Stuart wearing I Help People Get Jobs t-shirt at an event

Being able to swim, building a DIY Slip ‘N Slide, playing Fortnite and being a pseudo teacher in addition to virtual work meetings… That’s just a regular day in the life of working from home for Stuart Jones, a Regional Account Manager based in Singapore.

I clearly remember the day when Indeed announced we would now be working from home in order to reduce risk to its staff – my left eye twitched nervously.

As I write this blog, I am perched on my wife’s make-up table whilst my son is watching Octonauts on the iPad shouting out facts about the giant OarFish (have a read about it!). 

I would move to a different workspace but other rooms are taken up by the five kids we have at home: preschoolers jumping around to PE (Physical Education) videos on YouTube, a primary schooler who shouts his responses during his school Zoom calls, teenagers who basically ignore me and eat me out of house and home… and, of course, my lovely wife working away in the thick of this chaos.

Stuart and kids use a slip 'n slide

The once cosy home office is now a school-room-cum-Youth-Club-cum-feet-stabbing-Lego-brick minefield. 

The reality is that WFH for me is not standard office hours or even a standard day.

It’s rebooting laptops, changing light bulbs and finger painting like a champion. 

How have I managed to stay positive and productive? With the support of my manager, team and clients.  

My working hours are broken up so I can spend time with the little ones. By this, I mean being submerged in the pool, being the bad guy in Cops and Robbers and being the hero after creating a Slip ‘N Slide in the yard.

With the older boys, I’m the embarrassing dad playing Fortnite, cool dad when talking old school sneakers and pseudo teacher when discussing Science and English (not Math, never Math). 

When I’m on virtual work calls, a small face might pop into one or two of the calls and that’s openly accepted here with our teams and with our clients at Indeed which mentally relaxes me.

Indeed allows me to work on realistic time frames that fit with this new way of living. 

Stuart poses with Google Wifi Extender he purchased with WFH stipend

Finally and quite possibly the most important, to improve the sanity of my family we used the Indeed WFH allowance to buy an additional router.

As we transitioned to work from home, Indeed provided us with an allowance to make working from home as comfortable and effective as possible. This WiFi boost that we got our hands on equals more bandwidth and less arguments #blessed 

We also have 3 dogs… but that’s a whole other blog post.

 

 

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