Due to the COVID-19 pandemic I started to work from home beginning last Wednesday. Work had been extremely busy and at times stressful dealing with the unique and trying situation, so social distancing is being put to the test.
Working on the web, my role translate favorably to a work at home schedule. My trusty MacBook Pro can handle any task I would have done in the office. So technology isn’t much of a concern. How things go without being able to interact directly with humans will be the true challenge.
The first few days were extremely busy. This in uncharted territory and our team is very busy and doing as best a job as we can given the circumstances. so even though I’m home, I’m still very much occupied.
I’m been able to communicate with the rest of my team via email and with our latest addition to our toolset, Microsoft Teams. When we found out late on Tuesday we would be working from home beginning the next name, I immediately had us setup some Teams and we gave ourselves a quick 10 minute run-through of how we may be able to use it from.
All things considering, it’s been working extremely well thus far. Everyone at our institution is available in the chat (assuming they’re using it), so that’s a huge plus for us. The video chat quality and ease of use has been most impressive. We have 14 users, with probably 10 or 11 using the video chat and the rest on audio chat with no issues. As clear as can be.
Microsoft Teams will officially be a part of my daily work going forward, even when we do return to the office. It’s been a great friend.
Work from Home Tools:
- MacBook Pro 13″
- Office 365
- OneDrive
- Google Drive
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Visual Studio Code
- Microsoft Teams
- GitHub
- A chair and table (it’s not a very comfy chair)
- A place to stand and work (using an exercise mat to stand on really helps)
Supervising looks to be interesting. Teams has really done a solid job of making it not too awkward. We can have meetings without too much issue, sharing our screens when necessary, and just using old fashioned chat and link/file sharing to get the job done. Thus far not losing too much of a step.
The first week we were so busy in crisis mode, we didn’t have to get too creative in coming up with projects and managing folks. I’m sure the next days will be similar, but it will be interesting to see how it goes should things slow down. I’ve always been a self starter, but I’d like to see how everyone else adapts as well.
