When the pandemic hit, we were fairly well prepared at Redgate. We’ve had lots of experience connecting offices, we have an amazing IT staff that has built a great VPN setup, lots of SSO authentication, and a tremendous KB of info.
However, many of our staff didn’t have a dedicated space in their residence. Even those that did often had to share with partners, children, and others. That was a challenge. I know because we created a Slack channel for people to share their work space pictures. I saw some creative solutions, and I also sympathized with way some people have had to work during the last few months.
I’m lucky that I’ve been working from home a long time and have made some changes over the years to build a better home office. I’ve upgraded PCs, added some lights, gotten a standing desk, etc. in that time. The pandemic got me to finally upgrade to a Secret Lab chair and adding a ring light for video calls. I also rearranged the office slightly after refinishing our floors.
After seeing Troy Hunt’s post this week on his ultimate home office, I’m a little jealous. Not that I want to spend that much time and money on my office, or do all the IoT and other configuration, I am still interested as a geek in what he did. It’s quite a write-up, and if you go through it, those of you that are hardware geeks will probably enjoy it and then frown at your setup. You might also get jealous if you read about some of the systems Glenn Berry has built, Brent Ozar’s home office, or even the studio that Adam Saxton has built.
For now, I’m pretty happy with my home office, though I still have a few minor things to work on. A little more cable management, perhaps a few small storage boxes/places for my desk, and certainly a little sweeping and mopping. That last one is something that needs to be done on a more regular basis, at least while the pandemic is stuff affecting me.
Steve Jones
