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Will Telecommuting Kill a Career?
coondoggie writes to mention that Network World has a piece taking a look at the effects of the telecommute on advancement within your career. From the article: "Over 60% of 1,320 global executives surveyed by executive search firm Korn/Ferry International said they believe that telecommuters are less likely to advance in their careers in comparison to employees working in traditional office settings. Company executives want face time with their employees, the study said."
Tele-commuting didn't kill my career. Slashdot killed my career!
-DwS
Whilst it might slow down your progress if your goal (at that point) is progressing, it might actually be the intended target.
Getting to handle home life and work life and having time to relax and be yourself in the evenings might just be the drug some people seek.
liqbase
I can believe this if this is (lord help me) an "old economy" company. As business look to reduce costs (or heck, find a way to afford startup costs) it makes sense to utilize home offices which, in essence, cost you nothing.
That said, in companies where employees are managed by individuals that are not skilled in the art of their employees (take IT, for instance), then there's the risk of being perceived as not working as hard.
I know, been there. Don't toss the baby out with the bathwater though. Telecommuting certainly has its benefits...and its place.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
if you're just a voice on concalls and a name on emails, what do you expect?
You got to have at least some face time.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
It's obvious that telecommutting kills job prospects if you want to move up the corporate ladder. If you telecommute, it becomes increasingly more difficult to prove to your superiors at work that you should belong in management. It doesn't matter which branch of the company you are in; if you can't prove you can belong in management, you're going to get stuck somewhere along the way.
Its really about weighing your opportunities. Sure if you telecommute your chances of promotion within your company are much lower. But a telecommuter is more of an independent agent anyways. If your telecommuting you can work multiple jobs much easier. Don't consider yourself tied to that one employer, consider yourself a free agent, even if your not..
My situation is similar to telecommuting, where my boss lives and works in another state.
I haven't had an advancement in years... not that I've really desired one; I'm pretty happy where I'm at... but I'm curious as to if there's a similar correlation to telecommuters when you never really get face time with your boss, even if you do work in a cubicle farm.
There are not many workplaces where an employee can advance without a certain degree of schmoozing.
:wq
This is a study? It's an opinion poll! Unless it's a longitudinal study comparing workers who elected to telecommute against those in similar positions who didn't, it's not an answer to the question posed in the article's title. Since when have executives been a reliable source for hard data of this kind? I know we sort of canonize the executive class in this country, but this is ridiculous...
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I telecommuted for my old job. While I didn't get promoted, it didn't hurt me applying for a new job. They did ask questions about it, including would I be comfortable working away from home again, but I got the job.
It's alot harder to kiss ass over the phone or through a series of tubes. The trick is to also stay out of the server rooms as well, management won't get any face time with you in there either.
I have never tele-commuted. Never. I have worked "remotely" while working as a consultant (SMB networks)
I once saw a job offer that permitted tele-commuting. It was basically a CRM salesman/support for a large corp. I wanted that job. I'd kill small animals to get it. Why?
1. I plan on leaving the states for six months. If I could work remotely, spending 1/10th of what I do now, it'd help me a lot.
2. I'd have time to do my extra stuff as I naturally work faster than my peers. If it is "project" work then I can adjust it to my schedule.
3. No office BS. At the moment I'm dealing w/ rubber stamping bosses and back stabbing corporate PHBs.
4. I need my days off, when I can take them. Some days I'd like to take a day off, when I feel like it. A tele-commuting job would probably allow me to time-shift my work hours.
5. Save the planet. No more killing trees, draining power or throwing out paperclips.
6. I can work sick. I hate missing days as it isn't fair to my employer.
Executives have a very hard time seeing outside of their sphere of influence. If a telecommuting employee isn't promoted as much as they desire and deserve within a company, they will advance their career by changing jobs... It wouldn't matter if telecommuters never got a promotion. If they are both ambitious and deserving, they will still advance their career.
unseen == unappreciated. this is dispite the fact i dragged this multimillion $ company out of the dark ages and wrote them a business system and POS system linked together which run the entire venture, i also admin their web/email/db services at the same time. without me they would still be scratching away are hand written paper reports and trying to make it work on excel.
to add to this insult, i did all this on a cut throat budget at a bargin price for them. my rate is 50% of what the next guy would charge.
