No Open Blockers

I always get one of two reactions when I tell people I work from home:
“Oh man, that’s so great, I’d do no work.”
“How do you actually get any work done?”

I’ve been at Red Hat for two and a half years now, so by now I should hope I’ve settled in and found a way to get things done. A bunch of my students were curious about what my “home office” looks like (and I’m waiting on some really, really long test cases to run), so I figured I’d give a quick virtual tour.

Pro: I have a window with a view…
Con: … of nothing.

Above the windows are autographed pictures of MMA champions: Rich Franklin, Tito Ortiz, and Matt Hughes. The plant is hanging on for dear life and trying to survive the two months between when I actually remember to water it.

I think much better on a white board. I also tend to organize using colors, so the 12 pack of various markers has been a solid investment. And if I catch any of my students not recognizing that the spaceships are straight out of Space Invaders, you immediately fail.

One side of my desk is almost entirely devoted to monitors. For a while I was running dual-monitors with the center and right monitor, I just haven’t set it up again since my last install. The left monitor belongs to whatever random machine I have in my office at the time. That’s my work laptop on the left where I keep up on e-mail and my work chat rooms.

The Red Hat posters were an attempt to keep the office professional. As you can see, that failed pretty miserably. My office is the one area of the house that’s mine, so I felt inclined to go a bit overboard with the weird decorations.