Your Views: Snowy workarounds

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In this morning’s newsletter, we asked you if you were able to work as normal yesterday, or whether most of corporate life became paralysed by the inclement weather.

Judging by the flurry of emails in our inbox this morning, you’ve all got a lot to say on this subject, both positive and negative.

As a self-employed architect, the snow somewhat messed with Anthony’s calendar for the day, filled with central London appointments as it was.

“I think a lot of it comes down to our perception and attitude to work where many still have the 9-5 work ethic embedded into their thinking. However life has changed and the pressures of modern day working conflict with this earlier work ethic which results in the stress many of us end up with,” he said.

“At 55 years old (or is that young!) technology has changed my work for the better. Mind you I was brought up with computers from a very early age as my father was involved in computers from the early 1950’s (LEO 1). This has given me a distinct advantage as I have always seen the potential of the technology but it has also frustrated me in that I am only now able to achieve what I saw as possible 20 years ago. Technology has developed faster than our social attitudes and there is the problem/challenge.”

“Having lost our broadband connection some nine days ago at home, it is easier to come in the office and work here, in the warm and with a connection to the outside world,” said David who works for a small business.

He added: “It took us three days to report the fault to our ISP and here we are six days later no further forward. Not the first time it has happened to us. As an SME (very small) we can't afford to have a second broadband line into the office just in case… Down here in east Kent we had 8 inches of snow four years ago, so those of you who are complaining in the London area about a few flakes are now seeing what the rest of us have had to cope with.”

Steve was ready to take on what the weather has in store for us head on. “Snow shouldn’t stop everything... With complete access via VPN and all the remote tools technology brings, I fail to understand how anyone with a laptop and even just a basic phone line can fail to be able to work from home,” he said.

“I have had remote access granted by my employer for the past seven years, first on good old fashioned dial-up, then 3G and now broadband. Supporting 500-plus users has never been so easy, or comfy! Bring on the snow...”

“I carried on as normal – working from home. I recently relocated from South to North and have continued to work for the company that is still ‘down South’. Although it is a small company the owner is very progressive,” said Lynette.

“We use remote assistance and video calls when I am designing so my boss can interact as I create the designs. The company was closed yesterday as no staff, including the boss, could get into work due to the 6in snow. However, my boss and I carried on working, both from home, and it was actually a very productive day.”

An equal number of you also exercised your grammatical muscles, noticing the little blooper I made in my editor’s letter this morning. It’s good to see so much passion and wit over a keyboard error.

Obviously we take grammar very seriously here - it is our job after all. No-one was harmed as a result of the mistake and it was a case of the wrong version of a document being sent, rather than us being stupid.

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