, for most of my job, it was very fine and I liked the lifestyle. Then since mid-May, I am back in the office, and I am expecting a second-wave of COVID-19 soon, so I am thinking to get into self-lockdown soon.

Johnhe0414

As with most of staff, we are primarily telecommuting. Unfortunately some of our staff have to work on site. I thought i would like working from home but after four months of working from home, i find myself showing up to the office to (which we have that choice) more often.

JDMurray

After nearly five months, I finally get to go back to the office (next Monday) to have a look around and collect a few personal items. I don't expect anyone else to be there, but I need to run myself through the new on-site safety protocols so I can talk from experience about them should the need arise for any of my team to migrate back to the office. Actually, I think it's more likely we will be assigned 100% telework and lose our assigned desk space to make way for people relocating from our satellite facilities that are being permanently closed down. This situation has been an amazing opportunity for large businesses to reduce their real estate expenses (fixed costs), but it's sure hurting the landlords and building owners.

UnixGuy

My new job doesn't even have an office in my state, so i'm 100% remote. I miss going to the city and some human interaction but I don't miss being chained to a desk for 8 hours. I'm in control of my schedule, so far so good

DFTK13

I started a new job at an MSP, and they have an office but moved the entire team I’m on to remote, I’ve only been to the office once. Thankfully because it was about an hour commute and I didn’t know they were working remote until my first day. So it was a pleasant surprise. This is my first job working remote so it took some getting used to but it’s really nice saving gas and not spending so much on eating out.

YarB

COVID-19 impacted my life. First of all, I had to change my job. I used to work at a company that couldn't work due to the quarantine. So, I started working remotely. I'm currently writing articles, but I'm going to change my occupation as I want to become a web developer. And I have to say, this isolation made me start doing workouts regularly. Also, I changed my nutrition (finally, I had time for this). It's ironic, isn't it?

iyare

My salary was drastically reduced. Paying for certifications is not as easy a plan now. But I am working 100% from home.

DatabaseHead

Update, I've been working 100% remote nearly a year now. From what I can tell going back to the office may occur in June. I'm not going to like that very much so I may have to negotiate.