Hi! What’s your name, what do you do?
Hi, I’m Kirsty Smith and I’m the Operations Director at Chaptr.
How’s working from home? What’s your setup like?
It’s not bad! My fiance Joe made me a make-shift desk out of a chest of drawers that I’m really impressed with. He took out all the drawers, which are now sat in the hallway, but I’ve got my own desk by the window in our bedroom which is really nice. He did well.
What gets you through the work day, any tips?
I guess just the usual tips like try to follow a routine. We’ve been getting up at the same time every day, having breakfast together before we start working, which has been really nice. I’m taking regular set breaks, I go for a walk every day – just ten minutes outside always makes me feel much better.
I’m also trying to move around as I work, not spending too much time in one space. When we’re in the office, we’re not sat staring at our screens all day. We’ll chat to one another, get up and make a cup of tea, take calls in the meeting room – I think it’s important to try and retain that. It’s also important to talk to people during the day, I like to check up on our team, make sure no one’s struggling or lonely.
How many cups of tea are you on a day?
Ooo… quite a lot. Joe’s an avid tea drinker so he keeps bringing me cups, unprovoked. Probably about 5, maybe 6 a day? It’s gone up a fair bit, for sure. But if he keeps bringing them to me, I’m going to drink them.
What’s the soundtrack to your isolation?
I’ve been listening to the new Waxahatchee album a lot – it’s quite different to their other stuff, a fair bit of country vibes coming through. If me and Joe are in the same space, he’ll usually have the radio on.
Watching or reading anything good?
I’ve just started watching the new series of Ozark on Netflix – it’s really good. Very gripping. It’s about an ordinary family who end up working for a drug cartel, they get in way over their heads – it’s so good.
I’ve also just finished a book, so I need to find a new one. I was reading Because She Loves Me by Mark Edwards. It was really good, a bit longer than what I usually read, but I really enjoyed it.
If you weren’t working, what would you do with three weeks off?
That sounds nice… I’d like to book a trip somewhere, I think. Seems like a very far off dream right now, doesn’t it? Probably just somewhere nice in the UK where we could go for walks – I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland, so maybe that’s the perfect scenario for that trip.