If anyone in your home is working outside of the home what measures is the workplace taking?

[mommyoffive]

If you or anyone in your home is working outside the home, what measures is your work place taking?  

Nobody is working outside the home in our house yet, but I am wondering what measures will be in place.  What to expect from businesses in how they are going to keep workers safe. 

[MEmama]

I’m mostly working from home but I have to go into my office every couple of weeks. There are no safety measures. However, it’s a very small office, just my boss and myself, plus one other person one day a month. There isn’t a way to distance from each other. We aren’t open to the public, and my boss won’t let anyone else in (at least when I’m there).

Last time I went in I wore a mask, and will continue to do so.  My boss is okay with it for now, even though he thinks I look ridiculous masked, but after stay in place orders are lifted I’m not sure how he will react. I don’t think he will like he will like it if I continue to wear one all summer, assuming he stays in business that long. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by MEmama

[Sherry in OH]

My husband is working from home as much as possible.  When he goes into the office he must wear a mask.   He said the security guard approved of his homemade mask but had paper masks on hand for anyone needing to enter the building who didn't have an acceptable mask.   Only employees and necessary service providers are permitted in the building.  

[ThisIsTheDay]

...

Edited April 29, 2020 by ThisIsTheDay

[TrixieB]

I work in a small office that is listed as an essential business on our governor's mandate.  The business is not open to the public.  My boss has arranged so that only one person works in the office each day.  We each have our own desk and don't share phones or keyboards.  At the start of each day the in-office person wipes down shared surfaces such as copier keypad, doorknobs, etc.  We have only a few interactions outside our office (pick up mail at the post office, for example).  Also, most of the other businesses in our building are closed so I rarely encounter anyone.  It is a little creepy to be working in a mostly empty building, and it's lonely at times, but I am not very worried about COVID-19 exposure there.  I have thought about wearing a mask when I go to the bathroom (it's a shared bathroom for the building) but I have never run into anyone in the bathroom since almost no one is working.

[Tap]

Ds has 3 jobs, 2 of which generally require that he leave home.

1. He is a youth pastor. The church now has zoom staff meetings. He is in charge of Jr High Wednesday youth group and Sunday lessons. On Wednesday nights, they use zoom to connect to the youth and do a lesson, and play games on zoom. Then they break into small groups with him and other leaders heading the groups, so the teens can have a small group discussion and just hang out together a bit. Throughout the week, all the pastors are texting and calling parishioners to keep in touch and see if anyone needs anything. He goes in once a week to record a video message to send out with the main Sunday sermon. As a parishioner, he attends a young adults group online and watches the main sermon on Sunday online.  

2. He is a office assistant in a tutoring center. He is in training to become a bookkeeper (in school for accounting). He still helps with the grading and data entry as well. The center puts together massive packets (pretty much a full ream of paper) and mails them to the family. The family is given the answer key to some parts and can grade the assignments themselves (the fastest way for the student to progress) or the family can mail  back the packets as each section is  done and the center will grade them for the family. Discussions are done via video/phone. All paper work that  comes into the center, is set aside for a minimum of 24 hours but typically more. Everything is handled like it is contaminated. My son was a science major originally, he absolutely is cognizant of contamination protocols and so is his boss. Once a week he has to go the office to do a bit of work that needs to be on his work desktop PC. He and his boss stay in separate rooms and do not intermingle. 

3. His 3rd job is home based, so it hasn't changed.

[Loowit]

DD is the only one that has to leave the house for work, and that is only 4 hours a week.  Her work policy is that she is not allowed to work if anyone in the home is sick with anything possibly contagious.  They are also allowed to stay home if they don't want to take the risk of working, and can go back to work once they feel safe doing so.  Her supervisor is now doing all of her work remote, so any sessions that she observes are online.  DD can't do the sessions remote because it wouldn't work for what she is doing.

There is no policy on masks or other protection gear.  She was debating  what she should do about it.  She works in the home of her client, and the family is staying at home so DD feels her exposure risk is minimal.  Her other client has decided to stop sessions until the stay at home orders are over and there is no more community spread since they have an elderly adult in the home.

[Tap]

I work in a retail pharmacy once a week (I have another full time job during the week). We are provided with 1 N95 mask that we are required to wear on our shift. That is the only PPE restriction the work place is doing to protect us. 2 of my coworkers refuse to wear a mask and they are not making them, so the rule seems kind of arbitrary. They installed Plexiglas barriers by the register to protect us from droplets, and patients no longer sign the signature pad (we sign for them). We have other measures like cleaning the counters once per hour to protect patients. I was told all employees would now have to go thru a health screening to go to work each day (no signs of illness) a questionnaire about travel/exposure and temperature taken at a health station. 