This is not surprising to me. In sales, getting face-time with your customer breaks-down barriers and increases buying urgency. It just seems natural that the same would apply to an employee-employer relationship.
Regards, Lex
If I'm in a position where I can telecommute I'm already at the top of the food chain.
So what? I bet over 60% of global executives believed there were WMDs in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11, that ENRON was a great company, and so on. Just because global executives believe something doesn't mean there's any truth to it. Sheesh, what a non-story.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
In my office we use telecommuting not to recruit people in different metropolitan areas, but cantidates further away, within our metro area. I usually go into the office 2-3 times a week, and try not to be driving at rush-hour. If I can work at the office 10:00-3:30, a few times a week, and get the rest of my work done remote, that's considered sufficient "face-time". It means I can live a lot further away, and endure the long commute because it's not very often, and not at rush hour.
I don't think we'd put up with complete telecommuting, not unless the employee was phenomenal.
You'd be able to get face time with that. But I suppose actually meeting the person does let you get to know the person a lot better
At the end of the day, people help those folks they know and are comfortable with. This means that if you don't have a good relationship with your boss - or his boss - then you're not really a serious contendor for a serious promotion. You might get a 7% increase in your salary at the end of the year, but your still the grunt who works 10 -15 hours a day making someone else look good.
Everyone seams to think that telecommuting is a license for time off when you want it. Not so. I have been telecommuting for over 5 years now (no I don't want a promotion and one will not come unless I am willing to move to another country). However! when we add more staff (telecommutting or not) I have the expectation that during the hours of X - X I can message, phone, conf with any of them. The only difference with my job is where I sit and the cost of office space.
... but it certainly intrudes on your personal life. As a telecommuter, I found I was working longer hours and felt obligated to be available as needed. I ended up having trouble balancing work and home life.
/gam/
"In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not."
Telecommuting may decrease the urge to "climb the corporate ladder" if the pay is sufficient. I've found that telecommuting is a strong job satisfaction component. Now, I'm not the type of person who would have ever climbed to the corner office at the top of a Manhattan skyscraper. If I had a shot at that sort of oppulence I'd be foolish to risk missing out by losing "face time".
But as far as climbing a bit faster in the middle levels of corporate IT? The job satisfaction of avoiding the 10 rush hour commutes per week, the large home office, home cooked food instead of cafeteria or lunch bag amounts to quite a lot of non-monetary compensation.
If I couldn't telecommute I'd probably jump from job to job and company to company in order to maximize my income, but as long as I can telecommute a lot of the time and as long as the job isn't too unpleasant and as long as the pay covers my expenses, I don't have a whole lot of motivation to look for a new job.
Not telecommuting itself, but staying home and watching Scooby Doo sank my career. I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those meddling managers and their pesky status reports, milestones and deadlines.
More music, fewer hits
If you want to climb the corporate ladder, turn off your computer and go into work. Right now. OK? No, no, stop - go in to work, you can reply there.
If you want to be independent, set your hours, spend more time with the kids, choose your employers and your work, or whatever, then by all means, go file for an LLC and get to work. It's hard and you'll probably earn less and get less sleep.
I've seen even the best employees who were teleworkers get let go before the mediocre folks who bitched at the water cooler, come lay-offs time, that's just the way it works, humans are social creatures. It's a bad 'career' option, but a good lifestyle choice.
