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Wherever I lay my laptop… that’s my home office.

Posted in Working from Home on May 15, 2009 at 4:29 pm

So as discussed previously, today is Working From Someone Else’s Home Day, and as a result I spent the morning at my parent’s-in-law’s house – my own abode being unsuitable due to lack of work room vs. children playing issues.

Earlier in the day, I scared the life out of my sister-in-law who popped round but wasn’t expecting me to be there. She is however, very much expecting, and when I called out to say hello, she nearly had the baby right there – which really would have put a crimp in my work day. Luckily waters were not broken and minutes later I was back in splendid isolation once again.

Interestingly the ‘IT PRO office working from home adventure’ had attracted some attention, not only over at the Press Gazette, but also from some of my Twitter followers. When you don’t have the face-to-face interaction of conversation with one’s colleagues, the casual exchanges over Twitter do seem to make more sense. Well as least some of them do.

After lunch, I headed off to do the road warrior thing, by working from the local Starbucks, which would be my third place of working that day. If you plan on doing this, do try and use a laptop, rather than a desktop computer, as setting up your PC and monitor on the small round table is bound to get you strange looks, and you’ll have to find a power plug too. Luckily I had both a laptop and a table next to a said plug, so all was well.

Oddly though, there was no Wi-Fi available in the branch. Starbucks without Wi-Fi? Surely this is like Starbucks without coffee? (I’m sure some would say that’s not necessarily a bad thing). I admit that I did briefly try and hop onto the seemingly unsecured wireless network of the Carephone Warehouse next door, but firstly it didn’t work, and secondly it’s illegal (probably) so I didn’t. Enquiring, it turns out that this branch is betwixt Wi-Fi services, as the Starbucks T-Mobile deal ends and BT takes over. Way to go on the smooth transition their guys.

Fortunately, I Can Haz mobile broadband – integrated into my notebook (yes, posh), so there’s was no need to whip out my dongle, no doubt to the relief of many. It did make things a little slow though as though I had a full five bars of Vodafone’s HSDPA service, it’s not as snappy as a decent Wi-Fi connection.

Settling down to work, with latte on desk, the bustle of the coffee store was quite welcome after the silence of the morning, but once a hoard of children descended on place after school I was somewhat disturbed. When you’re in a public place you do need to zone everything else out, though that said I am intrigued what the couple to the left of me are talking about. And on the upside the tunes are better than the neighbours - New Order, Bizarre Love Triangle - nice, David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes - cool.

So don’t rely on Wi-Fi, bring a spare battery, and a pair of headphones and iPod/Spotitfy account (in case of tune suckage) and work can be done. I was able to communicate via IM and email to my colleagues complete what I needed to do so it’s been a good change of scene. Yes, I haven’t missed the phone ringing, but I wouldn’t want to do this all the time. It’s a good option on occasion to help to improve the work/life balance, but I do feel though that it will work best for those that have the luxury of an office space they can go to - to shut the door and concentrate. I’m not sure the nomadic existence of the road warrior is something I’d relish every day.