The World From Home
Kerry, do you think anyone will object to our training being scheduled the same time as the CEO broadcast?
I don’t think so.
Okay, by me.
You realize that a worldwide CEO broadcast is the most expensive meeting you will ever be part of?
What do you mean?
Well, if you look at how many thousands of people will be attending and then you figure the cost of all those people, the hour long broadcast is the most expensive meeting you will ever be part of.
Never thought of it that way.
Ultimately, the people who were scheduled to attend the training, didn’t join. None of us were actually in the same room. Many of us were even in different countries. Most of us were dialing in from home.
Since the training was rescheduled, I joined the CEO broadcast. We are a worldwide company. I have no idea where the CEO was broadcasting from. I’m not even sure aht country he was broadcasting from.
And yet, I was as comfortable in the meeting if he were sitting in an office in Salt Lake City. Even if he’d been in Salt Lake City, I would have been dialing in from my office on the other side of town from our management office building.
But, instead I was logging in from home. I was completely connected to all the tools I needed, email, Microsoft Teams, the Zoom software that was hosting the conference.
The CEO holds regularly scheduled broadcasts. It’s something I like about my company. While it’s a worldwide organization, the company works very hard to promote a family atmosphere. And that starts with the CEO.
So I settled into a PowerPoint slideshow about success, challenges, competitive market forces. The presentations are always informative, enjoyable and occasionally funny as the CEO who is not a native English speaker will use his sharp whit to keep the mood light.
As his presentation was wrapping up he addressed the Coronavirus. As I said, we are a worldwide company. We are a telecommunications company. We have call centers, all over the world. From a few hundred to over a thousand agents in each center. Obviously, the health of our employees is a great concern.
The CEO talked about the efforts we are making as a company to keep our employees safe while also keeping our business running.
And I realized as I looked around my office, that what I had seen as a convenience I now saw as a part of a larger corporate effort that could help our company.
The virus is affecting businesses all around the world. I realized how fortunate I was to have a job that I could do completely from home.
Wherever you are working, I hope that you stay safe from the virus and that the scientists and the World Health Organization can find a vaccine or cure quickly.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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