Neither choice is right for everybody but it's good to honestly assess which is the right one for you.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If you're a pure-play techie, then it does not matter. What does "progress" mean to a techie? It means being taken more seriously and doing more technical leadership stuff (architectural etc). In these positions I don't see that telecommuting poses any problems.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
these are the very people who would do the promoting in the managerial realm. And if you want to get to the top, you have to manage. In this case they are the experts, as opposed to the cases you listed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You are not necessarily going to get it at a job with face time either. Alot of these CIO's etc would just like to keep you in your current job as long as they can so they will not have to replace you or your skill set. This is exactly the position I am in at the moment. So what did I do, went out and found somebody interested in not only increasing my pay but gave me the position I want...end of story!
If you have the skills and you want to move do not wait just up and leave for that green pasture.
I am the last remainder of what was the "other" office, now working from home. I have never felt more out of touch, marginal, and utterly useless. Apparently it was also good for me to have to get up and leave home every day, because I am so sick of being here, it is not even funny. I've probably put on 20 pounds, I know I am depressed, and my productivity has gone straight to hell. It is getting to be resume time, now that my wife is employed again.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
The day of the inarticulate geek is over.
Company executives want face time with their employees, the study said.
At one company I worked for, management wanted to install new cubes with half-height walls so they could see if everyone was working with a simple glance out over the office. They backed off when we complained to their managers that the real problem was that out managers were insecure jerks who overreact to problems instead of proactively managing the department. It got even more interesting when our management banned the posting of Dilbert cartons on the cube walls that randomly appeared to mock them.
"Company executives want face time with their employees"
Unless, of course, the employees are offshored.
Eg, consider the 5-person database-based web site making teams
;-)
(corporations, from the point of view of the tax system...
I think) that Phil Greenspun was promoting in one or both of
his online "web whore" books (by different titles, of course).
If the job and/or environment you want isn't to be found, the
Creative Minority go off & make one of their own design, either
within an existing company context or in a company of their
own design.
Next challenge, please...
It worked remarkably well. Communication between team members was actually better than on many teams that I've worked on in cube farms. When everyone is isolated, a consciousness develops that everyone needs to be very explicit about picking up the phone and calling each other to stay on the same page. In the cube farm, it's easy to become complacent about the fact that so-and-so has a cube two aisles over, and never go and talk to them.
The telecommuting job was wonderful in terms of being able to keep up an aggressive pace, sustainably. Adding up the time for the commute to and from the job I had had before it, plus getting ready in the morning before going to work, travel time out to eat at lunch, and so forth, an eight-hour work day generally took me around eleven hours or so. On my telecommuting job, I wound up working lots of ten hour days, yet felt like I was working less hard.
On the other hand, my current job involves agile development where everyone is together in a single project room, and that's just about as pleasant, and much more efficient in terms of delivering on time. And impossible to do by telecommuting....
I don't know about most of you, but in the larger companies (I work for a Major Telecommunications Company in the US and its the one at the far end of the alphabet), a lot of staff is spread out across the country anyway. I'm in Dallas, my boss is in New Jersey, my team mates are in Los Angeles, Vermont, Philly, St Louis and Boston. When I do go to the office, I'm sitting in a room with a bunch of people that I don't work with.
So Face Time is when we all fly to a central location, twice a year, to meet up. And I have an office job - most of the time is on the phone, email or instant messaging - all of which i can do easier from home in my PJs than driving for an hour to sit in the office, still not have face time with anyone that matters, and add to my dry cleaning bill.
So does telecommuting hurt? Only if I NEVER show up to anything. As long as I make it to events, the occasional face-to-face meeting, I still get the same opportunities as anyone else.
Winter is Coming.
Said just today that she believes in telecomutting; she doesn't care where you work, just as long as you are putting in a 24 hour day, 7 days a week.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
This article says that, while most people would like to telecommute at least some of the time, and companies don't perceive telecommuters as less productive than in-office employees, executives are still less likely to promote telecommuters than people in the office every day. But, why? People are talking about "face-time" and "company culture," but should decisions about promotions really be based on such incredibly subjective characteristics? It sounds like the problem that these executives have is that they haven't had time to become buddy-buddy with the telecommuters, and so they're reluctant to advance them in their careers. This is important information... because it tells us we need to change something about how executives view telecommuting, and in a larger view, career advancement.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
... I want to take a look at some source at midnight or in the weekends or when I'm sick or something. For everyday work it's not something I can imagine liking... unless I have a gf/wife at home with me to keep me happy ;) .
