When graduating from University with a 1st class degree in Business and Marketing I never imagined I would be working from home for a remote working company, instead I believed I would be working in a corporation where a glass-wall office, desk with a PC, telephone, all sorts of office accessories and a filing cabinet are standard. I even bought myself a new tea cup I could put on my future office desk once I got myself a graduate job. This never happened!
My job interview for the position of Assistant to Managing Director at Octagon Technology with Diana Catton (Managing Director) and Clive Catton (CIO) was unusual! For a start, it took place at a local café. Yes, I was asked all sorts of classic job interview questions such as why do you want to work for us, tell us more about yourself etc., but quickly I realised it wasn’t a classic interview at all: it was informal and friendly, more like a family coffee meeting. Was it influenced by the place itself or was it because of Diana and Clive who made it very peaceful, or maybe both? Most importantly I got the job! So, what happened next?
My first day at work (26th November 2014) was mainly about visiting our clients. So, I was driving with Clive from one client to another, introducing myself and familiarising myself with the services we offer. It was Clive’s son’s 18th birthday too so we went to a shop to buy a caterpillar cake for his special day. Fairly uncommon, right?
The following day I was given tasks and I was working from home. Gosh that was unusual! I sat at home on my own with a laptop in front of me, mobile phone on my right-hand side, everything set up in the cloud, set up with access to my then empty email, calendar, tasks list and a million questions on my mind. I probably spent my first day with the phone pretty much glued to my ear, talking to Diana, Clive, Martin and our clients. Martin is our Senior Engineer who is very patient and always ready to answer questions, I bet he was exhausted after my second day at work too.
So, here I am! Me – a working-from-home mum. I don’t work in a glass-wall office with a filing cabinet and shiny desk but instead I work from home, mostly from my living room, and I drink tea from the cup I got myself almost 6 years ago! In the meantime, I graduated with a master’s degree in management, my family grew by another child and I survived lockdown.
During lockdown working from home has been challenging (even for me Mrs organised) but rewarding at the same time. Being able to observe my older son doing his homework, developing routine and planning skills or seeing my younger son taking his first steps and witnessing this incredibly strong bond between both of my children is priceless. As a working-from-home mum, to be productive and successful at work I follow some rules:
– I get up really early;
– I encourage independent play for my little one, which is extremely important for healthy development anyway; my older one sometimes helps, which is great;
– I take advantage of nap time
– and work late hours when things need to be done.
Sometimes catching up with things over the weekend is needed but for someone who is extremely motivated this isn’t an issue. I like things to be done!
Working at Octagon Technology also means adapting to the high security stance and being on top of data privacy. To work effectively as a team, we use tools that easily enable collaboration. Here are some of the rules I follow:
- I’m aware that protecting digital data can be difficult so appropriate policies and procedures are in place to help
- Risk assessment, data integrity and availability are important
- Frequent security updates are essential
- Data encryption and strong passwords are crucial
- Multi-factor authentication is a must
- GDPR/Data Protection Act regulations play a key role in data safety; with the data I collect, hold, process and share
- I attend regular online staff training
- And I stay vigilant!
Working from home does require some thought, motivation, forward planning and organisation. To be successful your business needs to be equipped with the right tools, technical knowledge and support, but above all routine and discipline are important!
Kamila
General Manager
