Remote Workers Take to the Seas

Ronny Pettersen likes to play a game. He switches on his virtual background during video meetings, and waits to see how long — or if — people notice he’s working from a sailboat. “I kind of had this challenge,” he said. “Will they find out? Will they notice? The challenge is to have internet access that’s good enough, so the video is perfect. If it’s really windy, I may be sliding away, so I try to see if anyone notices. That’s a fun thing I like to do.” Pettersen, an engineer for Webex, which is part of Cisco, isn’t alone in working remotely, but he’s fairly unique in that he decided to take to the ocean. The pandemic was a breaking point for him, and after being stuck in his apartment in Olso, Norway, he bought the boat in May last year. [caption id="attachment_438275" align="alignright" width="300"] Ronny Pettersen, an engineer for Webex at Cisco, works remotely from a sailboat. Picture: Ronny Pettersen[/caption] “I figured, let’s do this. I knew the