Quick Tips for Remote Work
Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash
Seems timely enough considering this is going out during the whole COVID-19 mess, but as people who are used to working out of an office suddenly find themselves working remote, well, it can be full of little “gotchas”. As one who has been doing remote work for a couple decades, I thought I'd address some of those “gotchas”.
Change the view
The reason an office environment works for so many people is that their view is varied. Meetings take place in different rooms, sometimes even on different floors or different buildings. There might be a cafeteria or some other break room where there is a few tables, the coffee machine, the refrigerator, and snacks. Lunches often involve leaving the building. You're not stuck at the same desk all day.
If you have a home office setup where you are going to work, take meetings, and eat lunch while sitting in the same chair, I recommend you change things up. Try sitting in different places in the house, or decide to attend a meeting from the back porch. For me there is the office where both my wife and I have a desk, and there is also the server room (everyone else calls it the "litter room" because that's where the cat litter is) where I can sit near all of my test servers. For changing things up I usually work in the office and switch to the server room for meetings (less offensive background for video conferencing).
Heading out for lunch is also a good break - anything from a quick fast food pickup to sitting down and ordering off of a menu is nice and helps one recharge.
Prepare for mobility
A part of changing the scenery can involve leaving the house and heading to a local coffee shop for a while. It is a nice change, but you need to make sure you are properly prepared for the trip. Obviously make sure that you pack that power supply in the laptop bag, and any cables for accessories you might need. But also prepare for the unexpected.
Limited bandwidth
You are not the only person doing this - others are heading out to local coffee shops for a caffeine drink and working online, and if you get there at the wrong time, you might discover that there isn't a decent place to sit down. Be prepared to work from your lap instead of that table. Worse, be prepared to work without ready access to power. More than once I've arrived at a coffee shop only to discover there is no open outlet to plug into, as the seats near the outlets will get filled first. Having a laptop is great, but that is why I will often bring a tablet that has decent battery life to get me through.
Don't assume the Internet access from that coffee shop is going to be good. If there are a lot of people in that Starbucks all clamoring for access, it can impact speed. A visual inspection finds a lot of people working on whatever they are working on while streaming music into their headphones, which in some cases they are doing via a playlist from YouTube so it is streaming video that they are not even watching. This with a full house can really eat up the available bandwidth.
In my area I know of a coffee shop (Urban Alchemy) that while it has limited power outlets, it has crazy good bandwidth. One way some of these locally-owned coffee shops compete with the big chains is to offer better and more personalized services. Bandwidth is one of these. My local Starbucks can get maybe 35Mbps on a typical morning with the usual crowd, and Urban Alchemy allows me to get 200Mbps. It is a slightly longer drive (I pass several different chains that sell caffeine drinks and snacks) and parking is an issue at times, but if bandwidth is the problem then this is the answer (and the chai is delicious).
Unsafe Public Wi-Fi
As far as online safety goes, for the most part one does not encounter hacking attempts via wireless. That being said, I do know that more than once the Starbucks I was visiting near my local university has seen attempts, usually in the form of MITM attacks. Of course me being me I would just look around and it was usually not too hard to tell which bored student it was, and more than once I have walked over and said "knock off the lame attacks, you're too easily detected." It is especially funny to walk up behind them and look over their shoulder and comment, like "you're never going to have a successful felony with that setup, but good luck." They usually clear out. I personally avoid Starbucks near the university for the lack of places to sit, but this is another one.
I'd recommend tethering. The best way for me is to plug the Mac into the outlet and the phone into the Mac, and use USB to tether. This way you have a known level of bandwidth, everything remains powered up, and you're not tethering by opening up WiFi to the rest of the patrons. With a decent data plan this is an awesome way to go. While it costs additional cash, consider a personal hotspot with an unlimited data plan. They exist, and are well worth the investment if you're going to be using one frequently.
If you're not going to be tethering or hotspotting , at least consider a good personal VPN. In the past I've tested a handful, and have recommended both ExpressVPN and NordVPN. There may be others, do your research.
This isn't everything
I'm sure I am not going to be covering everything for everyone, so I welcome any feedback. Email me or just leave a comment. Just bear in mind these are quick tips from a security conscience person. I hope you enjoy your remote work experience!
