I have been travelling a lot over the past several weeks. In order to be at Walgreens on Monday morning, I need to fly in Sunday night, which makes for a long week. Two weeks ago, I was in Chicago Tuesday night through Friday night. I was in California late Friday and Saturday. Then I flew back to Chicago Sunday morning. I was in Chicago Sunday night, Monday, and then was in Texas Tuesday through Thursday. I've been home Friday, Saturday, and today I'm flying back to Chicago for an offsite meeting.
Although it is tiring spending a lot of time at the airport and on planes, it is definitely worth it to fly home for the weekend. I am very thankful I am able to do this. It helps add to my sanity because I feel like I have a home base. It also allows me to carry on my luggage instead of check it. So being at home base for the weekends is one of my best practices for the remote worker.
Here are a few other best practices that I've learned over the past several weeks:
1. If you are going to webinar/conference call into meetings, make sure to have one buddy assigned for each meeting. It is simple to log into the meetings, but not everyone is aware of how genesys works. The lack of knowledge means that having a conference call "buddy" is essential.
2. Keep your lotus notes calendar on central time. It really helps for scheduling meetings both through lotus notes and genesys. Even though it is only a 2 hour difference, always deal in central time and no one will be confused about when meetings are occurring.
3. Set up a continuation of weekly meetings with your manager to discuss what you've been working on over the past week and what you intend to work on in the upcoming week. This way, your manager is never out of the loop as to how you are spending your time and knows how you are prioritizing your work. This is also helpful for feeling connected to the corporate office.
4. Keep on online log (possibly a wiki weblog) of what you've been working on, so your manager can always refer to this to see what you've been up to. This also allows for transparency throughout the department.
5. Set up genesys meetings for the following week on the Friday before. Last minute meetings will always have to be planned, but sending invitations a week ahead of time ensures that everyone has the webinar invites and that you do not miss a meeting.
More to come...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Patience
This week I learned a lesson in patience. I am not a very patient person by nature, and my patience level has been put to the test over the past week.
I'll start by talking about GIS. This tool is crucial to the job of a market manager, and in the field it works a bit slower than normal. This week, there were problems with the server that caused it to really slow down. I had to export pictures from GIS for a REC presentation. The exporting process was slow. I had to find comparables for my site. Moving around the map was slow. I needed to test a new GPS unit to make sure it would work in the field. The configuration was slow.
To complete sales forecasting, I had to open up a new model, market charts, and several other tools off of the Y drive. Pulling the data down seemed to take forever. While I was waiting for the tools to complete downloading to my desktop, I decided to set up meetings for webinars for next week. I realized that even though it is simple to make the meetings, it takes time to send all of them out. I had to write instructions and send invites to both my "buddies" on my taskforces and the team leads to make sure that everyone knows what is going on and how to link up the webinars. I also had to reach out to the team leads to find out if they were going to be using their personal computers or the computer in C to know which place to send the webinar invite. It's not a fast process.
I feel like a good amount of my time this week was spent looking at a computer screen as it processed data. For the future, I will download and enable market charts and the model early in the morning or late at night to make sure that all my my tools are ready for me when I am ready for them. This is one of the best practices of living remotely.
I'll start by talking about GIS. This tool is crucial to the job of a market manager, and in the field it works a bit slower than normal. This week, there were problems with the server that caused it to really slow down. I had to export pictures from GIS for a REC presentation. The exporting process was slow. I had to find comparables for my site. Moving around the map was slow. I needed to test a new GPS unit to make sure it would work in the field. The configuration was slow.
To complete sales forecasting, I had to open up a new model, market charts, and several other tools off of the Y drive. Pulling the data down seemed to take forever. While I was waiting for the tools to complete downloading to my desktop, I decided to set up meetings for webinars for next week. I realized that even though it is simple to make the meetings, it takes time to send all of them out. I had to write instructions and send invites to both my "buddies" on my taskforces and the team leads to make sure that everyone knows what is going on and how to link up the webinars. I also had to reach out to the team leads to find out if they were going to be using their personal computers or the computer in C to know which place to send the webinar invite. It's not a fast process.
