Working Very Remotely

Mia digs her toes around the rough gravel of the beach and opens her laptop. It is 4:55 am here on Pitcairn Island, one of the most remote islands in the world. Her laptop connects to the satellite internet just in time for her meeting on Teams to begin.

“Hi all,” she says as everyone says hello.

“I love your background,” Debbie says. “Looks like you’re on the beach.”

“Yeah, it’s one of those hyper realistic ones,” Mia says.

“You’ll be back in the office tomorrow, right?” Alex asks her.

“Yes, of course,” Mia says. Even if there was a way to travel the 5600 miles directly back to the office, she could not do it in one day.

They start the meeting while Mia looks out over the dark water.

“Excuse me, Mia, are those sea birds I hear?” Alex asks. She forgot to mute her mic.

“Just my alarm going off,” she says. “Sorry.”

The meeting is almost over when it suddenly starts to rain with tropical ferocity. The team gets a split second of a drenched Mia before she turns off the camera and leaves the meeting.

Back in her hotel room, she reconnects to the internet through the Wifi. Luckily the computer is okay.

Hey all, sorry for the disruption in the meeting. My ceiling sprang a leak. I need to get the contractors out here to look at it. I guess I’ll have to work remotely for a few more days while I get this figured out. I’ll let you know.

She isn’t sure how this will all turn out, but she only takes things a day at a time. She answers a few more emails, then goes back to bed.