And I love it.
However,
I'm in my mid 50's and a techy. so I don't want to take part in the middle management arse licking/gold days etc. I don't want to become a Manager.
In my previous (non telecommute )job I dealt with customer who were in places like Poland and Russia who didn't care where I was physically located but my bosses insisted that I was in the office for 40hrs a week. My PHB's could not understand why I didn't want to be come a Manager. This didn't fit their 'model' for promotion & Career advancement in the company. I got branded a troublemaker Pah! Spineless everyone of them.
For the past 6 years I have been working from home. I work the hours I need to get the job done but if I need to take time off to get new tyres put on the car then I can do it during the week.
My current boss & I meet up about once a month but talk at least twice a day on the phone. He knows I don't want to be a manager.
I don't have an hours driver to work. I don't have an hour standing on the packed commuter train. I don't have trouble parking. I dpn't get speeding tickets etc etc.
I spend at least some of the time I would be commuting out waking or going swimming. My stress levels are much less that they would be in a normal job.
Most days, I get to say hello to a female sparrowhawk who comes and perches on the roof right outside my office window. How many Office Based workers could claim that?
The other day, my boss asked me what I wanted to be doing in 5 years.
My answer was "More of the same or retired. I'm not sure which". That was my annual appraisal. Yes, I got my pay increase as I delivered everything required of me in the past year. I suppose I am lucky that the company I work for is organised for people like me. The Head Office has about 10% of the company working there. The rest work from home.
Would I go back to 9-5 at a desk in an open plan or cubicle based office? Not a chance. On yer bike.
...the pope is suspected of having religious ties.
I worked at home for over 3 years doing telecommuting for a small start-up, and enjoyed every minute of it, despite some of the cons.
Pros:
> work your own schedule
> wear whatever you want (even your boxers, only)
> Save money on gas
> Increased productivity due to isolation
> Listen to music as loud as you want/can!
> no boss breathing down your neck (but rather via IM instead)
> no sick co-workers infecting you with their germs
> no office-politics
Cons:
> Anti-social behavioural patterns
> Distractions (TV, Telemarketers, Fridge)
> Consuming your life with your work
> Consuming your work with your life
> No benefits (if 1099)
> get treated like a contractor (even if you are technically an employee)
Some of the note-worthy issues that made me switch from telecommuter/contractor to FT in-house cubicle farm slave...
1) I was working on average of 10-16 hour days, from home, to prove that I was not only doing my job, but accountable for my time and hours.
2) When I asked for an increase in my salary, I was told that because I am working from home, that I am 'unaccountable' for my time and efforts, even though the managers knew damn-well that I was working 10-12 hour days, and the work I did (err, product I made for them) transformed their 4 man start-up to a 120man multi-national, multi-million dollar corporation.
For the most part, I still prefer to work at home, on my own, with no distractions or office politics/strife.
However, it's not something I can do forever (nor is being a full-time cubicle farmer), and it's not for everyone.
I think that 'work ethics' need to evolve. This is a digital age, and face-time is a 20th century excuse for an archaic work-force mentality that is no longer relevent in this globalized economic structure.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
I've been telecommuting for 7 years or more. I love what I do and have great perks with a great company. The only real negative is not so much that advancement at the company isn't available as much as networking with others outside of it. Face time with coworkers normally leads to the beneficial effect of meeting their contacts/friends/past coworkers. Having moved to another location, not having a solid network of other professionals at local companies has made it difficult to consider leaving the remote company. that and my social skills have suffered :)
At my work, a retiree telecommutes from his Florida condo to our Michigan based business. The deal works great because he is allowed to work whatever hours he wants and the company is happy because he is a great financial analyst. Telecommute is alive and well. Microsoft exchange server and remote desktop work flawlessly.
