Telecommuting 7

[AlexCuse]

Hi All,

I am finding my life more and more stressful, based almost entirely on the traffic I encounter to get to work. I like my job, and don't really want to look for a new one, but the stress and frustration have been causing health problems for me. At my next review, I want to try and work things out so that I can work from home at least a few days a week. Does anyone have any advice on how I could approach this?

Dialing in is not an issue, as we have VPN set up so I can basically be using the PC on my desk remotely.

Thanks for reading,

Alex

Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom

 

[SQLBill]

Start small. Tell them you would like to try telecommuting once a week to see how the company and you would benefit from it.

Questions you need to answer:
1. how will you attend meetings? (remember, you are trying to make this a 'multiple times a week thing')
2. will it be just you at home? If not, can you guarantee a 'dedicated' phone line in case your company has to call you? (cell phone?)
3. is there a way to measure your performance while telecommuting?
4. CAN you do your job from home? Some things can't be done via a remote connection.

-SQLBill

Posting advice: FAQ481-4875

 

[lionelhill]

Emphasise things likely to please your employer; for instance, if they have a company policy on encouraging responsibly-managed telecommuting, it could bolster their environmentally-friendly credentials.

 

[AlexCuse]

Thanks all! I have a lot to think about.

Answers to SQLBill's question:

1. I will drive in for meetings. I really would rather work half day at home and half at office, to avoid rush hour traffic.
2. Yes, two of them in fact
3. As much way as there is to measure my performance now (which is to say not very good way)
4. Yes, I can.

Lionelhill - I'm not sure much would please my employer about it, but the fact that I work about 10 hours a day when most people only work 7 should help. Then in my 4 days I would still be in the office longer than most.

Thanks for all the input guys. I need to really lock things down I suppose before making this move. We are planning to upgrade to SQL 2005 soon, and I would need to be here through that process. Maybe I should just shoot for being in the office from 10:30-3:30 or something?

I will think about this some and post again soon.

Alex

Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom

 

[Thargy]

Alex,

have you considered the time shift option. A 'stay in bed' colleague recently changed his working habits, and got up early instead of late. His commute time droppped from one hour thirty minutes to 40 minutes, saving him time and money.

Instead of arriving late and working until 7, he's now out of the building at 4:30, which means he misses the rush hour on the way home too!

Why not ask to shift your start and end hours by 1, so you're at your desk at7:45 instead of 8:45. Avoid that rush, save on stress, frustration and petrol.

Maybe you don't need to work from home at all..

Regards

Tharg

Grinding away at things Oracular

 

[flapeyre]

Alex,

I work from 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM. I get up at 5:00 AM, feed the cats, check my e-mail, take a shower, and I'm on the road by 6:35 or so.

Every 9 weeks or so I am on call. That used to require us to come in an hour late, and stay an hour late (8:30 to 5:00). On those days (especially during the school year), the commute time increases by 5 minutes at least. They just rescinded that requirement and now I can come in and leave at the usual time, which is great, as the later time put a crimp in my home life (and raised the blood pressure a few points, I'm sure).

Not one of my co-workers who lives on the northshore and commutes across the Causeway comes in later than 7:30 (we can flex our start time anywhere from 7:00 to 8:30, but I refuse to get up any earlier than 5 AM - even the chickens are still asleep).

Tibi gratias agimus quod nihil fumas.

 

[AlexCuse]

flapeyre, tharg -

Thanks for the ideas. I currently work from about 7:30 to 5:30 on an average day. Maybe I just need to work less ;-) I wake up at 5:45, and I cannot do any earlier than that.

Unfortunately, around here rush hour is from about 6:30 am to 9:30, and 3:30 pm to 6:30, so that makes things very tough when trying to 'beat the traffic'. I guess in a perfect world, I could be in the office from 10 to 3 every day, then do the rest from home?

I'm sure things will work out one way or another.

Thanks for the input,

Alex



Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom

 

[carp]

You might also point out that this is a benefit the company can provide at little or no cost. Also, one thing I have found that works sometimes is to offer up more work time for the same little or no cost. For instance, I figured out that I was spending about three hours commuting every day; this worked out to almost 19 work-weeks per year spent in a truck instead of doing something productive. I made it clear that in exchange for losing the commute and working at home, I would give the company half the time savings realized. In other words, it was like they were getting an extra two months' work out of me per year for virtually no cost and at the same time improving my morale and productivity. Very few managers will dismiss that kind of pickup without a lot of thought!

