Tell us! Tell us! We all want to work where you work!!! Patent Office?

16:39, please also share where you work.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, Which agency do you work for please?

Yes, spill, please.

My husband's telework setup is very similar to yours though, as he has to use a government issued laptop in order to connect to the network. He doesn't have a set telework schedule though, as it is mostly situational.

As for my agency setup, it allows up to:
* 6 telework days per pay period for 8-hour flex schedule
* 5 on a 5/4/9 CWS schedule
* 4 on a 4/10 CWS schedule

Right now I'm teleworking on Mondays and Tuesdays, completed the rest of my 4/10 on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and off on Fridays. I'm debating on moving towards a flex 8 hour schedule and just teleworking on Fridays instead in the future because the 10 hour days get long.

I don't have a printer at home (my job doesn't require much physical paper), and we are required to use VPN on our home computers to connect to our work desktops. For people that have a printer set up at home, they can't print directly through VPN because it prints to the network printer in the office. You would need to e-mail it to yourself and switch screens to your personal desktop in order to print it from home.

When it comes to accessing reference manuals, I ended up scanning in all documentation and manuals that I could find so that I could read them over the VPN from home and not have to drag binders back and forth.

Yes, Which agency do you work for please?

Darn what agency do you work for. I need go go over there. We are only allowed 1 day of telework a pay period and I had to nearly beg just to get that.

OP again. Sorry, that's rules about how you CAN'T be out of the office on consecutive days, not can.

Anonymous wrote:Don't use personal email for work, you then make your personal computer part of a govt. system of records potentially and you could be subject to discovery if there is litigation, FOIA, etc.

I have a scanner (Fujitsu SnapScan), fax and small laserjet I use at home for teleworking. I never use personal email.

OP here. Ooh...good to know!! Stuff they don't go over in telework training!

To the PPs who asked about IT...the increase in telework hasn't happened yet (union contract about to be signed) and we currently have all sorts of rules in place about how you can be out of the office teleworking more than two days in a row, etc., so printing hasn't become a big deal yet. People plan to save their major printing jobs until they're back in the office, but obviously being out 50% will change things.

Lucky Dog!

Don't use personal email for work, you then make your personal computer part of a govt. system of records potentially and you could be subject to discovery if there is litigation, FOIA, etc.

I have a scanner (Fujitsu SnapScan), fax and small laserjet I use at home for teleworking. I never use personal email.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just plug your personal printer directly into your laptop (USB cable) and you can print to it, despite your network setup.

OP here. Wouldn't I have to download a driver onto the laptop in order to do that? If so, I'm unable to. Work will not allow anything to be downloaded- they have any changes or additions blocked.

If not, then that would help a lot!

It's just an inkjet printer- is it worth buying a personal laser printer if I print a lot?

Depends -- often the drivers are built into WIndows. Ask your IT people. Being able to print at home seems to be a pretty important part of getting one's job done, so certainly they have a solution.

Yes, laser is the way to go. Deskjets are cheap, but the per-page price is much higher compared to a laser printer.

I have a laser printer for all my main (black and white) printing, then an Officejet (inkjet) for scanning, faxing, copying, and the rare color printing I need to do. I work solely from home.

Don't you have IT support for these types of questions? I telework for a large international organization and I can just phone IT for support.

Anonymous wrote:Just plug your personal printer directly into your laptop (USB cable) and you can print to it, despite your network setup.

OP here. Wouldn't I have to download a driver onto the laptop in order to do that? If so, I'm unable to. Work will not allow anything to be downloaded- they have any changes or additions blocked.

If not, then that would help a lot!

It's just an inkjet printer- is it worth buying a personal laser printer if I print a lot?

Just plug your personal printer directly into your laptop (USB cable) and you can print to it, despite your network setup.

My federal agency is moving towards 5 days of telework per period; they currently allow 3 days. If you telework a good majority of the time, do you have any tips for how to handle it? Do you have your own printer/scanner/fax at home? We can only telework on Government-Furnished Equipment, so I have an enormous laptop and log into the network that way. Because it's on our network, anything I want to print I have to first send to my personal email. Right now, I plan around printing stuff, etc.

Any words of advice on how to do it successfully without lugging lots of papers around?