Well the excitement almost overwhelmed me when I was told I could have the web n walk stick installed which would mean I could work from home whilst anticipating the arrival of my new 3 legged friend. The lovely Laurence came over, checked out my laptop and said the person that swapped me from a desktop to a laptop a year ago didn’t change my profile, so I am a laptop user that can only use the laptop as a desktop… hmm, useful. So that discovered Laurence made a few calls and now I am waiting for another support call to change my profile which could mean I lose all my files and have no space to save them to somewhere else. Fantastic!
After inspecting my computer further Laurence said he needed to do a patch install first which would take an hour… had he warned me this was needed I would have done and retrieved everything before I was unaided for an hour. Thank God for the Blackberry. An hour passed, I rang Laurence to let him know the install was completed and he was already on the way and found it hilarious to continue talking to me on the mobile despite being in ear shot, bless!
Back at my desk he then went to install the web n walk stick when he loudly announced that with a newish laptop you don’t need the stick as the sim card can go straight into the laptop… ha, this made Hodg cringe somewhat having spent blood sweat and tears trying to purchase the sticks for us. But fortunately because of the original install of my computer not being up to scratch, my settings weren’t correct so I needed the stick after all. Phew, Hodg can breathe easy another day.
Install complete, the stick was in and tested. Yippee it worked!! Well, part of it. When you purchase a web n walk stick, what is the one thing you think it might access… yep the internet of course. What is the one thing do you think it can’t actually access… oh yeah, the internet! Apparently there is a fundamental bug on all the web n walk sticks that means when you use it to connect remotely through the VPN, you cannot gain access to the internet. A little unfortunate when your role and database requires constant internet access. Hey ho, there are always workarounds, can’t have everything.
So the exciting day arrived and here I am working from my office laptop in my dining room with absolute peace and quiet and just 6 cats for company. It really is fabulous. No distractions, everything you need, 3 bathrooms for the 4000 pregnant runs to the loo which is no longer an inconvenience and always guaranteed to be clean, all the food I could want to eat, the kettle on boil… but unlike at work with the premium concierge service, it does mean I have to get these things myself… so tend not do it as frequently! But it is cheaper.
The whole working from home scenario worked brilliantly at 8am this morning, but by 9am there were some serious technical problems which meant the VPN connection kept going down, I couldn’t log back in and so had no access to email or my personal folders. Once again, thank God for the Blackberry. When the VPN was fixed, all came back including my personal folders, but has been deathly slow to the point where using email on my laptop is a waste of precious time I will never get back. Thank God for the Blackberry. Having rebooted twice, received my furniture delivery from the men with muddy feet… not happy about that but as one of the cats just walked across my nice clean table with big fat muddy paws, it doesn’t matter now.
VPN is still playing up and went whilst I was in my personal folders in email, so now having logged back in again I can’t access the folders as it says it will take an hour to check them and while it is doing that I can’t check email. Once again, thank God for the Blackberry!
In essence, working from home really is fantastic. In ordinary circumstances where technology is playing ball, it has so many benefits. I wouldn’t want to do it too frequently as I do miss the lovely team and the banter and feeling like I am missing out, but when you are really under it, working in a calm and peaceful environment can increase productivity beyond belief. I am very happy to have the opportunity to do it and would like to do it just a little more often than I do now. Hopefully by the time I come to do it again, the technology will be perfect… maybe it’s just got that Friday feeling and luckily I am in a very forgiving and patient mood!!