 

[Glenn9999]

This article did a survey that suggests that telecommuters are often overlooked in favour of conventional workers when it comes to promotions, etc.
I guess (the manager feels) just the fact that you are at your work place gives them a feeling that you are getting things done (even if you are not doing anything!!) than the unseen "worker" at home.
Thanks.

I've seen this in numerous places. One of my going theories is that telecommuting flies in the face of the "team task building" methodologies that have taken over so much of business.

To summarize what this has turned into, the idea is that as long as you play along with the team it doesn't really matter what your individual contribution is. You can contribute very little to the bottom line, but as long as you engage your "communication skills" and are well-liked, you'll get nothing but glowing praise, even if the collective could be getting three or four times the amount of work done if the dead weight were removed. In short, if you function well socially, your career growth is assured.

Of course, what is lost is the idea that a team is made up of a bunch of individual contributors. This isn't speaking much to where you work, because the environment might be different. But as far as the "team building" environments I've been in go, telecommuting is career suicide, simply because you go the way of your individual self and shed the social aspects of the rest of the team (i.e. you're not "working with others"). Being MIA most of the time doesn't bode well for "face time" and being "well-liked", two important components of functioning well socially. Then there's always the aspect of the resentment that others have the tendency to feel if you go off, reject the team, and be "on your own" (their possible perceptions).

Anyhow for what I've seen, the mechanics of telecommuting or getting the job done won't be an issue. The main issue is going to hinge on the corporate culture there and how you will be perceived socially by making such a decision.

My opinion, anyway

 

[carp]

I also sense that "out of sight, out of mind" comes into play here. If people don't see you very often, when it comes time for layoffs, you are more likely to get the axe - simply because if people don't actually see you, that somehow translates to your presence is not needed and therefore you are a prime candidate.

 

[Glenn9999]

If people don't see you very often, when it comes time for layoffs, you are more likely to get the axe - simply because if people don't actually see you, that somehow translates to your presence is not needed and therefore you are a prime candidate.

Or, when I dwell on a specific case that I observed in my work life, it can translate to "well, he's not that satisfied with us and is looking for an out to work somewhere else." Of course, there was a lot of resentment from others in this specific case's group over him doing this.

Most managers (including the one over this specific case), are more than willing to oblige.

 

[Welshbird]

I recently worked for a company where 60% of the staff worked from home. It was never an issue as that was the culture.

Then we got bought out, and I got transferred over to another part of the group. As I moved under TUPE regulations my original terms remained, so I worked from home part of the time and agreed to be office-based the rest of the time.

The comments from colleagues got so bad ("Oh, day off again!) that I eventually gave up the whole idea, and now only work from home when I have a good reason, say, the TV repair man has to visit.

I do miss it though. It was nice to have that extra time each end of the day, and to do my laundry in my lunch hour etc.

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[aarenot]

Willif,
Sounds like sour grapes from your "colleagues" because they can not negotiate home work because of whatever work habits they have. With their attitudes, they might be better away from others working at home. They won at your expense.

I would move back towards home if I were you.

 

[Opieo]

Willif,
I agree with aarenot. You should not change the way things are and work just because some colleagues do not like what you are able to do. As long as all of your work is still done on time even while working from home, say, 60% of the time, they really cannot gripe. Well they can, but fruitlessly. Do not let them get you down. If that is how they want to be, then maybe they do not really matter. Again with the work, as long as all of your work gets done, how can they truly fault you for being able to work from home?
It just means that they are jealous.
You could also try to suggest that they try to develop their own proposals for being able to work from home a couple or few days a week. That may be a touchy subject though. And if they cannot do their job from home as you are successful at doing, then it is their fault, not yours.
Just because you work better than others doesn't mean you have to drop to their level.
If you are able to focus on work the whole day while at home, more power to you man. Rock on.

~
Give a man some fire, he will be warm for a day, Set a man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life.

 

[Welshbird]

Thanks guys!

