Re: Telecommuting

[Fred Sampson <wfreds -at- cruzio -dot- com>]

I telecommute (normally) four days a week, and drive into the office once a 
week for meetings. It's 75 miles each way, or just under two hours on a 
normal work day. This arrangement was negotiated at the time I took the 
current job, and I agreed to come in for all-hands meetings, training, 
production week, and so on.

Some observations:

I work best in the morning. When I drive to the office, I lose most of my 
most productive working time on the road. Working at home I'm at the 
computer by 8:00 a.m. or earlier, being productive for hours before taking 
a break. By telecommuting I can have dinner with the family and go back to 
work in the evening if necessary.

I'm healthier, because I have time to work out at the gym a few days a 
week. That makes me more productive, and less likely to get sick from the 
wear and tear of driving stress.

Yes, not being in the office regularly I miss out on some of the 
face-to-face interactions, gossip, and hallway meetings, and often 
communicate with people I've never met in person. On the other hand, I'm 
not distracted by the gossip and hallway meetings and daily quest for 
doughnuts and lunch. My observation is that the folks with the most 
productive working relationships while telecommuting are those who worked 
in the office for several years, establishing good personal relationships. 
Now that they're offsite, the established relationships persist.

Connectivity can be a problem that depends on the availability of broadband 
in your area. Some IT departments hesitate to support telecommuters' 
connections. At the moment I'm fighting two "upgraded" (to Windows 2000) 
machines running "upgraded" VPN clients, neither of which will map network 
drives that worked fine last week before the "upgrade."

Fred

At 01:20 PM 4/11/2002, you wrote: