It is a new challenge and adventure at the same time. RV touring the country was something I expected to do between employers but with COVID-19, there is no reason to be in NYC.
It has not been easy but it is preferable to being holed up in a small Brooklyn basement in an uncomfortable chair. Some thoughts and insights on traveling.
My perch locations depending upon the time of day and activity:
Driver Seat with my Wheeldesk early in the mornings when the kids are still asleep. This desk fits perfectly on the large rig steering wheel with lost of space.
Bedroom once the kids are up and making noise if the weather is bad. Not great because it is an RV and noise doesn’t really care about hollow walls and doors. This is closest one can get to open floor plan in the office. Noise canceling headphones and I can bang out a powerpoint like I’m in the office.
Outside enjoying the sun and views. In San Diego, people loved the view of canyons behind me and it was always a topic of discussion prior to meetings. In RV parks this has to be done carefully. Good fold out chair plus end of a picnic table equals good work product.
Walking around… When I’m on the phone with a customer and we are talking about their needs and my current products, I walk. Walking in great as it creates a natural rhythm for listening as your body is moving and would prefer to breath over talk. When dealing with customers, the more you listen the better as a product manager.
Nearly all RV parks have WIFI available checked on their profiles. I feel that if you advertise WIFI available you are making a blood bonded covenant with me to supply unfettered internet access like I’m at Starbucks.
Technically, WIFI is a networking technology. It is not bandwidth. The fundamental issue is location where you park your RV. If you are in or near a national park like the Redwoods or Sequoias, internet backbones backhoes have probably gone out of their way to avoid the area. Same with cell towers.
Nearly all RV parks offer WIFI with constraints. The best give you a down and up cap measured in Mbytes per second, something like 5 Mb/s down and 1 Mb/s up. You can work with that for nearly anything including streaming movies, video conferences, and emailing powerpoint files. The issue is when everyone in the park is trying to use it at the same time. Generally, evening and all weekend you should expect little to no internet. Holiday weekends, don’t bother.
The worst case scenario is a Mbyte cap. Our first RV stop for 4 days gave WIFI access with 5Mb down and 2Mb up which was fantastic. Printed just below those limits was a cap of 2500 Mbytes. In other words, over 4 days I could only consume 2.5 GB of data. It took 6 hours then I had to fallback to using my personal cellular plan.
At this moment, you realize that WIFI is a technology, not a service. Learning to tame your wifi frustrations is critical and an evergreen challenge.
They also tend to use these services that issue you a code which when used is locked to the MAC address of the device. So either use a specialized RV wifi product like wifiranger that acts like a router or be ok using one device.
Finally, have a backup or multiple backups. We have 2 wifi router systems made to share distant wifi signals, 2 phones on different cellular plans, and finally a Mifi Device plus external antenna. All of these have come in handy at one point or another.
Check out Mobile Internet Resource Center for learning how to dial in you internet setup (and expectations)
Getting meaningful work done 100% remote in the middle of a pandemic is near impossible. At home you are distracted by the kids, the honey-do list, stalking your Amazon Prime delivery, or just thinking about the ice cream sitting in the freezer. RV distractions are the same. The only major difference between the RV and a home is there is always something to do on the RV that just needs 5 minutes of your time. Dump the tanks, check the power supply, check the tire pressure readings, clean the windshield of bugs, sweep the floor, how is the propane level, chop some kindling for tonights fire, and about a million other things.
My only trick, which I use in the office, is to write down and accomplish the one thing that I must do today. With that, I can ensure I keep progress, focus, and delivery on the important items. Interesting, the unimportant things tend to disappear, the people who need you in a meeting, but you know they don’t, figure it out on their own. Sometimes the only thing I need to accomplish is clearing out my backlog of issues and requests. By balancing these larger and smaller accomplishments, I’m able to keep cadence.