Today is Pi Day and is celebrated as the International Day of Mathematics. After a week at home, I am back in office. The Monday had me working from home (WFH), as I thought I could. The Tuesday, I was on leave for a dental appointment (I was advised to go for a root canal treatment involving minor surgery - could not do it there and then because I was on blood-thinning medication, plavix). On early Wednesday morning, we received the message from my son at the testing lab that my other half had her PCR test positive, as mentioned in the previous post. Worried, I thought that I should stay at home (WFH) and get all of us in the house, PCR-tested since we are all exposed and are classed as close contacts. However, I received conflicting procedures/terms on what should be done as I shall explain below. We did go for the PCR test and by 4am the next morning (Thursday), we received news from our son, that our results are negative (apart from my other half). Did we do our part as responsible citizens - yes, we think so, since we are helping to contain the spread . Did I do it to avoid coming to office? I would say no, even if some others might think otherwise.
Let me rewind back to a few weeks earlier. When our vice-chancellor announced that academics can do remote working or work from home (WFH) for two days out of a week in his annual speech on Friday, February 11, I was genuinely surprised. This is due to the usual low trust relations between administrators and government officers in general. There were no conditions mentioned in the speech and I tried to check with other colleagues to confirm that this is true. So on Wednesday last week, when I informed the office about me being a close contact and I wanted to do the PCR test, I was told that I can't apply for WFH. Instead, I was forwarded this new procedure from MoH by the officer (see pic below).
The above got me puzzled and thus I forwarded the document that my other half was tested positive, just to show that I was not bluffing. I also applied for leave for the next two days (Thursday & Friday), since I do not want to cause any complications admin-wise. I was also asked to update my MySejahtera and forward the snapshot to the office. I was already informed that there is often a one-day delay of the MySejahtera update even for those who are Covid-19 positive and for the close contacts, it can even be a further another day delay. My other half got her status updated on the Thursday around noon. Mine was only updated an hour after (see below).
I immediately send this to my boss. There is still the question of whether I should be quarantined or not. It was an hour later that I realised that I had this Home Surveillance Order (after my eldest told me he got the HSO message and he was without any symptoms, unlike me), which means we are home quarantined for the next two days (until Saturday).
I send this to my boss despite that I had already applied for leave the next two days.
On WFH, last Friday, my colleagues informed me that the Faculty had imposed conditions on those who are eligible for WFH i.e. the individual need to achieve a good mark for their annual assessment and has a journal article as a corresponding author. I personally find this somewhat strange. Essentially, the individual who are not eligible for WFH are actually penalised twice: one for not achieving the KPI and hence less assessment marks, one for the non-eligibility for WFH, I have raised such a matter in one meeting some time ago but for a different context and perhaps have been labelled as the 'aggressive' for doing so. As once-an-administrator, I understand that there is a need to push for staff to work for their KPIs (I expect usually through positive motivation/encouragement and better opportunities). Such action may have the opposite effect, demotivating those affected while those who can game their KPIs get rewarded. Perhaps the matter has been long discussed by the administrators and all pros and cons have been considered. For me, I am less concerned about the matter since I am about to retire it, but for those who have many more years in service, they will be greatly affected. In any case, I still try to work to achieve some KPIs but I have no intent to game them as if these are all that matters. So, today I come to work (yes, I'm not playing truant) but with the red high-risk category from the university website. They should try to update this website as it still asks us of our 14-day history (could have been shortened). Otherwise I will be coming to work with this high-risk category this week and the next.
Finally, let's just enjoy Pi Day and on things that we are very passionate about (and not bothered by the things we are enslaved by). I hope to attend (via FB live) the launching of the International Day of Mathematics by INSPEM later this afternoon with a talk by Emeritus Prof. Dr. Shaharir.
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