One employee called into to the health phone line a month ago when they had mild flu like symptoms. They immediately took him off work for 2 weeks and paid for his time off work. It was nice to see a policy enacted and enforced without push back from corporate. 

I was told that last week a worker in the grocery store tested positive. In pharmacy we are around positive patients all day long, so we aren't any more concerned about them getting us sick, than a patient. Some employees were more bothered that others. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Tap

[Tap]

My husband's employer is doing pretty much nothing different other than encouraging social distancing and telling people to use disinfectants/sanitizers. They can't work from home and are considered essential because they support the health care industry. 

[vmsurbat1]

My son (software engineer) works for an essential business (provides safety/security for municipal infrastructure).  He's in California.  His employer first introduced one person/office (instead of the 2 or 3 normally) and just this past week also mandated masks.  My other son works in healthcare in an area not yet hard hit.  They've increased mask usage, temp taking, and restricting numbers of people coming in.

[historically accurate]

DH works for a company that manufactures and packages pharmaceuticals, so it is an essential business. His area is the IT department. His area is currently only physically staffed by 1 person in the office, so he only has to go in to the office 1x per week. He has 2 coworkers who go in 2x per week; his coworkers were nice as our teen has a heart condition that may put her at higher risk and DH is the oldest in the department. He works from home the other 4 days. He has gone in on Saturdays to work on computers so the building is mainly empty as well.

His company has a few locations across the city because they manufacture only a few types of pill per location. There is also a headquarter office where the office staff and lab workers are with a factory attached. 

His company is requiring masks for all line workers, and a contracted company does temperature checks as people enter the building. Masks are provided to line workers, but office workers were expected to find their own because they weren't mandatory for them. I think they are mandatory for everyone now though. Face shields are provided for line workers since they are less than 6 feet from each other. they dedicated one line for a week to make the face shields. They started back in March with cutting the factory worker's shifts to 7 1/2 hours in order (they paid 8 hours though) to give 30 minutes passing time where the 1st shift goes out and the 2nd shift comes in. However, with the new screening lines, they are back up to 8 hours; they just have different doors to enter and exit. They are adding a $100 bonus per week to all "have to work in the building every day" workers. They now have an outside contractor who staffs a small medical clinic within the headquarters building and has 1 nurse at each location. 

With all of their safety measures, they have had 2 small outbreaks within the last 3 weeks, one at a factory and the other within a laboratory at headquarters. They have had about 9 people affected, but DH hasn't heard about any new cases in the last few days; hopefully, they have been contained. Nationwide there have been quite a few cases of Covid19 positive employees, as there are some locations fairly close to the New York outbreak.

Edited April 22, 2020 by beckyjo

[Xahm]

My husband is a police officer. They get their temperature taken before going on shift, but they are either not allowed out strongly discouraged from wearing masks, plus none are provided. They've been being paid at overtime rates, basically, as hazardous duty pay, but I don't know if that will continue now that our governor seems to think it's basically all over.

[ThisIsTheDay]

11 minutes ago, beckyjo said:

They now have an outside contractor who staffs a small medical clinic within the headquarters building and has 1 nurse at each location. 

 

This is interesting. My office typically has a on-site employee health clinic staffed with a PA and nurse. When this began, that office was shuttered, and they are either seeing any sick employees in an off-site location or possibly via video (I don't remember which one). This was to prevent anyone bringing/keeping any contagion into the office--although it's operated on-site for at least a decade.

[saraha]

Dh- works in office of a manufacturing plant. Everyone who can working from home, social distancing, giving masks if you want one, taking temperatures. Not sure about the shop floor

DD1- works in a pharmacy. Social distancing, give them masks and sanitizer daily, take temperatures

DD2- works in a grocery store. Not a @#$% thing except allow them to wear masks they bring from home. No plexiglass, no sanitizer, not cleaning carts (but have a spray bottle and some paper towels out there if people want to clean their own)

eta: DD2 store assistant manager literally said "It costs money to do that" when I asked her when they would start implementing some of the precautions other stores are taking. The management are totally not concerned and are barely complying with the state minimum mandates

Edited April 22, 2020 by saraha
added more info

[brehon]

Front line healthcare worker here. My partner and I, and indeed my 4 other station mates, are not practicing social distancing with each other. I sit less than 2 ft from my partner when we’re in the ambulance. It’s kinda pointless.

