Business on the road

There’s a lot of talk about the joys of being able to work remotely. It’s a fine idea, but to actually do it can be a pain sometimes.

One of the big issues is getting access to everything. The financial stuff can be the worse. I ran into some problems with one of my banks. Sure, I remembered the password, but because I was logging in from a new location they asked challenge questions. Even when you know the answer that doesn’t mean you can successfully log in.

Here’s an example. Let’s say the question is the name of the doctor who delivered my first child. I know it was Doctor Jones. However, did I write Doctor Jones, Dr. Jones, Doctor Bob Jones, or Dr. bob Jones, or Doctor Bob O. Jones? The spelling has to exact. I guessed wrong on the spelling and was locked out.

Yesterday I had a meeting over Skype. It took almost an hour to get all the connections and the audio just right. Later one of my partners sent me an audio copy . . . and the file would not open.

That’s with a good wifi connection. It can be tough to get a decent connection. I still haven’t gotten my hotspot device to work properly. Maybe later today.

Next month I’ll be in a remote location where the only cell service is provided by AT&T. I’m not sure if I’ve got anything that can connect with that service. Worse come to worse I’ll look for a burner phone that piggybacks on AT&T.

One of these days satellite communications will be fast enough and cheap enough that none of this will matter . . . or the whole technological world will collapse. Either way, my problems will be solved.

-Sixbears