Desperately Seeking Service
The sidecar of Malgar’s father-in-law’s motorcycle is definitely the weirdest place I’ve ever done a meeting.
For the vast majority of this trip, work and life have flowed pretty seamlessly. Late afternoon (in Europe), dinnertime (in the Middle East), and early evening (in Asia) have allowed me pretty much unaltered meeting times that line up with EST mornings a couple of days per week. Only about once a month has work interrupted something I wanted to do with the family, a rate that’s probably lower than it is at home.
I have missed a couple of meetings unintentionally (e.g. a storm killed power in Nepal). A couple of times I have had awkward audio (once memorably in France when it sounded like we were being attacked by ducks), More often, I have not been able to get video, but that's often true of my colleagues working from home as well (particularly in Texas.).
But when the satellite went down in Palawan in the Philippines, when I had previously scheduled particularly time-sensitive, multi-party meetings, two of which I was leading, I got a little desperate.
That's how I ended up riding a half-hour in a motorcycle sidecar to the nearest cell tower repeater, which was perched on a streetlight on a mostly deserted stretch of road. The lovely host at our house had promised internet, and he was determined to deliver - as long I was willing to be a little flexible.
Armed with my laptop, Malgar.'s hotspot, my cell phone, a battery powered lantern, some SIM cards, and a lot of bug spray, I ended up leading meetings sitting on the bench that had doubled as the sidecar’s seat on the way there with my laptop propped up on the side rails.
It mostly worked. I only dropped 3 times in 4 hours - though nerve- wracking ly once for 5 minutes while I was mid - presentation.
It's not an experience I would care to repeat, but also not one I will forget.
Malgar (on the far right) was awesome - playing video games on his phone for 4 hours and listening to one-side of the conversation. At the end he asked, “what is it exactly that you do?”
