What is your role at Daedalus?
I’m a UX/UI Designer! I’m part of a great team that works on all sorts of different research and design projects, most notably health and safety products. My background is in library and information science, so there’s also the occasional information architecture / content strategy project as well.
What’s your day-to-day like at Daedalus?
I’ll get in, drop my lunch in the fridge (if I brought it) and make some coffee, chat for a bit with whoever else is in the kitchen, then head back to my desk. I always check my email and calendar first to see if there are any meetings or outstanding things I need to respond to right away, and if there are, I’ll build some meeting prep time into my day or take care of anything urgent. Then I get cracking on my projects!
… and how has this changed with WFH (Working From Home)?
My new coworkers, Morty and Bones, are much less chatty than my Daedalus coworkers. They mostly just bark. And one of them snores A LOT during the day. Also, “swinging by Chipotle” for lunch has been replaced with “perusing the leftovers in the fridge” for lunch.
Where is your home office?
My home office / guest bedroom is at the front of the house on the second floor, which is the sunniest part of the house—that’s been pretty nice! (Most of the other parts of the house—including the back bedroom—have covered porches that, while cute, block a lot of natural light.) The room is kind of L-shaped, so the guest bedroom part is separate from the office part, which definitely helps the office part feel more… well, official.
What is your favorite part about your WFH setup?
Other than the light, I like looking at my gallery wall and being so close to my enormous pen hoard if I need to do some sketching. The commute is also pretty stellar! (Not that my commute before was terrible—I’m only one neighborhood away from the Daedalus office.)
What has been your biggest challenge so far?
I really do miss being able to talk face-to-face with coworkers, especially if I just had a quick question. Google Hangouts video and chats have been a suitable enough substitute for the functionality of being in an office, but not the atmosphere. We have had a couple of Google Hangouts happy hours after work though, and that was really nice.
Any helpful WFH tips?
I think at first I was approaching working from home too rigidly—I wasn’t taking as many short breaks throughout the day to stand up and stretch or go get a glass of water as I did at the office because I worried I might get sucked into a house project and get pulled off-track.
But I learned pretty quickly that those little breaks can be crucial for keeping your focus going on projects. And working from home is supposed to be more flexible, not less! I feel much better now that I’ve made it more of a point to get up and move more, make that trendy foamy internet coffee drink, pet those dogs, and even throw a quick load of laundry in before getting back into things. It helps!