Where once I bolted out of bed at 6:00AM, I am now hitting the snooze button at 7:30 – TWICE!  My husband cracks a joke about the traffic being, “not too bad today”, on the stairs so I’ll have plenty of time to make it to the kitchen island by 8. A shower and changing out of pajamas can be saved for my lunch break.  Dan is also working from home and came equipped with a second monitor and extra keyboard so he set up shop in our office.  I sit in the kitchen, where I use a cardboard box to set my laptop, creating a standing desk.  I’ve discovered a great variety of “Music Choice” channels on the TV – the 90s being my favorite (channel 427 on Xfinity).  Although, the last song I heard was Dan’s Microsoft TEAMS meeting singing, “Happy Birthday” to a co-worker.

The first few days working from home felt very frantic and the days flew by as we tried to get everything up and running remotely.  We set up a lot of workarounds, had to edit a great deal of ILLiad processes as well as notifications, and made changes to our user webpages to reflect our new practices in providing ILL.  I learned a great deal on the “techie side” in great part to what felt like a million emails to Kathie and Meredith every day for the first 2 weeks.  They were, and continue to be, a huge help.  The new normal consists of various ZOOM meetings with different groups of co-workers and colleagues, Outlook invitations from Dan asking me to meet for lunch in the, “cafeteria”, and having my cat sleep next to me purring away as I work.  The highlights of my day are the UPS truck coming with packages from Target (which sit in the garage for a while before opening), daily walks around our neighborhood, and playing Yahtzee via Facetime with my 9-year-old niece in the evenings.  I am so, so grateful to be able to work from home and miss everyone very much. 

Post Written By Jenn O'Leary