Another sunny day at Enschede, and of course another great day to work from home! I think most of you just started to get used to it. In my case, it is more than two weeks now; so it is becoming more and more the "normal". It is unfortunate to say hello to you all like this, instead of in person. I also couldn't say goodbye in person to my colleagues at European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) (Ispra, Italy) where I was working for more than 8 years. It is really an extraordinary period of our lives. But it will pass; hopefully soon! So please consider this short post as a warm "Hello!" at a distance. I'm looking forward to meet you soon!
One thing that can make your life easier while working at home is to setup a proper working environment as soon as possible, which might be trickier than it sounds. I had to leave my house in Italy very quickly (in half an hour), so I didn't have the chance to bring everything with me. When I started to work at home in Enschede, all I had was a 10" Tablet and a small keyboard. To be honest it worked well for some time, but it was not easy to read and develop on such a small screen (as you can see in the first photo). So my eyes inevitably catched the TV standing at the corner. It was big, not in-use (as I was alone in quarantine as a preventive measure), and the tablet had an HDMI port, so it was possible to use it as a monitor! A very big one! Luckily the table was also big enough to place it. Problem solved :) I was very happy. At least for a while... Because, you know a TV is a TV; eventually it is to watch movies or news, not to stay in front at a close distance for hours and hours... On Monday when Funda (my wife, she also works at ITC) told me that ITC is closing its doors, the first thing I asked her was whether she can take her monitor out! Not surprisingly, she became one of the many salvaging their plants and monitors from their offices :) There was also a bonus: normal-sized keyboard. Being tried both extremities, I can easily tell you that to have a normal monitor really helps you to enjoy working at home (also protects the identities -not tails- of shy family members). I hope you had the chance to take all your desktop equipment from your office. It makes a difference!
With this, I want to give the floor to Rania for tomorrow's post.
Take care and stay healthy,
Serkan
