While I was building a corporate career, I could not even think that there was such a job in the world where I would have the opportunity to spend three months a year at sea, and one month skiing, with the opportunity to work from such locations. Today, with all the technical and technological advances that we all individually enjoy, for some of us it is simply everyday life.
As I mentioned in our online course for dispatchers that it is possible to do this job from any place on the planet, my team and I wanted to prove it to you with a personal example. Ok now, we didn’t really go to Greenland (who knows, one day?) but for starters we tried to put words into action.
Of course, many pieces need to fall into place for this to happen. Consequently, the dispatcher’s job simply does not require being in a certain place, and it actually requires the presence of certain information in a certain period of time, we decided to try ourselves as digital nomads this summer.
The plan is as follows – to get out of the office for a month and visit different tourist destinations, while working on weekdays at the same level and offering the same quality of work as from the office. We left the weekends to enjoy and explore the places or relocate to another city. As they say, preparation is half the work done, and we set out to do the same.
The first thing that came to our mind is the availability of the Internet connection, which is the basic tool for this work. So we have set that among our primary options when choosing accommodation.
We asked all the accommodations we contacted in correspondence to send a screenshot of the internet speed measurement as a guarantee. Some people didn’t like it, so they didn’t even answer our questions, but at least we were sure that there was little chance that those who answered were faking the results.
A little hard at the start, but “better safe than sorry”. Speaking of which, we immediately inquired with “A1“, our telecom operator, about the conditions for roaming internet, if by any chance there is a need for it. The offer was quite ok as far as we were concerned, 10GB of internet for about $40, for a month. Maybe it won’t be enough for everyday work, but it will definitely be more than enough to bridge the possible moments of the internet loss in the accommodation.
It is always possible that the power goes out or the network becomes overloaded. That cannot be your excuse. You must always have a backup option. You certainly wouldn’t want the other party to have technical issues when they need to send payment for your work, right?
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, next on the list is technique. A laptop is a very appropriate option for this job. Of course, the bigger the screen, the easier it will be for you to work because there is simply more to see. Especially if you’re blind as bat like me. Sometimes it seems to me that if I enlarge the font a little more, I will have to switch from the monitor to the TV 😀
As I have other responsibilities in addition to my daily dispatch duties, switching between several different windows a hundred times a day can tire me out a lot.
That’s why I decided to take my tablet with me. A nice thing is that the tablet itself has a “second screen” option so that when it is connected to the same Internet network as a “Windows” laptop, it can be used as an additional monitor. Another good thing is that this type of tablet can be switched to “DeX”a work environment that is very similar to “Windows”, where the “Chrome” browser, in which I do most of the work, can be used in the native and not the mobile version. Just for insurance that if something happens to the laptop, I have a backup option.
Since I already have the “RingCentral“ application installed on my laptop and phone, I solved the issue of phone calls. All I needed now was to not hold the phone in my hands but to be free to type. I solved this part with wireless headphones that can be connected to multiple devices at the same time and switch to the current sound source. Plus, they fit in your pocket!
As I dealt with the idea of having a backup option for a laptop, it occurred to me that there are more chances of something going wrong with a mobile phone than with a laptop. I dug up some old mobile, and after testing that it still worked fine, put my fears to rest.
In addition to this, I also packed an external battery, chargers and my binoculars (glasses).
Other colleagues were also guided by my list and organized themselves similarly.
