Organizing to WFH: Conference & Video Calls
/Going on week four of quarantine/mandatory work-from-home (WFH)…and this is a typical scene: I’ll be helping a client organize virtually (yes, it’s a thing!) while my husband is on a conference call with his team. Throw in our high-schooler who may be on Zoom for classes and volunteer activities, and there can be a lot of calls/video going on in our house at the same time.
I’ll admit it: I’m not used to being in my home office every day (I do miss working with my clients at their homes), not to mention sharing it with my husband every day. To be fair, it is supposed to be “our” home office but in normal times, I’m the only one who uses it regularly. The room isn’t large and our work stations are back to back, so sometimes while we are working away I’m not sure if my husband is talking to me, or talking on his conference call, thanks to his wireless headphones. He can walk all over the house chatting too, still on a call. Similar issue with our teen: her door is often closed and we don’t want to walk in on a class video call.
We needed to figure out how to alert others in the house that we are on a work call, so we came up with these ideas:
Connie the Conference Call Dinosaur (see photo). If Connie is on your desk, you’re on a call and not available to chat with others. This could work with any fun object.
Wear a particular hat, especially useful for my husband if he’s walking in and out of the home office and still on a call. There are many hats he can choose from: Fez, Cowboy hat from Australia, or the navy hat, to name a few.
I suggested my daughter make a door sign that says “video call in progress,” kind of like the sign you see when filming TV to let you know you’re on the air.
So far Connie seems to be working: now in our office I can quickly glance over my shoulder and if Connie is out, I don’t ask my husband if he took the trash out. We’re going to try to implement the other ideas as well. What are you doing to make working from home work for you? I’d love to hear your creative ideas.
Bonus: Good article from Staples about how to work from home with a spouse or partner.
COnnie the Conference call Dino In action