Monica began working remotely for the Pueblo Chieftain March 23 due to the COVID-19 outbreak, two days before Jared Polis, the Colorado governor, issued the stay-at-home order for the rest of the state. Her office–nestled in the tiniest room in our house and dubbed the library–is neither spacious or glamorous. Her desk is 34-inch square card table that’s home to an oversized monitor that mirrors her laptop’s display, a keyboard and mouse, a lamp, a calculator, a cell phone, assorted pens, and numerous files. Further surrounding her is a futon, a bookcase full of National Geographic magazines, and a squad of Star Wars-themed Mr. Potato Heads.
Cramped but workable, Monica did need to make some adjustments to her initial remote work station set-up after her first day working from home. The first was procuring a proper chair from which to work. Complaining of back soreness due to sitting in a dining room chair for eight hours, we got her office chair from work. Then her boss insisted she work using her external monitor instead of hunching over her 12-inch laptop, so she brought that home, too. But to make that scheme work efficiently, Monica would need a keyboard. We discovered her laptop wasn’t too keen on Bluetooth devices but I knew there was an old iMac USB keyboard somewhere in the house that would likely do the trick. Monica unearthed it after a short search. As an added bonus, it has USB ports to plug in her mouse, making the interface with her laptop and external monitor easier.
Getting her all of office hardware to sync was only the first step in what proved to be a two-step endeavor. The second half would be insuring there was enough bandwidth for her to conduct business with those tools.
Monica’s job as Inside Sales Manager at The Chieftain requires access to various web-based software, from e-mail to Google Docs to ad management applications. Managing documents and moving them around via a VPN isn’t a huge drain our home wireless network. But by the second day of Monica’s working from home, her thrice-daily video conferences exposed the weakness of our home’s Wi-Fi. Fortunately, we have a couple of old Apple Airport wireless routers in the house. After dusting those off, I was able to create and extend a dedicated Wi-Fi network for Monica robust enough to allow her to manage documents and revenue as well as confidently participate in Zoom meetings with colleagues. By the outset of her third day working from home, both components of Monica’s office–hardware and connectivity–were dialed in, despite its patchwork nature.
The whole reason for this undertaking–the goddamn novel coronavirus–sucks. But Monica’s managed a functional solution to a shitty situation. And I’m sure there will be more fine-tuning to her “home office” over the next couple weeks.
Last night, Sunday night, Monica said she’d really like to go back to work at the office. Not so much because she dislikes working remotely, or that she’s weary of seeing my face every hour of the day and night (she says), but out of a desire for normalcy. The following morning she learned Gannett would be furloughing her for three weeks over the next three months.
Normalcy, I fear, is still a ways away, for all of us.
