Ben Kutil’s #remotelife at Ad Hoc
I’m Ben Kutil, product manager and designer for Ad Hoc’s work with CMS on HealthCare.gov.
I’ve worked independently for 8 years, and value the flexibility and focus remote work provides. I feel lucky that I’ve kept that environment working at Ad Hoc and gained a group of awesome coworkers to talk to during the day.
Setup
When new people come onto the Ad Hoc team, we post a picture of our workstations. I use the Jarvis Junior sit-stand desk, with a 36" maple top from Grizzly. Small, but the perfect size for my corner of the attic where I have my “office”. When I do sit, I have an 8 year old Humanscale Diffrient Liberty chair. Still going strong!
I recently started using a 2016 Touchbar 13" MacBook Pro. I’ve really enjoyed Touch ID on the desktop and the retina screen. I spend most of my day in a browser or text editor and it feels like just the right amount of horsepower and screen space for me.
I use a desktop by Marc Edwards. I like the subtlety.
I keep notes in Fabriano Ecoqua dot notebooks. I love ripping pages out at the end of the day. I love Pilot G2 1mm and minis. I may have bulk bought a couple boxes.
With two young kids it’s nice to have a separate area of the house where I can work. My daughter made an “office hours” sign and they do a good job of respecting those hours. My kids love to drop in on our weekly all-hands video chat and look at all the other people that I work with.
#logcabinlife?
My family recently moved into a 18th century log cabin. Whenever I tell stories about deer, buggies, or slow internet, I get tagged with #logcabinlife. I really enjoy getting to watch nature out the window when I work and getting to go on walks with my family through the woods and along the creek. Working for a remote-first company made it possible for my family to move here.
Favorite parts of #remotelife
I enjoy cooking and love that so many of my coworkers do, too. From photos of bread, discussions around the best cuts of meat to sous vide, and an almost company wide love of pressure cookers, I love the #cooking channel on Slack.
Because I don’t have to commute I get to spend a lot more time with my family. I feel very lucky to spend time in the morning taking our dog for a walk and getting the opportunity to eat lunch together every day. Yay #remotelife.