Working in the Deep Dark South

Posted on 24/08/2009 by Steve Devereux
Kaseya, Lab Life

Hi all, my name is Steve Devereux and I am an Engineer here at the Lab.

I have been working for ITLab now for 8 years. 5 of those have been spent working remotely from the tranquillity of Napier, New Zealand. Yes, that’s right, New Zealand! That little piece of heaven 12,000 Miles away!

What about the time zone? Working nights? The sleeping? The loneliness? I hear you ask… Well it used to be like that, definitely. As NZ is basically 12 hours ahead of GMT and working the Support Desk I naturally had to work GMT Business Hours. This plays havoc in all aspects of your life. However, these days I work as part of the Kaseya Development Team, allowing me to help maintain our Clients Servers, Workstations in the dead of night – while everyone in the UK is tucked up in their beds.

My story started in 2001 when IT Lab was a tiny operation with 4 engineers (and no Support desk to speak of.) With little experience in IT, I approached the Lab for some much needed work experience and after a week I knew the Lab was a very special place. The engineers armed me with a great deal of their knowledge in a very short time, and after a few months the Lovely HR Manager, Ms Rosa Howard, offered me a full time position working the Support Desk.

Over the next 3 years IT Lab grew and grew amassing a very large client base, a haven of some of the finest engineers and a powerful and productive management team to lead them. We moved 3 times during those 3 years as the company grew from strength to strength. Once staff came they didn’t want to leave.

With the imminent birth of our second child my wife and I decided it was time to head home to NZ after 7 years away. After having set up so many remote workers on a daily basis, I thought why not continue working the desk from NZ? All I need is a strong internet connection! So I approached Management and they had the foresight to see that this was a good idea not just short term but long term, and from there IT Lab NZ was born.

For the next 4 years it was a hard slog working nights (10pm – 5am NZT) Monday to Friday but I loved it! The hard part was no longer being in the IT Lab Office Environment, being in the middle of all the buzz and excitement. Not being able to just walk over to a colleague’s desk to help with an issue, get advice from another engineer or just have a chat, as the people are the core fun aspect of ITLab. However, the up side was my productivity would sky rocket due to lack of distraction, the 30 second commute to work (my back bedroom) was pretty good too.  I also got more family time during the day with my kids (while I wasn’t sleeping of course.)

After 4 years of remotely working the desk, the opportunity to work on the Kaseya Platform was offered to me. This would mean a complete change of hours and a lot of learning and I’ve found it a great challenge and that we are only just scratching the surface of this great product!
Life in the Devereux household is a little more normal now. It’s still a bit of a novelty looking out the window while I’m working and it not being pitch black, but I am getting well use to it. I will, however, always miss the buzz of the Lab as it’s an amazing company full of amazing people!

Cheers