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!