AdNews brings the stories of those working from home (WFH) in the advertising and media industry during the coronavirus crisis.
Four colleagues at OMD share a home in Sydney: Erin Lee (digital operations leader); Frances Dennis (senior account director); Joe McCabe (account manager); Daniel Vines (digital account director).
How are you dealing with the silence?
The silence hasn’t been too bad for us. Since we began working from home, we affectionately renamed our Inner West house as the "OMD Enmore office". There have been a lot of conference calls going on, so you can usually hear the phrases “can you see my slides?” or “can you hear me now?” ringing throughout the house at any given minute. We have even gone as far as designating meeting rooms (also known as the lounge room) and participating in group calls when working across clients together. Apart from that, love a chat and always have music playing in the background. We even tried out Rebel’s #SportIsCalling challenge with Glenn Maxwell! Teeing off around the house hasn’t exactly been a hole in one, but it is a fun way to pass the time.
What’s the upside?
Although we all worked in the same office before COVID-19, we didn’t spend as much time with each other every day. We’ve been doing a lot of things together since, such as cooking (the slow cooker has been getting a real work out), embracing TikTok by supporting our clients campaign #NiveaSplash and of course, testing our puzzle skills. A few weeks before lockdown, we also found a fifth addition to the family, Dice, our lovely boxer cross dalmatian puppy. His daily routine is keeping us motivated, along with his new Instagram account: @dice.theboxmatian.
The downside?
No one is exempt from some trouble with their neighbours and the OMD Enmore office is no exception. We are currently fighting a recycling bin war, which has resulted in us losing ours (not a great start), but we have a battle plan in place to take it back. Aside from that, the initial challenge was learning to disconnect from work, which was no easy feat when the working space is set up a few metres away from the living room. Thankfully, Netflix has been supplying the goods, so we’ve been relaxing as a house to a (more than) healthy dose of Tiger King and Ozark.
How are you using the commuting time saved?
As the OMD Enmore office is only a hop, skip and a jump away from the real office in Pyrmont, we’ve been able to start a bit earlier (or later, depending which of our managers is reading this). We’ve now spend the little time we save on commuting on pre-work workouts and fashion exploration; anything from hairstyles to trendy new winter coats for Dice.
I am looking forward to being back in the office because…
Working from home has been great, but we have all missed the personal interaction with our teams and the wider office. We’re all looking forward to being able to unwind in our in-house bar, The Shoe, after a long week and definitely can’t wait to introduce Dice to the rest of the OMD puppies!
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