We have a temp check twice a shift (so, once every 12 hours). We clean the station at least once a shift (wiping down common touch points, including the computers/keyboards). Commonly shared equipment (radios and keys) are cleaned with “death wipes” and sprayed with Lysol at shift change. 

On non-COVID suspected calls: surgical mask, eye protection, and gloves. Patients with a cough or difficulty breathing wear a surgical mask we give them. All equipment cleaned with “death wipes” at the end of the call.

COVID- suspected calls: lead medic dons full PPE (N95 mask, gown, eye protection, gloves); driver dons surgical mask, eye protection, & gloves UNLESS needed for direct patient care. Driver would then don full PPE as previously described. All equipment plus the ambulance (cab & patient compartment) cleaned with “death wipes” and aired out for 45 minutes. 

[historically accurate]

44 minutes ago, ThisIsTheDay said:

This is interesting. My office typically has a on-site employee health clinic staffed with a PA and nurse. When this began, that office was shuttered, and they are either seeing any sick employees in an off-site location or possibly via video (I don't remember which one). This was to prevent anyone bringing/keeping any contagion into the office--although it's operated on-site for at least a decade.

This is the excerpt from the email regarding the healthcare clinic.

In order to care for the health and safety of employees and provide these extra protective measures, starting the week of 04/20/20, there will be free visits on-site with healthcare professionals during all shifts. These clinicians will provide temperature checks, answer questions about symptoms, help identify proper medical quarantine periods for individuals, and provide expertise on other COVID-19 related issues. 

 

During shifts, and secondary to COVID-19 related matters, they will be available to answer general health questions for those of you who are not able to get into your doctors in this time.  This is an effort on the part of [company name] to provide you with some expert help and answers to your questions in a way that is easy for you.    

Edited April 22, 2020 by beckyjo
edited out company name

[athena1277]

My dh is a DoD contractor.  His office has been split into 2 shifts each day, so there aren’t so many there at once.  Per DoD orders, they have to wear masks unless in a private office.  Dh shares an office with someone on the opposite shift, so he has a sort of private office right now, but he has to work some in other areas.  Unfortunately, working from home is not an option for him.

[ChrisB]

DD works at a local ice cream & market shop. She wears a mask. She washes her hands, puts on new gloves, scopes ice cream, sets on counter for customer to pick up, takes off gloves, does the cash register, washes hands & repeats the whole process.  Same procedure for other tasks too. The rest of the shop is a small grocer.  Social distancing, not more than 10 people in store at once, etc. 

DH is non-essential and works in a white-collar office. Employees were encouraged to work from home as much as possible from mid-March on, guessing about 85% have chosen to do so most of the time. He goes to work and is the only person in his department in an isolated private office. His admin ass't (high risk) works from home, and they zoom once or twice a day to communicate. He wipes down door knobs and surfaces before work w/sanitation wipes. No mask, no gloves, yes hand sanitizer. Cleaning crew sanitizes all spaces daily. He does most of his meetings via phone or zoom, a few in the office but only those who are showing no signs of any illness. Some co-workers are wearing masks and gloves, and only some during face-to-face meetings.  No cases have been suspected or confirmed. I would suspect that since we have a smaller population and much distance between, DH's office naturally has virtual communication options/procedures in place, and it's working toward their advantage now.

We live in an upper prairie state that has a low population and no shelter-at-home orders, yes social distancing & some self-isolating.  Our state continues to operate similar to the first guideline phase of states reopening. 

[rebcoola]

DH works at a power plant.  All non essential personal have been sent home.  Besides that they have gotten rid of the shift change meetings.  They have cleanings more often. The control room guys only contact the plant workers by phone/intercom only no interaction allowed. They wear masks.  They are not  6 feet apart it's just not possible.

[wathe]

Hospital emergency department.  Social distancing is impossible.

We are in PPE conservation mode as PPE is in short supply.

Surgical mask and eye protection (googles/faceshield) at all times while in the hospital.  I am issued one surgical mask per shift.  I can sign out a replacement mask only if the original is visibly soiled or broken.

Add gown and gloves for any iso precautions patient.

N95 is only for aerosol generation procedures (intubation, CPR etc).  If have do an AGMP, I am issued one N95, which I am to wear for the rest of my shift. 

All masks are saved at the end of the shift for potential future reprocessing - we are worried we really might run out.

