May 31, 2021 - by CSCS
Tomas Aliaga (Software Engineer) interviews Daniel Ganellari (Software Engineer).
How would you describe your overall experience working from home?
Daniel: Well, it has been quite the experience I must say. In the beginning it was a bit hard, because suddenly you find yourself working from home and, at the same time, you have to take care of two children. That takes some effort, but then you get used to it and start to manage the situation better. Clearly I miss working in the office, especially the whiteboard discussions and coffee break chats, which are things I look forward to enjoying again soon, but currently I feel very comfortable working from home.
What was the most difficult change for you in the last year?
It has certainly been a hard year, and I believe we all had to adapt to change at some point. Personally for me, it was a bit difficult to manage when the schools closed for some time.
How do you balance work and life during a pandemic?
During the pandemic, obviously the work-life balance has gained more importance. To maintain that balance, I try to alternate the work with other activities that would help me disconnect and recharge to enable wellbeing and achieve job satisfaction at the same time. Sometimes these activities include running in the forest or taking my children out for a walk by the lake. Other times, reading a novel in the afternoon before I get back to my technical task at hand has proven to be very relaxing.
Do you have any interesting books, courses or projects you’ve embarked on in the last months?
Actually, there is this one C++ book that was suggested to me months ago, and I find it really good. It is called “Functional Programming in C++'' by Ivan Cukic. I also attended the recent CI/CD course from CSCS, which helped improve my skills on continuous integration and deployment of scientific software.
If you could change anything (e.g. environment, tools, schedules, etc.), how would you improve your current working experience?
I think that I have all the needed tools and a really good environment to ensure a good work experience. However, the possibility to gradually start going back to the office while keeping the option of working from home is a change that I would gladly welcome.