Work-from-home for INQUIRER.net employees uncovers hidden gems
(Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of reports about Inquirer.net’s 23rd anniversary. It deals with the work-from-home setup adopted by the company due to COVID-19 pandemic.)
CEBU CITY, Philippines—How does work from home sound to you? Some will say it’s relaxing, while others will describe it as draining.
Work from home situations really depend on how one adjusts to remote office conditions.
How? Again, it depends on how you set the tone of working from home.
It’s just like some of these INQUIRER.net employees, who shared their daily routines in short videos for a contest, “Dotnet Cribs WFH Edition.”
Through 26 videos, some of Dotnet’s employees showed how to balance work and play where work didn’t seem to have a place before the pandemic.
Yes, COVID-19 was behind this.
So, let’s see how some of our co-workers manage their time as they work from home.
Music plays a huge role in some of the employees’ routines. Take the case of Jester Burgos, from sales and marketing, who displayed his talent in beating drums in a video captioned “Tug Tak.”
It’s a unique caption, don’t you think? He really fits in well in his department as Vida Tan, head of sales and marketing, showed her skills in playing the guitar as well.
They should be guests in Brandroom, don’t you think?
Whingky Olarte’s day consists of playing music, fulfilling his roles as father and husband and showing his love for plants. Olarte lets us in into his waking hours, conversations with his plants, doing house chores in a day filled with work, play and work.
It’s a brief video but it shows so much about how Olarte is all of these combined—father, husband, plant lover, homebody and dedicated Dotnet employee.
Let’s head on to Ves Garcia, one of Dotnet’s social media agents, who starts her video with a teacher-like presentation.
Ves has set the bar high for others, waking up before her shift begins, cleaning the house, going out for groceries, helping prepare breakfast, operating a sari-sari store, bathing her dog then getting ready for work.
And it’s just in the morning. Whew!
When her shift starts at 10 a.m., Ves transforms into the socmed guru we know her to be. She winds up her day by preparing dinner for the family and cleaning after them, too.
You’re a model child, Ves.
Julie Medrano, of the Digicon department, takes us out of Metro Manila to show her work-from-home setup.
While most of us get not-so-relaxing views from our homes, Julie shows greenery and freshness in her work-from-home location in the province of Batangas.
From Batangas, let’s head down to the Queen City of the South, Cebu.
Immae Lachica, of Cebu Daily News Digital, was the only one from the CDN family to let us into her daily life, unedited. She shows getting up every morning, taking the stairs to her office nook and starting her day as a social media specialist and reporter for CDN.
Her video shows her wearing a coat over workout clothes, a glimpse into her other love, yoga.
Let’s not forget Imee Alcantara’s video and TikTok entries, too.
Working from home brings the good and the bad. Good because it makes us all safe from the pandemic. Bad because we do miss the office.
The coffee breaks, the gossip minutes and the food trips.
While we get used to working from home, let’s remember the days we spent together at the office as INQUIRER.net adds another year to its glory days as one of the Philippines’ leading online media outlets.
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