by Chloe Gunn
At Catalyst we are striving to attain normality in our personal lives and reliability in our professional life. The latter is appearing the easier of the two. To maintain our community, share our struggles and tips for working at home, we will be publishing a regular blog with a different Catalysta each time. Today we met Ben, a Developer from our headquarters in Wellington.
One thing that has become increasingly evident throughout the Catalyst at Home profiles is that routine may just be the glue that is keeping us together during this time (mentally, not physically), and Ben’s no different, “I get up at the same time, wearing what I'd usually wear to the office, then sometimes I'll hop on a video call with my usual ‘coffee friends’ and make a coffee.”
Update: ok, confession time this interview was carried out early into our lockdown period - Ben would like us to know that two weeks in he has succumbed to sweat pants - yes, join us Ben.
During this time, Catalyst encourages virtual break-rooms - we can’t get coffee together and gather around the coffee machine – but we can pretend, heck you can even shout over the imaginary coffee grinder if it helps make it more real for you. Just no slurping into the mic, k?
But back to the important stuff, for breakfast, Ben has, “a couple of slices of toast and an apple.” Ok, so it’s not ground-breaking stuff, however, Ben opts for a red Royal Gala, and that’s a real treat in the apple world.
Ben’s bubble consists of him and his wife, Shilpi – they are both working from their living area. Shilpi called dibs on the dining table, while Ben is using a desk that he almost sold pre-COVID due to neglect – how ironic, that desk in basking in attention now.
Ben talks to the point that this experience for Catalyst has been more of an office relocation, we prepared for COVID-19 before it arrived in New Zealand. So we were prepared and comfortable to weather the storm at home.
Ben feels lucky that in reality if we are careful we can still wander around and go food shopping.
Ben is using this downtime to get back into video gaming, “I'm replaying Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4 and the original Final Fantasy VII on Playstation 1. I'm waiting for the Deluxe version of the Final Fantasy VII remake to release on May 15th.”
Well, if Ben goes quiet from the 15th of May – we know why! Also, please enjoy this compilation of Horizon Zero Dawn’s biggest fails. Seven minutes well spent in my opinion, highlight being minute 2:53.
Ben and Shilpi are currently renting and feel very lucky to have a nice garden to enjoy. They try to go outside for exercise every day but don't always succeed (relateable).
Ben is missing the workplace banter at Catalyst (and boy do we banter)but is glad everyone is staying safe during this period and he is very much looking forward to seeing his family again.
If you enjoyed reading this, be sure to check out our other Catalyst at Home profiles: Bex, Dena, Liam, Jess, Alan, Billy and Paul.
Don’t forget to follow Catalyst on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Catalyst is a New Zealand owned and operated company where openness, long term relationships, community and diversity are essential characteristics of how we do business. Since 1997, Catalyst has been enabling success with expert open source solutions, and clients all over the world trust us with their mission-critical systems.