My start of the day
Teleworking days are quieter, but they always start with a well-loaded coffee, and when you have to come to the office, they are usually accompanied by a bit more rushing to try to combat the chances of traffic jams, especially on Mondays.
Once you get over the rush and get to the office after a nice short walk from the parking lot, things relax: open the emails, say hello to colleagues, check what needs to be done and start the day. Seeing people face to face I think makes the days of coming to the office always the most lively and entertaining.
When I can work from home I usually take it easier and take advantage of breakfast to calmly check messages, emails and pending things with coffee in my hand before getting down to work with what I have to do for the day. Although it is very comfortable to work from home, it tends to be a bit more impersonal, which I find a bit heavier.
My tools
We are all used to long Word and ProwerPoint sessions. In my case it is not very different because I always have to prepare some presentation or document to send to someone. As usual in technical profiles, it is always quite difficult to summarize long and complex processes in something visual and summarized, so although I love to shape it, it is usually something tedious and requires some correction.
As I mentioned, my job is quite technical, so we also use other tools such as VS Code (to program in different languages), Postman (to analyze API responses), virtual machines, containers or infrastructure management tools.
This does not mean that for specific things we have to learn to use very often new tools that we end up using a few weeks before moving on to the next one. I think we all have a computer full of applications that we haven’t used for months but that we “keep just in case” so that we don’t have to go back to them in the future.
My best moment of the day
The best moment of the day is undoubtedly the chats in the corridors and the coffee or lunch breaks. I think one of Telefónica’s strong points has always been the good atmosphere on the floor, and in my case it’s no different.
It is always very interesting to share opinions about the tasks we perform with our colleagues, or to talk about what we have done over the weekend.
There are many times that after sharing what we are doing, or the approaches we have to face a task with colleagues from this or other teams, that we get very different visions of how things can be done. There are people in management who have been developing technical positions for many years and it is always a good idea to soak up everything that others know and are always willing to share.
My tricks for getting organized
Naturally the Outlook calendar is the first thing to look at at the start of the day to get a bit organized, but what has always worked best for me is a notepad, both paper and digital.
Every day, small comments or tasks come across in passing and, if you don’t write them down, it’s impossible to remember them. The best technique is to write them down and cross them out to make sure you don’t leave any out.
We have tools that let us “mark” and categorize the importance of emails or tasks, but there is nothing as immediate as writing it down in a few seconds, which for me makes it the most useful.
Also, in a consensual way with colleagues, we usually set a time every week or day to discuss the things we have pending and reserve it to encourage collaboration and teamwork, because although we are a click away through Teams, having to call is always more complicated when everyone is so busy.
