Insider Insights: Sarah Antioquia

Corporate Communications: We’ve been working remote for almost a year now. Many of us haven’t seen one another in months. On camera things look good. But the reality is many of us are working from our kitchens or our couches or our bedrooms, juggling family and work demands or surrounded by an awful lot of quiet. In this short podcast, we’ll peel back the Zoom background to hear from Sealaska employees in all corners of the company about how they’re staying focused on serving our shareholders, developing new business strategies for this strange new world, and just getting through another day working from home. This is Insider Insights. Take a listen.

Sarah Antioquia: My name is Sarah Antioquia. I am the executive assistant and administration manager for operations in the Seattle office.

CC: Can you describe kind of what your scope of work is or what your responsibilities are, just giving people a sense of what your role is?

SA: Let’s see, I manage the Seattle office. And then I help out with the subsidiaries when it comes to things like software, I help out with the offsite storage records, help out with Terry, our COO, and whatever he needs. And a lot of the subsidiaries come to me for different things that they need from corporate business cards, other random billings and accounts and things like that. I used to be in charge of all of the community outreach down here, but that’s not doing very much these days. I still work with them, but not as much as I’d like. I really want to get back out there. I still talk to them and work with them. But until we have events, or until I get vaccinated, I can’t really work with them too much. I really want them to be down at Chief Seattle Club a lot more. But hopefully that’ll happen really soon.

CC: And are you working in the Seattle office now? Are you at home?

SA: I’m at home, I go into the office about once a week.

CC: I hear some talking in the background. Is that anything you have control over?

SA: No, it’s not. That is my son in class right now.

CC: I totally understand. Can you tell me about your home office or where you’re working?

SA: My dining room table has become my home office, along with my sewing area for making masks. And then my son has his desk right alongside the dining room table so that I can watch him doing his schoolwork at the same time.

CC: And how old is your son?

SA: My son is seven years old.

CC: So how has that transition been for you? I mean, you’ve been at it for almost a year now.

SA: Yeah, it has been difficult. I can’t wait to go back to work. (Laughs.)

CC: How have you been keeping your spirits up and staying energized through this experience?

SA: Taking breaks to do little things around the house. We play Phase 10 pretty much every night has a family. So that’s good.

CC: What’s Phase 10?

SA: It’s a card game. And since the dining room table’s now my work area, we just go to the living room to the coffee table and play throughout dinner.

CC: That’s fun. So that’s your like family bonding activity?

SA: Pretty much. Yep.

CC: That’s nice. And what part of working from home do you think you’ll take with you when you go back to the office? Are there any experiences or lessons learned through this adjustment that are applicable to your office life?

SA: I think I used to always want to work from home all the time. And now when I go back, I’m going to realize that I don’t want to work from home all the time. I love my children, but we do need some time apart. But yeah, I think being able to see working from home 24/7 – yeah, it’s not what I thought it was going to be.

CC: It’s not quite as romantic as you imagined.

SA: Ah, nope, not at all. I really miss interacting with people.

CC: Yeah, I do, too. I do too.

Thanks for listening, Sealaska. This is Amy Miller in corporate communications. I’ll talk to you again in two weeks.