Recently, it has begun to feel like I enjoy torturing myself with “new” things. This week we met family in Boise, Idaho, where I started my new job remotely from our Air Bnb rental (my first time from a rental).
Western Collective Brewery
After leaving the Grand Canyon, we drove 13 hours north to Boise, for a much needed reunion with my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, 2 year old nephew and 7 month old niece. It was the first time seeing them in well over a year and the first time meeting our niece (their first time meeting Gloria as well). We had an awesome week catching up, visiting local breweries in the afternoon (shoutout to Clairvoyant, Payette and Western Collective breweries!) and hanging out at the house. Originally, I had planned to take time off for this week and next, but again, as the WFA gods would have it, I was starting a brand new job instead.
Our original intention for my workspace, was to use one of the bedrooms as my “office” (connected to wifi). I store a relatively inexpensive desk in our RV (desk link), which can be assembled in minutes and then disassembled to be stored under the RV bed for transport. By setting this up in the house and mounting it with my 27” HP monitor, laptop, mouse and keyboard, I essentially duplicated my RV office, inside of the rental.
My “office” in the rental!
This sounded all “well and good” until we actually put it into practice. Since we were 2 hours behind the east coast, my first meeting started at 7:30 AM MST. This meant that if I wanted to start work at my desk, I would need to wake up Gloria AND Kailah (No - the girls don’t sleep this late at home, but our time zones are all over the place lately). Obviously, waking a mom, or an infant, is not good practice, so I would grab my laptop and sit out on the deck to take my first call or two of the day. At my previous company, this wouldn’t have been that big of a deal because I was comfortable with my boss and all of my stakeholders (and they trusted me in general). However, at the new company, I was the new guy and I’m sure it looked a bit strange to see me sitting outside on a deck, shivering, while my breath rose up in front of the camera.
Uncle Jared and I having a beer after work with the babies :)
Overall, I think this week went pretty well. It was exhausting to balance starting a new job, with the excitement of spending time with family. I guess I’ll find out the truth in the future, once my new colleagues feel comfortable enough to tell me.
You must be thinking…why didn’t you just work from the RV?! This is one obstacle that I wouldn’t have known without experience. Being a “newbie” to RVs, I just assumed that as long as your batteries were charged, everything inside of the RV would “work”. This is not the case in our RV (and I assume most others). All that is functional from battery power is our lighting, usb ports, vent fans, cockpit console, refrigerator and few other mechanical essentials. This means that the ACs, TVs, microwave, and most importantly, the 120V outlets aren’t. Since I need those outlets to power my laptop and monitor, I’m out of luck. Sure, I could work out there with my laptop until the computer battery died, but that isn’t a permanent solution. I also could run the generator to provide power to the entire unit, but I doubt the residential neighbors would enjoy that sound with their morning coffee. I know many people have worked around this issue with designated outlets and inverters. I’ve also read that they use an inverter cord to convert the “cigarette outlet” to a 120 volt from the cockpit (just like in your traditional vehicle). These definitely sound like viable options, and I might head down one of these paths, but I wanted to be sure to call this situation out because it makes working “off grid” a major challenge otherwise.
Anyway, cheers to a quality week spent with family and a relatively uneventful first week on the remote job. Next week we are driving to remote Almo for another week with family in the beautiful Idaho countryside (get it? remote Almo…like remote work…it doesn’t matter where you are!).
Cheers,
Kyle
Office and technical gear links:
Moonbeam Noise Dampening Curtains
Connection Gear:
30 GB usage Verizon Jetpack MIFI 8800L
30 GB usage 5G MIFI M2100
30 GB usage utilizing my iPhone as a hotspot on the “Get More Unlimited” plan
Current usage trend: 0 GB / work day (I had wifi).