Confusing times, compassionate crew

Those who know me well know I don’t do this often, but after a truly unprecedented week I find myself sitting here with my hands on the keyboard. There’s plenty of uncertainty in the world right now, yet in the past week I was lucky to witness something amazingly positive and remarkable.

Along with many other businesses, we made the decision at Expel last Monday to move to 100 percent remote work. We gave our crew about 36 hours to wrap things up and get themselves situated at home. 

In the best of circumstances, something like this would create stress, surprise and more than a little chaos, let alone during a pandemic where we’re each concerned about the physical well being of loved ones, friends and ourselves.

I saw no stress, surprise or chaos. I witnessed the opposite.

Every member of our crew was calm, deliberate, competent and compassionate. 

Between Monday at 9am and Tuesday at 5pm we moved 100 percent of our activities, including our 24x7 SOC, to fully remote operations, all the while continuing to provide great service to our customers during a very stressful time. 

Everyone leaned in to help each other.

• Our #parents Slack channel lit up with ideas on working from home with kids, complete with color-coded daily schedules, crafting ideas and suggestions on new educational apps to check out.
• Our amazing IT team continued their stellar record of first-class support, checking in with everyone as they packed their things. They hauled monitors to cars and provided all the cables,cords and widgets people would need at home to be productive.
• Our crew members offered well-timed jokes that provided a much-needed smile during a week where few of those were to be had. They scheduled virtual coffee dates through Zoom, and our already-remote staff shared tips and tricks for those of us who don’t do this every day.
• On Wednesday afternoon, we had our first fully remote all-hands meeting. You’d think we’d been running that way since we started the company. A few Expletives even remarked that they enjoyed the virtual all-hands experience more, as they loved keeping up with the entertaining commentary in the Zoom chat during the meeting.  

If we hadn’t told our customers (but of course we did) they would have never known anything changed. And frankly, aside from where people were working, it hadn’t. Our great security, IT and engineering crew built Expel from the ground up for exactly this scenario, crafting a visionary strategy and executing it with meticulous attention to detail over these past 3+ years.

I am proud, awestruck and humbled all at the same time. 

To my amazing crew of Expletives: It’s an honor to work with you. Thank you for being the great people you are. We will get through this. Together.

Stay safe and healthy, everyone.