I misread the title at a glance and thought it said, Wii Telecommuting Kill a Career? First the Wii is killing ladies who drink too much water, now it's killing careers. Where will it end?
Company executives want face time with their employees, the study said.
Wait, I thought that counted as the best reason to telecommute?
On a more serious note - I've worked for a fairly small international corporation (~5k employees). And physical presence at the corporate headquarters meant absolute diddly-squat. I had only a vague notion that we had executives hiding somewhere on the third floor. They never came out to play with the engineers, except at "informative" "internal" meetings that curiously resembled press conferences (including the press).
You want to climb the corporate ladder? Don't start off as an engineer. Start off as a beancounter (which, while mind-numbingly boring to most engineers, we can do the job in our sleep, leaving plenty of time to keep our souls alive coding in our spare time - But then, having a soul counts as a handicap if you hope to "make" it in a megacorp).
I think it makes sense that telecommuting would decrease your chances of promotion - you're out of sight and out of mind, as the old cliché goes.
If you're physically present at work, you're in the boss's face, they can see you doing things, you can look busy and look like you've got a variety of things on the go. (I make no comment as to whether you actually do or not). You're available for meetings at short notice, you're there when a crisis unfolds, you're part of the 'team' in the day-to-day work environment.
At home, sure, you're getting your job done and you're getting your work in on time and so on, but you're not physically there.
I see this problem in my job with one member of our team who is still in the office but sits at a desk that is some way distant from the rest of the team, so I can only imagine it would be multiplied if you weren't even in the office.
Liquid is right. Maybe some of us are less concerned about "advancing" than having time with our families and a high quality of life.
I can't exactly put my finger on the day and time I decided I didn't need to "move up" any more, but let me tell you, it was a liberating moment.
The funniest part of it is that immediately after the first time I turned down a "promotion" because I felt satisfied with my life as it was, coincided directly with the really good opportunities showing up. It almost seems like happiness and satisfaction are qualities that draw success. Instead of running after success, if you reach a point where you're not quite so hungry, so desperate, success starts coming after you, instead.
I've seen what ambitious, driven people look like. Take someone like Dick Cheney for example. Here's a guy who clawed his way to the top, literally. He's worked his way to a level of wealth and power most people only dream of, and his face is like a road-map of pain and desperation. I wouldn't want to be inside his head on the day he shuffles off this earth.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I worked in a traditional office setting and its not that much different really. I had my own office and I saw my boss during our monthly meeting. Outside of that it was all through email, IM and phone. I could have just not come in to work and noone would have noticed, the work which needed to be done, was done. There was communication.
:-)
I chose to go to work since it was in downtown San Francisco and the my choices for lunch were much better there than where I lived (San Carlos).
I telecommute from Florida to a job in Vancouver. Due to the time difference, I find myself working more hours. I try to work regular East Coast hours, but frequently something will come up at 5PM or later which I need to work on. I also sometimes figure out a bit of code late at night and start working on it.
Its worth noting that the survey was of "executives"; their preferences may not translate to those of lower-level managers, and lots of people go for a substantial part of their career without reaching a position where an executive is dierctly involved in the career progress more than perhaps signing off a recommendation by a lower level manager.
And the positions where executives are more actively involved in personnel decisions are probably ones where having "face time" with a candidate is more relevant to assessing their ability. (Of course, they are also ones where people tend to be doing work that requires either travelling to meetings or receiving people who are travelling, so "telecommuting", per se, isn't often a practical option, anyway.)
This article doesn't ring truer to anyone more than myself.
When I first started out in the corporate world, I thought everything was all about numbers: performance, profit, annual reviews. I decided to focus all my time and efforts on delivering the highest performance possible and doing the highest quality work possible. I actually had a belief I didn't need to play political games and the such and would be recognized and rewarded for my quality work. As such, when my company started offering a telecommuting like job, I jumped at the chance. I would be able to spend more time actually working, at home, rather than getting dressed up and driving into an office every day. I wouldn't have to make any efforts to get to know anyone, I wouldn't need to go out to lunch, and the kind of development I was doing was perfectly suited to working from home. Unlike most telecommuters, I don't have kids or really any distractions (less than a typical office), so it was a great environment to concentrate and really produce high quality work.
