Office 365 mobility benefits – Why working in your underwear is the way of the future
By Scott Stirrup
Traffic. The bane of most mornings and evenings for almost everyone I know. Myself, I would rather use that extra 45 minutes to an hour as a little extra sleep in. Mostly because I binge watched this really awesome TV show and the cliffhanger of the past 3 episodes was just too much to handle. I need to know, what are you up to now Francis?!
During my ever-growing journey into work I used to imagine, not even too long ago, about how nice it would be to actually work from home from time to time and not to have to stop-start my way in to the office. The office white noise can be a bit of a distraction sometimes. I would just want to knuckle down and get what I needed done, well, done.
This is how I would see it – 6am, alarm goes off. My wife stirring is dragging me further out of my precious sleep. Finally, that horrible noise stops and she gets out of the bed and leaves the room. I roll over, grab her pillow and put it over my head to drown out any noises or lights that might deprive me of a few extra winks. I drift back into the land of wonder. What seems only moments later, I am woken with a gentle kiss ‘goodbye’. Incoherently, I say goodbye and wish her a good day.
Rolling on my side, I grab my phone. It’s now about 7am. I start checking social media, news, and the rest from the comfort of my bed. *DING*. 8am reminder comes in, I need to send that report I was working on yesterday afternoon by 9 this morning. I open my OneDrive app, find the document, and finalise the report on my phone like a champ before sending it off to the boss. Well done me. I totally deserve that raise.
Report sent, I decide it’s probably time I should get up. Dragging myself out of the luxury of my warm bed, I head to the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee and sit at my office desk, the big desk, kitchen table, whatever you want to call it, no one is here to judge. I turn on my laptop, log into Managed Desktop and start working through the evening backlog of emails that have come through. Who are these spammers really trying to convince? Man, I wouldn’t mind 3 million dollars though. If only I was born a Nigerian prince…
Then comes that time of the morning, the daily standup. I call into the Skype for Business group with my co-workers none the wiser I’m not even wearing pants. Smiling to myself, I realise this is what life is about. Embracing the little things. Knowing full well they are suffering, clothed.
During the morning standup, one of my colleagues asks for my assistance on something they have been working on. They share it with me on Teams, and while reading through sipping on my second cuppa, I review and give them my two cents worth tracking the changes, adding suggestions along the way. Keyboard basically on fire, I save the document and send it back to them.
Usually at about this stage of my dreaming about the ideal working life, it was shattered with the arrival at the office to begin my day… in pants. Then everything changed. It wasn’t that long ago that this has actually started to become a reality. All these recent technological advancements have allowed for more visibility, collaboration and communication with my work team. Office 365 really has allowed my dream to become a reality.
Office 365 has many different tools they now have on offer with collaboration features across the Microsoft Office suite, from group chats and sharing with Teams, to accessing and editing documents from the comfort of your own bed on OneDrive, before sending them to where they need to go with Outlook. Office 365 has really brought the Office to me in the best way possible without me having to go anywhere. It has taken away that dreaded traffic laden drive and more importantly, the need to wear pants.
Find out more about Office 365 here.
Lucy