that sounds like some valuable work to be doing, hats off to you!

Thanks. I do enjoy it most of the time. Every once in a while I have to deal with some rude idiot, but otherwise I like it very much.

I think your point about familiarity breeding complacency is a biggie. I saw that at my office. Plenty of people who have been in most of the time not really sticking to the guidance. Made me feel uncomfortable, resulting in me having an overall feeling of wanting to WFH.

Still haven't picked up any "proper" work, but I've had a bit of ad-hoc consultancy. So not on the breadline by any stretch and it's always part of the risk of freelance/contract work.

Got a few plates spinning now though, so hopefully one of them will work out!

Just getting a bit bored of not being able to enjoy ourselves really - had to put the little extension on hold etc.

Retired (since Nov 2019).

Enjoyed 12 months of retired life so far?

Phew, long time without looking in here. Not sure what made me click on the link in the favourites bar today but here we are.
Well for my update, I work in the IT department of North West NHS trust as a Senior Network Engineer. Its been pretty full on since February this year for obvious reasons. On the one hand its quite draining, on the other hand though its been very exciting throwing solutions together to get the workforce able to work from home.
We went from an average of 20 people working on VPN at any one time to well over a 1000 in less than a month, Firewalls needed replacing, internet circuits upgrading and new services rolling out.
I'm fortunate that I'm based on a hospital site but in a seperate building, so day to day I'm well away from the patients.
 

Wow. Puts our 6-7 off site folks in perspective.  :-S

Job and trying to build own business

It's fairly common for people to do a job for a living.

Would you like to expand on what that job is, and/or what business you're trying to build?

Ich bin ein Janitor.

3 sites at the moment. One on furlough (kerchiing) as a lot of it was the restaurant.
The truck depot is good pay and uncomplex...they have 29/44 drivers still well enough to work. I cycle commute two marathons worth a week, so kept fit through it all.
3rd site I celebrated 10yrs this week and is just an hour an evening... dredging 3k a year.

Spending most of my time at going-postal.com in their Disqus comments...which is a shite platform, and I have pointed them to Beehive.

Good to see so many still alive around.

Amazing how many old faces this thread picked up, I just went back through it from the start.

How's everybody doing now we are potentially looking at coming out of the pandemic via vaccines saving our bacon?

I'm still at home and sport is still going so it's generally same-old for me. Homeschooling was mostly horrible, a constant hour-to-hour decision needing to be made about whether we compromise our jobs, the boy's education or our happiness and relationship with one another. Hopefully the schools reopening doesn't make for too much of a spike in cases.

Hey Milko, lovely to hear from you!

For you, keeping people at arms' length must have been no hardship.

Feel free not to read beyond here, because I've had a fucking good Covid.

I had my first AstraZenica vaxx a couple of weeks ago with no discomfort - not even what I felt after my October 'flu jab. Charlie, my youngest is not that far off thirty and schooling other people's kids. I have one lovely grandchild who calls me 'Grampus'. I have invested the shitloads I've saved from home-working on Georgian glass, Edo period Netsuke, strong drink and generic viagra.

Give my undying love to Tina.

Still waiting on our shots in Ontario (provincial motto: "Let others lead, we follow").

Striving to keep self-abuse to a dull roar, with limited success. Man, it's just so fuckin' fun.

Killed more peggies [FC5] than you can shake a stick at.

I *loved* FC5.5 New Dawn. Second only to 4, for me; so you have a treat waiting in the wings.

I'm loving the fc5 arcade maps, especially those by AKAFootloose. Maximum enemies, maximum aggression, threats, insults, shouting, screaming, and nonstop bullet storms. Loadouts are a bit limited but mostly pretty cool, with plenty o' reloads scattered about. Pretty amazing landscapes and townscapes too.

The final FC5.5 bossmatch against the twins and their army is a sod. I'm no fan of rock hard challenges generally - I'm along for the ride - but I was proud to have beaten it every time.

Partially returned to the office since Jan. Two days a week. Enjoy the two days I'm there but also enjoy working from home. Don't ever want to go back to five days in the office. Could probably be back in five days if I really wanted to be, though we've been asked to work to a rota.

I said enjoy, but in reality work itself is very chaotic at the moment, but that's not Covid related. Just work stuff. But that on top of Covid doesn't make things particularly enjoyable.

My underlying condition means I've now been invited for the vaccine, get that on Thursday. Good to see the end (of sorts) in sight.

Girlfriend has now returned to work from furlough after around 11-12 months. That's been a big change.

Genuinely no idea how people have managed this with kids. The idea of things going back to "normal" feels odd. Not totally sure I want to return to how things were before all this.

I know what you mean. My wife and I have a 4-bedroom house and no kids. It's genuinely been great having completely separate home offices during the past year. Meanwhile my wife has a married colleague that lives in a 2-bedroom house with her husband and young child, and which has a completely open-plan living area downstairs.

Sounds like hell in comparison, and I do feel for all those stuck in cramped apartments or with younger kids over the past year.

Yeah, I've got a couple of old school-friends who live in Canada now - one in Vancouver and the other in Toronto. On our weekly Zoom piss-up they remarked that they hadn't had even a sniff of a vaccination appointment yet. Struck me as curious after some international comment that Canada was "stockpiling" vaccine.