Internet problems at my house entail conversions like
“Ugh…what’s wrong with the wifi? It’s so slow!”
“Dad, your wifi sucks!” <– teenage kids
“John, come fix my computer.” <– my amazing wife
During COVID, it’s especially crappy because these happen more often and interrupt me working.
In the Philippines…it’s different.
Julia, my Online Filipino Content Specialist wrote
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Let me start by saying that I know I am luckier than most. I have a job AND the resources that would make it easy for my child to study from home.
But even with that, homeschooling/online classes are tough. You’re never really prepared for it. I’m used to working from home. I’m not used to working from home plus being an unpaid teaching assistant and tech support on school days.
What causes me the most amount of stress is when I’m having problems with my internet connection.
Internet problems are a way of life in the Philippines. I’m used to it. So when it happens, I already have ways to manage it.
Most of the time, I just wait it out or restart my router. I’ll use that time to have coffee, do some chores or take a quick nap. Once my internet connection is stable again, I just go back to work.
If waiting things out doesn’t solve things, I just bring out my back up internet.
If my back-up internet is also having problems and I have deadlines I need to meet, I go to a coffeeshop or a co-working space and finish working there.
See? Everything is under control.
But when you have a student at home, having internet problems feels like a matter of life or death. My daughter panics every time our internet speed dips or gets cut off. And when she panics, I panic. Funny how it always seems to happen when they’re taking tests or in the middle of a very important lecture.
And I made the mistake of letting my daughter’s school know that I’m a virtual assistant. For some reason, for other parents that meant I’m their go-to-gal whenever they have technical problems.
I can’t wait for this pandemic to end.
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Internet outages happen.
Kids happen.
Pandemics apparently happen (11 months ago…who knew!?!)
John
PS. By reading The Outsourcing Lever you’ll get a good idea of a lot of situations like this and how to handle them.