Nat Frank – Presales Technical Specialist for Distology
Although it’s only April, 2020 has easily been a year to forget.
To most, so far it has consisted of forest fires and a global pandemic, but for me it’s a year to remember as I am completing university and starting my first ever graduate job.
In the normal world I would be familiarising myself with the daily commute into the office, making myself at home at my new desk and meeting my colleagues for the first time face-to-face, but instead I have been introduced to everyone using video calls and emails.
Like the majority of offices, the Distology team are all working remotely so whilst it’s not the conventional start that any graduate would imagine, it is certainly a unique start and I have still enjoyed being introduced to the wider team digitally.
The technologies being used have allowed me to start the job from home whilst still getting the majority of resources that would be offered if I was in the office, these primarily being Okta, Office365, RingCentral and Workplace by Facebook.
Whilst working remotely, I’ve still been able to get to know my colleagues, join in on team training and team building sessions and learn my role in the company.
Using Distology’s portal through their Okta software has definitely been the most helpful tool for myself, as the partner portal consists of all the resources I need to complete a day’s work for Distology.
The portal gives me access to the applications: Office 365, Workplace by Facebook and the Okta Partner Portal. They’ve been assigned to me based on my job role and as I’m automatically logged in to them, I don’t have to remember lots of new passwords to gain access.
Having access to Office365 has therefore allowed me to receive emails about company meetings and any training taking place and taking part in these meetings/training sessions has helped my transition from student into worker.
Workplace by Facebook has helped introduce me to the whole team at Distology, and it has allowed me to take part in company chats about how they’re finding isolation and how they’ve changed their schedules to suit working from home – it’s been nice to know we’re all facing similar challenges!
For my role, the main application that I have found useful is the Okta Partner Community – a hub of information provided by one of our key vendors which contains useful information such as:
Using the partner community has helped expand my knowledge about Okta so that once the Covid-19 crisis is over & we go back to the office, I will be able to complete the exams which will allow me to start conducting my own Okta demonstrations for customers. It’s fairly remarkable that I’ve still been able to complete the activities that I would have been doing in an office environment all whilst at home!
To summarise, starting my graduate job in this unconventional way has not been as strange as I was expecting it to be. I have still got to know the team at Distology whilst also completing the work that I would be doing at the office.
The technologies that are now available have really helped me to settle in, learn new skills and experience team building sessions virtually via video calls and chats so I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything so far.
I’m looking forward to finally meeting the team when we return back to the office, but for now I’ll continue to embrace the unique start to my career in tech!