Hey, y’all – Question from @safety team meeting tonight – we want to understand people’s what people’s needs might be around guests in the space in the time of Covid.
Current policy: No guests, we are trying to limit exposure and have as many people working as we can, while keeping density low, unless they live with you and can work at your same workstation, in which case they need to follow all listed precautions, and be listed on Skedda.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this specific questions:
–Do you personally have a compelling reason you’d need to bring a person into the space while you were working?
–What safety protocols would need to be in place in order for you personally to feel safe with a non-member visitor coming into the space?
I think having a guest for a short tour( <30min). Or as a assistant in a project wouldn’t be to bad, so long as they are also wearing a mask, and the group is still social distancing.
Should be limited to 1 guest.
Usual rules of guests not allowed to use tools, guest is members responsibility.
If the help of the guest is necessary, as long as they also put their contact info and agreed to follow safety rules – and the standard restrictions on guest that we have in the member hdbk – I’m fine.
I have a good friend and business partner whose presence would be very helpful When I laser cut. Presently, I cut a part, take it to South Austin, make an adjustment, rinse, repeat. In the 3rd iteration. If he were there to evaluate the results, I could complete the iterations in one trip. It would also reduce the number of times I reserve Big Red.
guests must be logged in and out with contact info. If there is a possible exposure either way, we need to know who and when. Not sure how to organize that info but it’s necessary.
The hosting member is ultimately responsible for the behavior of their guest. If safety precautions are not followed, the member could face sanctions, including suspension. “Well I can’t control what they do” would be the wrong answer.
Essential guests only. I can see it’s not all that enforceable, but worth stating as principle.
I want to bring my 16 year old daughter to the space. Alaska has been to the TechShop summer camps several times over the years and learned to use the lasers, 3D printers, Heat press, Vinyl cutter, CAD software and other tools.
I need to delve into the member handbook and see what is possible.
As far as guest that don’t live with me, it would be nice if we can have customers come look at our work and offer suggestions while it is in process/development.
Perhaps something along the lines of reviewing how many people are in the space. Perhaps add a single “Guest” slot in Skedda so that we can both monitor and regulate the effects. Much like we staged the re-opening in phases.
Perhaps add a single “Guest” slot in Skedda so that we can both monitor and regulate the effects.
I thought about that, but visitors won’t have a Skedda account. The host could put them down, of course. I do think the contact info is important though, as well as the waiver approval, and that can’t be guaranteed if someone else just puts their name in a slot.
I think leaving a note on the skedda reservation of the personas name and contact info is sufficent. (Is that an option? I havent checked.)
They would still be required to sign the waiver as always.
The normal procedure allows up to 2 guests, but I think we’d want to limit it to 1 for the current situation.
There was previously no requirement guests be related to the member. Just that the member is responsible for the guests actions and safety while in the space.
I would recommend guests minimize their time in the space to only that which is required. Having a guest sitting around just to keep company shou
I don’t think the guests contact info should be in Skedda, as that’s visible to everyone. The contact info will be in the waiver (at least I think that’s true). The host should Be responsible for putting the guests name in Skedda, as well getting a signed waiver that includes contact info.
I’m wondering if there’s a more sophisticated online waiver we could use, maybe something that let’s you actually sign if you are on a touchscreen device. Anyone familiar with inexpensive platforms that offer this?
The paper is anything but simple, though. It’s handwritten names which can be troublesome to interpret and enter, they don’t automatically go into a system, and they can by physically lost.
Physical paperwork is easy to make, but hard to manage.
A smartwaiver kiosk sounds like a wise investment. The service is reasonably priced, and a middle-aged ipad and dock wouldn’t be too much. The other alternative I’d suggest is dumping the signed waivers directly into a scanner, but then we’d still have to print and handle paper plus maintain a document management system.
For a long time, we had two tablets in locking metal frames mounted on the front desk for collecting waiver signatures running this: https://atfrontdesk.com/
But all too often many people would walk in at once, and there would be a substantial bottleneck at the two tablets. The doc had a number of fields to fill out and people often got a little hung up on what all they needed to do, and that there was a second page to swipe to.
We used those for a few years, actually.
In the end, there was some sort of config problem where the tablet didn’t have the app launched, and one tablet was frozen on the desktop screen. It’s possible the hardware failed. Then IIRC the app login broke and nobody knew how to get this working again. I don’t think we could find the keys to the locking holders either. They got taken out and we went back to paper forms.
Yeah, that is one issue that can come from people trying to automate tasks.
Keeping the forms simple is important. The more difficult it is to do the less likely people are to do it.
An issue we had at 10bit was that we had a “guestbook” for visitors to sign, we had a computer set up. Collect their, names, numbers, email etc. And it was put into a log for follow up. Issue is nobody was maintaining it. When I broke nobody knew how to fix it. Nobody knew where the log file was, or how to access it.
Tldr : If we make a piece of infrastructure to support the space somebody needs to be responsible for maintaining it.
Just because its automated doesn’t mean it’s fixed forever
Agreed - that’s why I’d prefer to pay for a service (WAAS?) with customer support rather than rolling our own. If all the maintainers disappear, new volunteers can work with the provider to get back up and running.
I’m curious how common it is to get a big group in at once? My only (limited) experience with guest groups has been tour nights, and I don’t think I’ve seen more than four or five at once. Do (did) we have events that had groups of 20+ guests showing up together?
Seems like this smartwaiver.com service would be worth it and I would imagine we would be offering and promoting people filling it out at home in advance to minimize bottleneck syndrome. @dannym do you know if we still have those tablets laying around? I have an old Kindle Fire that is semi-worthless (aside from potential fun taking it apart and reusing parts) – I could donate that to the cause to get us something on site if needed.
I have this on the agenda for our board meeting this week, so we’ll discuss there as well and make a decision about implementation.
Sounds similar to the DMS. They (we, I guess, as I’m still a member there) have 4 in the entrance lobby, WiFi to server, using I think RasberryPi based tablets. A sign saying you must sign the waiver if your a first time visitor is only as good as the member who enforces it, but it’s there in a prominent place.
not usually in the shop – sometimes a MeetUp or an engineers’ meeting with 20-30 people but usually a series of smaller groups for tour night in the shop.