This is a space where we enjoy talking about the many benefits of using hosted communications and how we’re fortunate enough to bring them to the variety of businesses that rely on them. However, today, instead of talking about the interesting people and technologies that keep our products online, I have a less exciting but very real situation to discuss. Early this morning as I was getting ready to head into the office a most unpleasant sight greeted me before I left. Instead of finding my car dew-covered and ready to depart, I found the sidewalk to be glass-covered and ready to be swept for prints. Yes, I had been the victim of a senseless car break-in. And for the record, nobody sweeps for prints in this situation as it is, woefully, all too frequent of an occurrence for most people to bat an eye at. The point of this is to say that, while we have often discussed how the remote-first nature of cloud-based communications like Dash make it easy to work from exciting and exotic locations, those same features apply to the mundane parts of life, too.
San Francisco Auto Break-Ins
Car burglary, like I mentioned, is a bit of a scourge of life in the City by the Bay. In fact, if you want to get a bit of a depressing look at crime in San Francisco, you can play around with the city government’s Crime Heat Map and you can get a vivid picture of the amount of property crime that occurs in this otherwise magnificent city. Therefore, while many San Franciscans may be known for the tech industry’s many employment benefits like unlimited PTO or on-site chefs, we’re also known to spend regular working hours in one of the city’s many auto glass repair facilities. I’d like to give a special shout-out to the fast wifi at my personal favorite, In and Out Auto Glass, without which I’d be unable to upload this blog today. Of course, even if I wasn’t able to access a webpage, I’d still be connected to my business communications network thanks to my VirtualPBX Softphone App that operates over the same data network that powers my mobile phone.
The Moral Of the Story
The point of sharing this personal experience with you all is not to play the world’s smallest violin for an unfortunate start to a weekday. Quite the contrary. The point is to illustrate just how useful it is to be able to be flexible when it comes from working remotely. Sure, you can use the tools we talk about here to boost your holiday hours by hitting the road early, but they also work for life’s less glamorous events, too. I’d also add that when unfortunate events like this one occur, the ability to work remotely is even more valuable because unlike vacations, car break-ins don’t take your work schedule into account beforehand.
So what’s a frustrating reason you’ve had to leave work? Tell us about it on Twitter or Facebook because misery loves company. And also, if you ever come and visit our world-class, lovely city of San Francisco, or any large metropolitan area for that matter, make sure to leave nothing of value in your car. You can trust me on this one.