And produce great work I did. Not to toot my own horn, but I was the fire behind the development in my organization. I am a skilled programmer, and on top of that I went overboard. My home became my work place and I was home all the time. Why was I doing this? I was working for a mid sized company and I was confident that if I became absolutely essential and not only had my hand in everything -- but was top dog at a lot of projects -- I would be promoted up the chain to a great job. Even if I didn't stay with this company, I felt this was my ticket toward the upper echelons of profession.
The result of all this work? I did get much praise and appreciation and I was indispensable on our most important projects. Like the server room, most people in the company knew who I was but had never seen me. They knew me as the muscle that kept chugging away. I did get some perks, like a personal cash bonus from our CIO, a letter from our CEO, and a discretionary debit card I could use for personal expenses. I had butt loads of respect. I did go into the office and eventually my job style was more about 50/50 due to not much actual development anymore but management of a team of developers (80% of which worked 100% at the office).
When our CIO retired (nice guy, but just really detatched from today's tech in every sense of the word) I was sure I would be walking in the office bright and early. Most people thought I would. It was a logical choice, I had spent over 10 years of my life working for this company, I was just about the highest developer there having joined when the company was small and it was now midsize. I was making all the decisions that the CIO should have been making for several years and leading a team of developers. Our company was doing great, projects were completed, and I could actually see the fruits of my efforts.
So who did they pick? Someone I had only ever heard of in passing. He was an ok developer and a decent manager. He and I worked on a few projects but he was always loped off into a category with a few people working on x or doing x. What was the logic behind this decision? Well apparently, the guy was very likeable. He was in the office and making the rounds, more than I was. I also found out he took a lot of credit for things I really did, and that I can prove I did, and that everyone knew I did. But because I wasn't there when he was chatting up the executives and having "face time" to defend myself and show them just how smart and loyal I was to their faces, I might as well of not even done the work. It's quite true that they will believe whatever you tell them if they believe you, and most executives won't take the time to research.
In the end, they knew who I was and they wanted me right where I was, doing the same thing, forever. Rightfully so, it was making them a lot of money. Thinking back I should have probably just gone into the office like everyone else, put in 60% of the amount of effort I did, and then spent 10% more effor
Then why in the world are you a wage slave? Do you really thing anything that the other 4 guys brought to the table was really beyond your abilities?
How about for people who do both work in offices/cubicles and from home (remotely)? Does this still affect their careers?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
is enough.
enough to build up trust, intimacy, compatibility, cohesion and even share some secrets.
few people are able to get a major promotion before 10 years anways.
Read radical news here
I think it's not entirely surprising, and here's why:
I've worked with good managers, but I've also met at least one person whose idea of management was showing everyone who's the boss, full time. He seemed to have some deep seated belief that _noone_ and _nothing_ works unless you keep reminding them that you're watching them. He literally used to keep clicking on Netscape's title bar (this was in the 90's) to show Netscape that he's watching it. He actually believed that Netscape actually loads a page faster if he does that.
So, well, yeah, I can't see someone like that trusting that someone can actually work from home.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/08/18/AR2006081800768.html
Social skills are, and always have been, the best predictor of career success. An ancient study at HP attempted to correlate career success with educational success. There was zero correlation. What they did find was that the people who hung out around the water cooler did better than their supposedly harder working fellows who stuck to their offices. Other posters are concentrating on face time with the boss but face time with peers seems more important.
(BTW. I have been quoting that study for years but have lost the citation. If anyone knows, I would be most grateful.)
