Technology

I am fortunate enough to work from home a few days a week. I am in sales and it really doesn't require me to be in the office as long as I can do whatever it is I need to do from any other location.

Mostly - phone calls and e-mails.

The majority of my work is saved on my local hard drive, which if you are an IT person, this makes you cringe because should anything happen to your hard drive, all of your files...are GONE! gone, gone, gone.

All of the remote users can access certain files on the company's server via a Virtual Private Network aka VPN.

I have worked remotely before and I have loved this technology in the past. It may be a tad slower than accessing information in real time, but it's not too bad.

Unfortunately, the VPN that I have to log into now is absolutely horrible. I'm not a geek, but I have a fairly good understanding of how things work...most of the time, but when they explained to me how this network was set up...I was baffled.

I am logging in at Point A, which goes to point B (my office in PA), then it is sent to point C (the main server in MA) then back down to point B and finally back to point A.

Now I can't be 100% sure, but I think there are times when it stops from B and C, goes out to lunch, has a few drinks with friends, maybe takes the back roads and finally gets back on track again.

This is THE slowest connection I have EVER used in my life! Dialing into AOL back in the early 90's when they only had 4 phone numbers is the only thing I can compare this to.

Yesterday we had a big project that was due by the end of the day. Most of the files that I needed were not on my local drive, but on the sales drive that I can only access via the VPN.
I could have my admin person send me the files, but my e-mail has a limit on how much information that it can store and it's been telling me for 2 weeks now that I'm OVER my limit and I need to delete some older e-mails or I may not be able to send or receive any new e-mail.

There have been many a time, when pulling up an e-mail from 6 months ago has saved me a lot of time and frustration. I have to be very careful which files I delete and which I save.

Anyway...that's another subject for another time.

My day basically when like this:

Click on to the "S" drive

wait a few minutes

Click on the folder you need from the "S" drive

wait a few minutes

Click on the sub-folder in the folder on the "S" drive

wait a few minutes

Click on the file that you need that is in the sub-folder that is in the folder that is on the "S" drive.

wait a few more minutes

Save this file to my local drive so I don't have to deal with this anymore. Instantaneous!!!

The only thing that actually took longer was trying to save a file back on to the "S" drive. It would render everything else on my computer useless until that function was completed.

It was a loooooooooooooooong freakin' day.

I was frustrated and angry and exhausted by the end of it.

Unfortunately, I don't think there are any plans to re-vamp this system in the near future. Having remote users is a fairly new concept to our company and it's just not high on the priority list.

It just goes to show you...if it's not one thing is another! If I am not driving 1 1/2 hours to get to my job, then I'm waiting forever to access files that I need to have.

C'est la vie!