I feel like a good amount of my time this week was spent looking at a computer screen as it processed data. For the future, I will download and enable market charts and the model early in the morning or late at night to make sure that all my my tools are ready for me when I am ready for them. This is one of the best practices of living remotely.
Friday, September 4, 2009
First Week of Remote Working
Hello! It is my first week in sunny California, and I am starting this blog to track the challenges and successes that I face with remote working. My hope is that it will aid future remote workers, or people who choose to "live in their market," to have the necessary tools and to have answers to some of their questions.
The change that I've had to make has been dealing with different time zones. I was in the Chicago office this Monday and took at 6:45pm flight out. The plane was delayed and I didn't arrive at my hotel until about 12:00am (which was 2:00am my body time.) I want to make sure that when I am planning to fly, I do not end up arriving very late at night. I took a day off of work to move, but then the next morning, I was up and working at 7am Pacific. Market Strategy has many meetings that begin at 9am (Central,) so I have decided to work from 7-3:30 Pacific time (or 9-5:30 central). I know that when I am in Chicago in a few weeks, when I get up for REC and am at the office at 6:45am, it will feel like 4:45am (Pacific.) This is a very small challenge, but something to note.
This week has gone very smoothly. I have been emailing and calling people working in the department to try to stay in the loop. A lot of people I was working with were on the road. (I was working on TX Rx/day analysis with George, who was in Houston, and on the living in the market survey with Kristin, who was in Puerto Rico. Meredith was also on the road.) Having a lot of other people travelling makes remote working seem almost normal, since everyone else is working remotely as well.
I faced my first technology snafu this afternoon trying to get genesys to work for Friday Department Reviews. I believe the root of the issue is that the meeting was changed from 9am to 1pm due to the Friday Forum. Kathy had set up a genesys meeting for 9am, and I was unable to connect through the web at 1pm because the meeting hadn't been rescheduled through genesys. To fix this problem, I worked with Ellie and Alex and have decided that I will always be the moderator from this point out. From now on, Kathy (or whoever is calling into the meeting), will just have to click on a link to join the meeting. I did get on the meeting through the phone. I could hear the presenter very well (other than when people were whispering or coughing in the background.) Some of the questions were a bit difficult to hear. (This must be because people asking them were sitting far from the phone.)
Happy Labor Day weekend!
The change that I've had to make has been dealing with different time zones. I was in the Chicago office this Monday and took at 6:45pm flight out. The plane was delayed and I didn't arrive at my hotel until about 12:00am (which was 2:00am my body time.) I want to make sure that when I am planning to fly, I do not end up arriving very late at night. I took a day off of work to move, but then the next morning, I was up and working at 7am Pacific. Market Strategy has many meetings that begin at 9am (Central,) so I have decided to work from 7-3:30 Pacific time (or 9-5:30 central). I know that when I am in Chicago in a few weeks, when I get up for REC and am at the office at 6:45am, it will feel like 4:45am (Pacific.) This is a very small challenge, but something to note.
This week has gone very smoothly. I have been emailing and calling people working in the department to try to stay in the loop. A lot of people I was working with were on the road. (I was working on TX Rx/day analysis with George, who was in Houston, and on the living in the market survey with Kristin, who was in Puerto Rico. Meredith was also on the road.) Having a lot of other people travelling makes remote working seem almost normal, since everyone else is working remotely as well.
I faced my first technology snafu this afternoon trying to get genesys to work for Friday Department Reviews. I believe the root of the issue is that the meeting was changed from 9am to 1pm due to the Friday Forum. Kathy had set up a genesys meeting for 9am, and I was unable to connect through the web at 1pm because the meeting hadn't been rescheduled through genesys. To fix this problem, I worked with Ellie and Alex and have decided that I will always be the moderator from this point out. From now on, Kathy (or whoever is calling into the meeting), will just have to click on a link to join the meeting. I did get on the meeting through the phone. I could hear the presenter very well (other than when people were whispering or coughing in the background.) Some of the questions were a bit difficult to hear. (This must be because people asking them were sitting far from the phone.)
Happy Labor Day weekend!
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