Merkle quarantine diary - week 2

At noon there is the first Mindfulness Session for all Merkle employees. I squeeze my yoga mat onto the last free space next to my extended dining table. 30 minutes of meditation and come to rest. I love Shavasana. Afterwards I feel a little better. Namaste.

More valuable than ever is our joke chat. The "Frankfurter Lachkeller" chat was founded a few years ago after too many supposedly meaningless comments were posted in the location chat. In the meantime, it has become an institution that has made a name for itself beyond location boundaries. Laughter is still the best medicine!

From the setup we are as an agency super prepared for home office. The switch to remote working is technically very easy. It is more the routine we all have to get used to. Fixed break times, really folding the laptop in the evening - sometimes it's really difficult to create distance. And we all notice that 8 hours in a row looking at the screen and communicating exclusively via hangouts is pretty exhausting. It's quite different from having a different setting in the office and, above all, having meetings together on site. That's why it's really helpful that our colleagues Michael and Pirmin have put together a few tips for remote workshops and working from home. You can take a look at it here.

But working at home also has advantages. Just recently the new bistro in Frankfurt was opened. On the 5th floor with a great view of the skyline. But since then the way to the coffee machine has been much longer. Now the coffee machine is right next to me. And I have moved my dining table to the window so that I sit directly in the sun. So it can be worked :-)

Happy Friday! This is how we always welcome each other in Project Daily. We are currently working hard on the further development of Ingenuity. Because in times like these, a digital platform for exchange on future topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Smart Cities or Future of Work is more in demand than ever. As a Product Owner Consultant, I'm working with my team colleagues at Siemens on how we can make our product even better, especially in times of Corona. And so the week flies by with many concept & design discussions, technical coordination and sprint changes. 

Before I go into the weekend, I look through our intranet to see what the others have done: This week we pitched, held workshops, one project went live, ... A little bit of what happens then.

Next week I have vacation. Actually I wanted to go to Lake Garda with my family. Instead, I'm now doing all kinds of things I somehow never did before: Putting up plant shelves, reading books, trying Disney+, and maybe, but really only if there's still time, maybe I'll go jogging. My inner bastard is probably not yet in exceptional mode. A good sign :-)