Saturday, November 17, 2012

Getting ready to work from home

One of our benefits is an allowance to help us set up an office at home. We each receive some money to equip our home office with things like a desk, a chair, a printer, a phone, etc.
We have the desk, my grand-mother's table and the printer recently bought. But we were still missing a few critical elements like the chair.
As part of our relocation we were entitle to half a day of orientation in our area with the objective to help us find what we need. We had shared a full list of items covering a wide range: French and German bakeries, shoe repair, domestic help, sofa, DYI shop, etc.
As we wanted to have Lena who was so helpful during our Look See trip, it took a while before we could do our orientation. She is very popular therefore very busy.
Today she picked us up around 2:30pm and took us to several furniture shops in Singapore that are "warehouse". What this means is that those shops are not in shopping area but in a warehouse, which means their rent is lower, and therefore their prices as well. Smart, isn't it? We saw very nice "warehouses" with very nice furniture. Not sure any would have a sofa that suits us but for sure should we need shelves, table or any Asian style furniture we know where to go now.
In one of them we found office chairs and took the opportunity to try them all. We did find one that worked for both of us which is not easy given 1) we are taller than the average Singaporean and 2) Wolfram is taller than me so usually what works for me doesn't work for him and the other way around. This time we found and at a reasonable price. Wolfram tried hard to negotiate but the shop assistant was not willing to go down more than 10S$. Still an office chair for 420S$ (270EUR) is pretty ok.
After that Lena took us to another shopping center where we can buy discounted electronics. We bought two fans for only 55S$ each: one for the office, one for the living room. Both working with a remote which is cool. Once we have a sofa we will be able to switch the fan on/off without getting up. We also bought an extra phone.
Why one more phone? because we have three phone lines:
- our private one
- Lamia's work
- Wolfram's work
Thus we need three phones and we only had two. We bought one extra Siemens, same collection as the one we have now. In theory we could connect them all and create a massive phone network at home.

By 6pm we were back home with most of what we need to work from home (chair will be delivered on Tuesday), plenty of addresses for furniture shops, contacts for domestic help agencies and the address of "the" French bakery of Singapore.
Quite efficient afternoon I have to say.

Now let's get the internet to work properly.
After my call on Thursday night, and Wolfram's on Friday, they will send a "senior" technician tomorrow. Let's see if he is any better than the one from last week.

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