I have been working from home for about 5 years now. The first company I worked for, sort of forgot I existed for a while. Checks were coming in, I was providing them with results, but nobody knew who I was. In fact, very few people in the company knew I worked there to begin with. The company wasn't big either, it was only like 25 employees.
The next company (the current one), I have been with them for 1 year now. MANY people in the company know about me, I am much more in the "public" view then previously. I have a greater interaction with people then before. Every day, its conference call after conference call.
But, if I keep staying at home and working I might get passsed up. Which is why I think I am being asked to move across the country. I am ready to do it, but its going to take a lot of adjustment going back to an office structure. I get way more done at home then in the office. Which is strange why they would want you to be in the office all the time.
I don't have kids (nor do I want them) and I am not married. I am in a long term relationship, and she will be going with me. I am lucky that I don't have the distractions at home. When that office door is shut, that means GTFO. At first I had friends bothering me during the day, until I stopped answering calls from them or answering the door during business hours. That helped a ton.
Anyway, if you work at home too much you will lose touch with the office. Many times there are things going on that I don't hear about, or find out way too late. This can also make you miss promotions or showing special interest in events. Hell, even attending events becomes interesting.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
You can't expect too much career advancement when you sit at home working in your PJs. You have better results while working in the office, keeps the level of professionalism up.
I spent 1995-2002 telecommuting and when I wanted to switch companies and move back into an office setting, I was told a number of times that the fact that I wasn't "used to the structure of an office environment anymore" was a negative. There was a kind of assumption that "telecommuter" == "unmanageable cowboy" that I had to overcome. Even after I did get hired, for my first couple of months I kept hearing, "I know you're used to having more freedom than this, but this is how we do X Y Z around here..."
In short, it made it harder to get a non-telecommuting job and harder to fit in after I did, just because people were aware that I'd been a telecommuter.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
at least where I am at. The need to see "you" because they can't stay focused themselves. Hell if my dire project didn't get interrupted at least twice a week I would think management died, note I did not say on vacation because they crackberry me to death from the days off.
Too many in management are insecure, they feel they just have to be doing something and unfortunately that means doing it to someone.
I would still TC even if it meant some slowness in career progression, if not just for the peace and mind
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I've telecommuted for about 2 years now and love it. I guess this won't be as applicable to some people since my boss and most of my coworkers telecommute as well, but I think it still holds some truth...
Schedule face time with your boss. Many telecommuters often have to go in to meetings at work regularily, but that's not enough. Tell your boss you'd like to have lunch with him/her and during the lunch ask about the department and how things are headed. Show some interest in what's actually going on instead of just focusing on doing whatever tasks are given to you. Your boss probably has information about possible future projects and if you provide some suggestions about the ones that interest you, you'll have a better chance of working on projects you enjoy AND showing that you have initiative.
Also, spend some time emailing or talking with coworkers and telling them that if they ever need help with something they should give you a call. You may not have time to help them completely, but at least you might have some ideas that would get them going in the right direction. Word WILL get back to your boss about how helpful you are for your team.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
..it's related to the fact that many people who want to work from home have some understanding of Quality Of Life, and aren't career-driven drones who throw aside having an actual life to make a living.
I'm not in a huge push to advance my career, my salary has been cut in half so I can have a reasonable schedule without a beeper in my pocket and more time to spend with my wife and son. Working from home isn't always for those who are chasing a seat in the boardroom. If you need a "study" to tell you that, perhaps you need to choose a different career.
It's one of the things I've never understood about our culture. Nobody is ever happy with the money they're making. Discussions like these are among those rare times when I appreciate the significance of having lost so much family when I was young, and not having as much as most people. Now, I really appreciate what many others in our culture would take for granted, and in particular recognise my family, not things, as what actually makes me happy. Telecommuting gives me the freedom to actually be with them, as well as face the dreaded inability to get out of the office after the eight hour mark. The benefit to loss in career advancement might not be for some, but I have to vote it far outweighing the negatives.
