Wednesday, 6 July 2011

Forced home office

Basically, the home office concept does not exist in Uganda. Nobody believes that anybody could possible get some work done while at home. Home basically consists of dinner, fighting for the remote control and finally TV and bed.

AMFIU get's its power from the main power line running somewhere along the road. So in order to connect to this main line, there's a smaller supply line from our office building spanning a few other premises until it reaches the road and the main power line there. Recently, our neighbour decided that he didn't want our power supply line crossing his premises anymore. In fact, common regulations require us to be in possession of a letter by each premise owner expressing his/her agreement to pass our power supply line above his premises. Of course we don't have such letter, so one day one of our neighbours must have had a quarrel with his wife, was bitten by an ant or found a cockroach in his breakfast... He called the UMEME guys and had our power supply cable removed. You can see our cable hanging down from the pole (red circle):

AMFIU kept on running for 2 days on backup power and everybody thought it was a regular power cut, but once our backup was empty that was the end of it. Nothing was working anymore. No phones could be charged anymore, no computer was working, no lights, no hot water for tea (!!), no servers, no internet and no emails. It almost felt like the end of AMFIU. No communication coming in, no communication going out, we were deaf, dumb and blind.
While a family in a home with no power would bring the existing kids to bed and get busy producing new babies - well, that's not quite what happens at the office. Still it is nice, because you spend some time chatting with your colleagues, what you might not have done otherwise. But after knowing all the details of each cousin second grade, I'm itching to get some work done. And in fact - home is the place to go: There's power, internet, email, water, tables, chairs, a terrace and even sodas, gnuts and some chocolate. Eh - don't forget to get some work done!!

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