Bengaluru

work from home

Covid-19 in Bengaluru

coronavirus scare

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BESCOM

Tech companies inhave been foremost and fast to act and ask its employees to(WFH). Four of the six people who have tested positive forare techies. However, the initial euphoria over WFH has faded with power outages and internet disruptions playing villains of the piece.“There’s no power in my area since 1 pm. My power back up won’t last through the day. My boss is asking for reports and I’m unable to meet deadlines due to power disruptions. We don’t have to deal with such problems at work. But this is an extraordinary situation and WFH is proving to be a challenge.It’s not enough if the state wants us to work from home, they should also provide us with the infrastructure for a WFH situation,” said Swathi R, a techie.With the internet being a huge facilitator of the WFH concept, it’s natural that it is bearing all the load. And frequent disruptions in internet connectivity, poor speeds and bandwidth issues are a major bug bear for those working from home.Another techie Keshav S said, “Since morning, we have had meetings to mitigate WFH problems. On day one, we faced a number of challenges. Firstly, people complained about power outages. The other issue was about unreliable internet connectivity at home. The speeds for home internet are slow due to the load on Virtual Private Network (VPN) gateways. In fact, as techies are shifting en masse to WFH, the system has never been tested for this kind of a load. Then there are other issues like communication as it is hard to find team members who are online all the time. Today, engineers have been informed about the usage/availability issues against networks. The VPN capacity issue in Bengaluru and Singapore is due to overloading.”Most home internet connections just don’t have the capacity to bear the load of heavy lifting that is required for some professions. “In our offices, we have 5 GBPS internet and hence, uploads are faster. But this is not the case with the home internet. Today, some of our colleagues were very clear that they didn’t want to WFH but theis forcing us to grit our teeth and do our best,” said another techie from a global company.Ramesh Reddy, who works for an Indian tech major said, “The issues are more tactical in nature than technical. Actually, many of the users have basic internet facility and usage quotas, which were sufficient when they would WFH occasionally. However, now, we have to do it continuously which means it will require a higher quota of internet. Now, the big question bothering the team leaders is how to get the same productivity with so many bottlenecks. Also, there are instances where my guys need to visit the data center physically. How do we choose whom to send? Who will bell that cat?”When the CM suggested WFH as a sensible option to contain the virus, many techies were happy and took off to their homes outside Bengaluru. Vidya R, a techie who works in South Bengaluru was one of them. “I came to my home town, Shivamogga, to work from home. However, the internet speed is very bad. Power outages are long and annoying. I have no other option but to return to Bengaluru.” This problem is compounded because many homes dont have a power backup.Strange as it may sound, many homes don’t have a wired internet connection too, and most use their phone data. Shilpa C, a resident of JP Nagar said, “I travel to my friend’s house or go to an internet parlour and work, since I don’t have an internet connection at home.”Others have first world problems. Sadhana Singh’s (name changed) employer, an international computer software company, would provide her and other employees with a seven course lunch, a decent breakfast and dinner too. On Day 1 of WFH, Singh is crushed that she now has to make her own arrangements for her three meals. Or worse, cook them.And she’s missing the office AC.Working from home is not devoid of distractions. “If you have children at home, it’s very difficult to WFH. The doorbell rings constantly, the neighbours children come by, food has to be provided at regular intervals, when your manager is on the phone you child decides to have a screaming fit and the pet decides he needs to be taken for a walk... Give me an office any day,” says Archana S, a senior management executive at an international company.But power is a big pain point. Past data shows thatreceives anywhere between 6,000 to 10,000 complaints everyday about power disruptions. A senior BESCOM official said they were forced to schedule power cuts for one hour a day due to the increase in power consumption in summer. “Fans and air-conditioners run throughout the day and night. Power cuts can be due to different factors. Load factor, sudden and unforeseen interruption in the transmission or distribution line, scheduled maintenance etc. We regularly take up repair works. There is a separate service station to immediately attend to people’s complaints.” When there is a power cut in a particular area, we get many complaints but the problem is not as big as it looks in the numbers,” she explained.