Fixing Faxes - Remote Work During Covid

Sep 29 2020 30 mins

This episode delves into working remotely, and how Two Story Robot responded to the pandemic. Jonathan designed his company as a remote-first technology company and there was a lot of benefit to this when COVID hit. They found themselves in a unique position, ready for remote work but still had to deal with the pandemic. At the forefront of remote work they had a lot of knowledge to share, and we dig into this.

Check out the blog post on this topic they published.

Find Us Online

Angela Hapke - @angelahapke - https://www.clinnect.ca

Jonathan Bowers - @thejonotron - https://www.twostoryrobot.com

Credits

Produced by Jonathan Bowers and Angela Hapke

Music by Andrew Codeman (CC BY 3.0)

Transcript

Jonathan: [00:00:00] Hey, just a heads up. This episode of fixing faxes does have a couple of swear words in it. They're not like the big swear words, just some of the lower order swear words. Um, but they're still swear words. Anyways, if that matters to you. Maybe skip this one.

very few bongs last time that was better,

uh,

Angela: [00:00:20] was very, uh, trying very hard, not to whack anything on my

Jonathan: [00:00:26] I had, I had four more far more bongs, uh, in mine. I'm not sure. Cause I've moved my mic over here. I'm not used to it. I want a different boom. Uh, Justin Jackson posted a picture of him and I was like, what's that thing? It's cool. It doesn't have it's. It's like all the, all the mechanisms are inside the arm.

It looks very, very cool. Um, it's not that expensive, but it doesn't, it's not going to help me cause it's not, it's not longer. I want something longer.

Angela: [00:00:51] Oh, you want like a,

like a professional

Jonathan: [00:00:55] yeah. I want something to come down from the roof and maybe on like a track that I can just like short

slide it around and it can help me in and out of, in another of the bath. Um, that sounds awesome.

Intro [00:01:09]

You're listening to Fixing Faxes, a podcast on the journey of building a digital health startup with your host, Jonathan Bowers.

Angela: [00:01:17] And myself Angela Hapke. So Nora got to sent home with a book on Friday.

Jonathan: [00:01:25] I thought you were,

Angela: [00:01:27] Just got sent home from

Jonathan: [00:01:28] She got sent home with a cold.

Angela: [00:01:30] Nope. She got sent home with this book on, on Friday and I found it in her, in her, her bag that she comes home with and I said, Oh Brad, I think Nora stole a book from daycare and he goes, Oh, Nope.

Uh, actually her daycare, uh, teachers sent it home specifically for her. Uh, for us to read to her because of it's all about a froggy, but needs to share his pond.

Jonathan: [00:01:58] subtle hint.

Angela: [00:01:59] no. It was nothing subtle about it. She was very clear. So it's September there is, there's a big transition change in daycare. Lots of new kids starting Nora is one of the older kids now at the right, the old age of three. And, um, It's having a wee bit of trouble with the new children and sharing her, sharing her pond, uh, including friends and space. So Brad reads the book to Nora, uh, and I'm laying with her, she's going to sleep last night. And I say, Oh, did you know, did daddy read you a book tonight? Yeah. Nora is it about a froggy who share a pond. And I was like, Oh, well that sounds like a really good book. She's kind of silent. And she goes, there are a lot of new kids at daycare and I was like, yeah.

And sh this is what she says. I'm not prepared for that. Yeah.

Jonathan: [00:03:01] She's Oh, she's three. So she she has not only the self awareness to know that she's not prepared, but also understands that this book has been sent home to help her cope with that and create some strategies to share.

Angela: [00:03:16] Oh, never underestimate your children.

Jonathan: [00:03:23] That's so funny.

Angela: [00:03:24] Anyway, I had to tell you that story because it was just too adorable.

Jonathan: [00:03:28] I love that.

Angela: [00:03:30] I not prepared for that.

Okay.

Jonathan: [00:03:34] that's a big word prepared.

Angela: [00:03:36] I know she says "p-pared", but yeah. No. I know,

Remote Work [00:03:46]

Yeah. So today we wanted to talk a little bit about, um, working remotely. This is a huge topic right now, uh, with, uh, COVID and a lot people working remotely, a lot of people that have never worked remotely are now working remotely. A lot of people that have worked remotely or some, what worked remotely are now a hundred percent working remotely and just all the, the spectrum of, of working at home to working in the office.

And Two Story Robot does a really. Um, a really cool way of, of handling remote work, um, because you guys have done it by design right from the get go almost. And I just, I thought it'd be really cool to talk about that.

Jonathan: [00:04:31] Thank you. Yeah. Um, It is by design, but it doesn't account for a pandemic.

Angela: [00:04:41] Fair enough.

Jonathan: [00:04:42] Like we, we have been, we have been remote pretty much from the beginning. I mean, most of us actually do work out of, out of one office. Um, there was six of us that have one office and then a few sort of scattered about everywhere.

Um, but we've always, we've always taken the stance that if you can do your work remotely, then the work in the office will just benefit from that. And that, that, that has proven true. Like, we were very good at documenting. We're very good at communicating digitally. Um, we don't have to have meetings and when we do have, uh, zoom calls, they tend to be, um, Better than the average zoom call that I've attended for other teams, just because we're used to it, we understand the process behind it and the empathize with everyone.

part of it came from the MBA program, actually.

Yeah. Cause I did what we did. We both did the MBA at Sauder and I was, uh, although we had to go down for the actual courses and the classwork. A lot of the project work happened remotely. And so, um, I got to experience both, uh, working with a team that was physically close to each other so they could meet.

And then I was the remote one and then occasionally there was like, all the remote people were put on a team and we would work remotely. Those meetings always went way better.

Angela: [00:05:58] Yes. I found the same thing. I usually got put on the PR on the team with all the remote people also. and let's also be clear that you didn't just finish your MBA. That is over it's over 10 years ago now, right?