As many of you are aware this is not just a relaxing, early retirement trip around Europe.  I am continuing my day job, for which I’m contracted to complete 40 hours a week. Of course I always end up doing more hours than I’m contracted to so this takes up a huge part of any day and gives the day a structure that I’d rather not have. Crawling out bed when the van is cold and dark to sit at the desk is difficult. But I’m finding my concentration is good once I’m sat at it. I sit in the driver’s seat turned to face the table. I do have various support cushions and a foot rest as I am subject, like many humans, to a bad back but I have found a combination that is working well.   I was concerned about the demarcation of the working space. At home I rarely go in the room I work from out of working hours. Here I am finding I tend not to sit in the same seat in an evening. It’s working for me. John is also working at the moment so we sit side by side, and I like the bit of company, the ability to say the odd quip during the day but working alongside someone who knows I have to get on with it.  Of course as John nears his deadline on the website he is doing I’m having to do some of the household chores in an evening, otherwise these normally all get left to him.

So how do I work?  First what to I do for a living? Put simply I am an IT project manager, managing the development of software.  I actually work for an open source consultancy and my main project at the moment is developing an OS distribution aimed primarily at the embedded automotive industry (Apertis if any of you want to try it), but I have worked on XR, multimedia and graphic projects  as well. This tends not be be front end stuff, but down in the “bowels” of the systems (sorry to any IT people reading this or indeed any Collaborans). The main reason I can work from a motorhome is because the company I work for are specialists and only employee world class leaders in their fields, which means we have to look to the at the whole globe to be able to find enough staff.  The result is that the people I work with all work from home and come from literally everywhere. On my currently project I have people from Taiwan, China, Brazil and multiple European countries. My fellow project managers come from Argentina, Peru and Canada. So where I work from is not an issue, having access constantly to the internet to do various forms of video conferences, as well as text heavy stuff is important.

We have 2 methods of connecting to the internet.

1)iboost – this is a wifi booster, claims to boost the wifi single by up to 10 times.  You stick a receiver in the van window and point it in the direction of the wifi (normally on a toilet block or service point).  You then have a router in the van to which you can wirelessly (or via wire) connect all your devices. We have found this surprising good, but not good enough for video conferences.  The advantage of this method is that, so far, it has been free on all the aires we have been on. We are selecting only aires that offer wifi.

2)myfi – this is connected to a 4G antenna that is permanently situated on top of the van.  It uses mobile data just like your phone. We are subject to black spots just as on the phone, but with a large ariel on the roof of the van as yet we have not hit a total black spot even when the phone has failed to pick up data.  Just like your phone it needs a sim card, which sits in a router to which you connect wirelessly. We carry a stack of sims. We have both EE and 3 sims from the UK. The issue with UK sims is you have to read the small print, many will restrict usage if you use them abroad for too long.  We have a system in place whereby we return the sims home and get them used at home, before returning them back to us. As yet we haven’t been here long enough to have to do this. Of course this means I lose my phone number! We also have purchased a french sim from Free. This allows 100gb data and unlimited calls to Europe.  So far this is proving a real benefit as I make a lot of phone calls. We are not 100% sure how this will work as we move from France. Having all the 3 sims means that when you do hit a dull mobile spot you can normally find one that works.

So working at the moment really is working and not proving an issue at all.