Hopefully, very soon, we will all be back to normal, although I am quite sure it will be a “new” normal post Covid-19.
In an effort to keep mentally sane and not turn into Jack Torrance from “The Shining”, I have been involved in almost nightly video “meetings” with friends and family. Some of the participants are literally less than 3 miles away from me (I’m in Alabama) while some have been as far away as the state of Washington. Some of these virtual get-togethers have included people that do not usually work at home. I myself average about 32 business trips a year, some trips are 1.5 days long, some are 7 days long, with the majority somewhere in between. But, when I am not on one of those trips, I office at home.
In order to pull-off these “meetings” I quickly coached some of these friends through how to download, configure, and start using apps that let us video chat while we remain hunkered down in each of our respective homes. In our meetings there were occasional appearances by spouses and children, crackling fires in outdoor firepits, and possibly even an adult beverage or two or three… (whiskey-scotch-bourbon for me; I avoid anything carbonated). I think I can speak for all involved in these virtual meetings, it has been a great way for each of us to maintain our sanity by allowing all of us to continue to interact with those we love that are outside of our immediate household.
Not used to working remotely or from home? Are you experiencing the “Un’s”?
Never fear! Resources to help you adjust to working from home:
7 essential tips for working from home during the Coronavirus pandemic (#1 at least two days a week and #7 is a daily must do!) |
As we attempted to solve the world’s problems on these get-togethers it became obvious that some of my not-used-to-working-at-home-friends are suffering from the “un’s” (unfamiliar, uncomfortable, unproductive) while trying to work remotely.
It is a complex topic with lots of tentacles, but absolutely one tentacle was how they can easily get access to applications they rely on from a machine that is not the one they normally use.
As we talked thru some of the challenges it occurred to me that some of the friends I have made through my Control-M related travels may be having similar issues. They may be in unfamiliar surroundings working on unique or different machines, but they still must support their business. It dawned on me that one thing that might help them is to leverage Control-M Self Service. They, and others responsible for workflows in Control-M, can use it to monitor and manage application workflows from almost any browser from any machine, even if it is not the way they “normally” access Control-M. To see some specifics about how Control-M might be able to help normalize some of the “un’s” for your own workloads check out this eBook or this blog post.
I think we would all agree that medical professionals and first responders and others on the frontline of the pandemic fight are heroes. So are the factory workers and truck drivers and store employees who are all helping to keep stores stocked with medicines and food and other essentials. But how about all those in IT who are working hard so their customers can maintain access to the services they need? In my book, they are heroes too! Thanks to all of you for doing what you do and for working hard to keep services running smoothly in a world temporarily turned a bit upside down.
