AdNews brings the stories of those working from home (WFH) in the advertising and media industry during the coronavirus crisis.
Ally Coleman is the CFO at Audience Precision:
How are you dealing with the silence?
The silence outside on the street gives you the false feeling like its new year’s morning and everyone is still passed out or sleeping in from the night before. I have started meditating (Insights app) three times a day, and the silence is becoming more peaceful. I wouldn’t say WFH is silent, being a person who often does days here and there of working from home to tackle important tasks and focus, I am used to it, however, it is not the same anymore. Lots of staff have never WFH before, and so interaction is needed more and is, of course, important at this time.
What’s the upside?
We are lucky as a business to have the ability, of literally saying we were working from home, and not having to test the system. The virtue of being a global business meant we had to have this in play already. So our upside is we can train our staff on Virtual Presenting – something you wouldn’t have necessarily needed to before, though an important skill to have.
You get to wear clothes that make you more comfortable to work in.
I can walk downstairs (from my upstairs office attic) and “Honey, I’m home” – and disconnect (the separation of workspace is a huge upside that I know a lot of people don’t have). Also spending more time with my partner than before is just amazing and makes us stronger.
The downside?
It has been an adjustment for a lot of the staff, to be able to see how we interact online, I have not done soooo many video calls before in my life.
Unlike normal WFH, the control is being taken from you, that is, not being able to go to the gym, not being able to go to a friend’s home or have people over takes its toll. It's literally you and home.
How are you using the commuting time saved?
I am blessed and live within an eight minute walk from the office, so now it’s one minute upstairs. However, the adjustment to my morning routine, with the gym being a no go zone is hard. I ensure I meditate first thing, as most of my dreams are about COVID-19 (especially if I watch the news before bed). Then becomes the morning walk and 2 m social distancing from the huge numbers of people trying to do the same thing. It feels like the first week of the new year and all the people around are trying to do their new year’s resolution (Nooooo!).
I am looking forward to being back in the office because …
We are a great team, and bounce ideas freely off each other, whilst it’s amazing to have Zoom and Skype, the office allows the free flow of ideas easily. Also, we just launched and moved into our new office – so it would be lovely to get back in there and make it truly our home.
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