(And I will do. It makes more sense. Even though the office has now managed to relocate to be less than 4 miles from my home )

Fee

The question should be [red]Is it worth trying to do?[/red] not [blue] Can it be done?[/blue]

 

[aarenot]

I used to work from home 90% of my non-customer site work, that has changed. I had a room set up in my finished basement, 3 PC's/monitors, network with ISP access, and private network{no isp access} for lab set up, exchange server on private network, server, etc, to simulate customer site scenarios for setting up and testing IP telephony implementations I was setting up. I also had about $5k in telephony systems/testing equipment to simulate/test lines, equip, etc. My wife works evenings so she was asleep most of the day, except when she brought me lunch to eat at my desk she called a technology cockpit. It did look like that with a U shaped desk to spin and face any of the three PC's, lol.

Now I have a cube at the office, with a server walk in closet to go into as a lab, with sometimes an available monitor/keyboard, mouse, no seperate network, server, exchange server, phone systems set up, or testing equipment.

I do have more access to multiple people at the office in order to more quickly, and readily be able to stop what I am doing to be involved in impromptu meetings/ conversations to discuss items, and issues which previously I had to just rely on reading an email in 30 seconds, and taking 2 minutes to respond via email when I was waiting on an equipment reboot, or other procedural interuption of the work flow.
I can now respond to the organizations verbal requests much more quickly, rather than waiting until they can correlate their information into a concise communication.

Ok, so I think it was easier to get my work done at home, lol.

 

[Opieo]

@aarenot
I love how you presented the situation, with working at home as the bad way to go when it obviously wasn't for your case (as you stated at the end).
Very humorous. Thank you. =)

~
Give a man some fire, he will be warm for a day, Set a man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life.

 

[AlexCuse]

aarenot, that was truly a great post. And Opieo, you deserve a star just for teh signature.

I am thinking this is what I will do -
In the morning, I run a few simple fulfillment applications that need to be done by noon. These apps used to be in just horrid shape, but I have been able to get them running very smoothly over the past year, and eliminate many of the spaces for error. So I would like to start out working in the morning from home. I could start at seven, eating a proper breakfast, and letting the dog run around as I run all the fulfillment. Then I could leave at 9:30 or 10 to go to work.

This would allow me to miss rush hour and arrive to work feeling energized, positive and refreshed (rather than the near-murderous rage that I feel when I get to work after a particularly bad traffic day). I would still be able to attend any meetings (no matter how unnecessary), and the traffic on the way home is not such an issue for me (because at least I am headed home). Does this sound like a good idea, at least for a starting point?

Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom

 

[aarenot]

I heard a guy talk about demonstrating absurdity by being absurd. He said arguing for a point while demonstrating all of its weaknesses in your argument is the best way to attack its premise in the first place.

It is also more fun, and less likley to be percieved as complaining, yet still makes your point. Sometimes better than an unveiled attack.

I am glad it made someone smile(probably a guy who gets the job done}, and ok if it ruffled a few feathers(probably a guy who is not the one getting it done)

 

[Opieo]

@Alex
I believe your case makes perfect sense.
Decreasing the amount of stress you feel at work while at the same time not impacting your work efficiency in a negative way is a great thing.
Using just a pitch like that it seems like you would be able to get your boss to buy into the idea of it.
It seems that you have already thought out the positive impacts of such a set up and have put enough thought into it to realize that this is not just a simple desire, but a feasible increase in efficiency.
I say it would increase efficiency because if you are not stressed out from the traffic, you are bound to be more agreeable and productive.
Go for it man.
The way I see it, the worst he could say is no, and they can't really hold it against you.

My boss already gives my team a flexible schedule. As long as we are here from 9-4 and here a total of 8 hours, it doesn't matter (1 hour lunch).
I arrive at 7:40, beating a decent amount of traffic, and leave at 4 (I take short lunches, don't need an hour to eat since I bring a lunch).
The team has no problem with this and some of the others come in at 9.
My boss is very adamant about the idea of (word's from his mouth): "I don't care where you work from or how long, as long as the job gets done."
He said if I could readily get my job done from Hawaii, go ahead and move there, even though I can't really since I have to deal with people all of the time and understand everyone's work processes.
Sorry to have gone off on a tangent about my work environment, I just think I got lucky having the boss I do.

~
Give a man some fire, he will be warm for a day, Set a man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life.