These guidelines are consistent across the province.

[KrissiK]

DH works in a smallish manufacturing plant. He is an engineer. They take temps once a day upon entering the premises. They also have to fill out a form saying they follow all the requirements when they are away from work. They wear mask when going into the shop. 

[kiwik]

On 4/23/2020 at 5:43 AM, saraha said:

Dh- works in office of a manufacturing plant. Everyone who can working from home, social distancing, giving masks if you want one, taking temperatures. Not sure about the shop floor

DD1- works in a pharmacy. Social distancing, give them masks and sanitizer daily, take temperatures

DD2- works in a grocery store. Not a @#$% thing except allow them to wear masks they bring from home. No plexiglass, no sanitizer, not cleaning carts (but have a spray bottle and some paper towels out there if people want to clean their own)

eta: DD2 store assistant manager literally said "It costs money to do that" when I asked her when they would start implementing some of the precautions other stores are taking. The management are totally not concerned and are barely complying with the state minimum mandates

Are there no regulations?  Here people are only allowed in when someone leaves, everybody is required to sanitise their hands on entering and trolleys are sanitised by staff between uses.  Hand sanitizer is provided on leaving at one of the supermarkets I have been too and the staff have screens.  The other one I have been to has no screens but only every second checkout operating and didn't have hand sanitizer on exit but the rest was the same.  Operating in as safe a way as possible is a condition of opening.  I am going back to work next week and we will stagger shifts.

[saraha]

No, there are customer limits, other than that, no legally binding requirements. The store chose its own customer limits and there have never on their busiest day been that many people in the store,  so no one is counting

[Amber in SJ]

Dh is a mechanical engineer at a large-ish biotech firm.  Because their machines are being used in healthcare the manufacturing department is still going to work, but Dh is in R & D so he has been home since 3/17.  Those who are at work are able to maintain social distance, because only about 1/3 of the bldg is being used.  Everyone must wear masks in common areas and more frequent cleaning protocols are in place.

Dd 22 works at a residence home.  All of the residents are in their rooms, unless a PC (personal care) assistant is taking them for exercise.  A few weeks ago they gave my dd a paper surgical style mask in a paper bag and that is her PPE for the week 🙄.  They told her no gloves because it is upsetting to the residents 🙄🙄 Last November she moved out of our house into the tiny house that Dh built for her in our backyard.  She keeps herself isolated out there to avoid bringing anything home to my high risk Dh.  I buy her groceries & leave her meals in her refrigerator.  I make sure to talk to her by text or Alexa everyday. 

Amber in SJ

 

[Momto6inIN]

DH and 2 DS's are still going to work.

DH and 2nd D'S are in ag at the same employer. The owners gave every employee the choice if they want to continue to come to work or not and if not then they can still have a job open to them when they feel it's safe to return. For those who chose to stay, they are doing zoom meetings instead of in person. They have an on site cafeteria for employees to eat a free lunch which has turned into takeout meals instead of a common dining area. Other than that, operations continue as usual.

1st D'S does programming for a small shipping/transportation equipment company. He is able to do computer work from home about 1/3 of the time but needs to go in to tinker with equipment frequently. I don't think they're doing anything else that I'm aware of.

[Lady Florida.]

Dh still goes to work. He's essential for launches (there was just one yesterday from SpaceX) as well as military communications world wide. He works an odd schedule so most nights he's there alone unless there's a launch during his shift. He works for a civilian contractor on an Air Force base that launches rockets plus supports Kennedy Space Center rockets.

They have said only one person in each area at a time, except the console area. You know in launches where you see a bunch of people sitting in the room at computer screens? (Think Apollo 13 but with 21st century equipment) They've spread everyone out so they're sitting at least 6 ft. apart. 

There's been some talk of working at home and some people have started that, but security is an issue. Dh might have to work at home the one night he isn't alone, again except for launches. If he works at home he'll have a laptop with no wifi capability.  He'll have to wire it directly to our modem plus use a VPN provided by the company. There's a key card he'd put in the laptop that will allow him access to his work files. So far that isn't happening but they had him and the other guy from that one night bring the laptops home to test them in case it gets to that point.

He said in addition to distancing they've got hand sanitizer everywhere, a huge barrel of Lysol wipes (I'm using Lysol generically), and they clean and sanitize between each shift. All doors except those that are secure access have been propped open so you don't have to touch the doorknob. The secure access doors are futuristic - you scan your card and the door opens automatically.