Lift

On the first working day on The Island last week I titled my entry Day One even thought we’d been here for the two days of the weekend. So, in this Day Seven or Day Eleven? I called yesterday six but who knows how I should refer to it.

This morning I was off and out again and down on the seafront well before 8am, meaning I could be back for 8:30am and at my makeshift lounge desk for just after 9am. Not quite as sunny as some other mornings but bright nonetheless. Walking along the seafront I wasn’t sure if my morning walk picture should be the clock or the lift. The lift brings people down to the seafront from Shanklin village so that they don’t do the steep climb that I am doing on my return each morning. It’s currently closed for the season but it’s an odd concrete structure on the side of a hill. 

I got an email to say the the COVID tests I’d ordered yesterday were being delivered. This Airbnb has a ‘box’ at the entrance for post and we don’t have a key. I decided the best way to get the postman to deliver the tests and make sure we got them - and not lost them into a sealed tin - was to tape up the box with a big note asking for the buzzer to be used. It worked and now we have a new box of COVID tests ahead of the weekend.

My calendar was pretty full today with my 1:1 and a number of catch-ups including continued discussion about changes workflow. But part of the afternoon was set aside for the SAS Innovation Summit bit’s a streamed event and I thought I’d join some the sessions. 

At 4:30pm Steve was hosting a session entitled “Create exceptional digital customer experiences from customer and service insights” and I joined more for virtual moral support than anything else. I am not sure he knew I was there. Sadly, the main presenter was a guy from IDC who was on a very poor internet connection and kept disappearing from the virtual conference. Maybe these things are better in-person or recorded. I couldn’t tell how many others were on the session but I did feel for both the presenters. We are now so reliant on our internet connections for everything in these remote working times.  PY and I are both thankful that the connection at this Airbnb is strong enough to allow us both to work. Without it, our whole Isle of Wight experiment would have failed before it had even started.