That said, I do have to make one broad complaint about a huge number of comments so far. Notice how often, when speaking of management, the posters slip into passive voice. For instance, "The perception is that". The perception among whom? Crazy as it might sound, the management in a company is made up of humans. Humans with different viewpoints, which you're going to have to interact with on a personal level no matter how that communication is accomplished. It's not about what you 'think' your boss wants, it's what he 'actually' wants. Having a suit on doesn't mean that a person is going to suddenly pick up a choose your own adventure book to tell him how his subjective opinion is suddenly going to move. Talk to him or her, ask them how you're doing in the company and if there's anything he considers good or bad.
I wouldn't want to be inside his head on the day he shuffles off this earth.
:-) Either way, most people don't walk around knowing - deep down inside - that they are "bad". It just doesn't happen that way.
Why? Cheney probably thinks he did just fine. Hell, even Al Capone still thought he'd done nothing wrong when he died in prison. People are that way. EVERYONE tends to think they are doing "the right thing". Some are correct. Some are wrong.
Evil (if it exists) and "bad" people are much more subtle so no, I don't think Cheney is going to be lying on his deathbed thinking of the terrible things in his life. Rather, he will look back and think "imagine how bad it would have been without me?"
I can't find the citation, but we studied that paper in business grad school; it found in inverse relationship between being an effective manager (produces results, keeps the wheels turning) and a successful manager (high pay, long title), as well as a big disparity in terms of daily functions. If I remember correctly, the effective manager spent 80% of his time 'working' (reading/generating reports, talking to staff, being in meetings), whereas the successful manager spent 80% of his time talking to people who did not work for him (networking).
Most anyone who's worked in a corporate environment can vouch for that empirically, I'm sure; I work for UltraMegaBank and am the only person in my division in this entire state, and I often have to jump between business lines to get ahead simply because the powers that be want their right-hand people on their right hand, and I'm not willing to move to Podunk Banktown to get ahead (at least not yet...).
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
I'm not telecommuting at the moment, and living fairly close to the office, I'm not really trying to anyway, but... somehow I'm not seeing that as so critical. I have co-workers who are here 3 days a week, and, honestly, there are whole weeks when they're hardly actually needed. You'll want _some_ face time, but I'm not sure that even 2-3 days a week are necessary every week.
Going around and asking in person only works that well for a small company anyway. For example here I ended up maintaining the truly awful code of someone whose office is now at the other end of the city. If I wanted to talk to him, I'd have to set an appointment and drive there, which probably isn't any better from the office than from home. In fact, from home I'd actually be closer to his office.
Half the time we _do_ use email anyway, and the other half we just reach for the phone. Why wouldn't it work just as well from home? And since everything is in the same CVS, if you need any clarifications, you can just tell the other guy which project, file and function or line number you're interested in. Having to actually go to another department and ask in person is person is more the exception when phone and email failed, rather than having a permanent exodus of people going to paint something on other people's whiteboards.
Ditto for guys whose code we use, or guys using our code. Heck, some of the frameworks I've had to work with were from companies not even in the same city, or the same country altogether. Some of the guys whose code is being maintained don't even work here any more.
All in all, while I don't deny that sometimes it _is_ an advantage, I see more value in having good and clearly defined architectures and interfaces. That will keep serving you well even when the whole original team moved on to other jobs. It's not a theoretical situation, we actually have one framework here where that's exactly what happened over time.
And when they didn't yet, knowing (or having a way to find out quickly) who to phone or email if you have questions. If the architecture and interfaces are well designed and documented, and you have competent people at both ends of the line, chances are there won't be a whole tome of an explanation you need, so telephone and email work just as well. And when someone new to it needs a more thorough crash course, an appointment can be arranged... which is exactly what we're doing right now anyway, even without telecommuting.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"(I can't comment on whether video conferencing can produce the required level of communication; I think it may; never tried it.)"
Welcome to Auralspace. You wear headphones that bring a real-time office experience to your home, courtesy of broadband. Hear that gossip off in the distance? That's one of the secretaries talking about you. Hear that louder voice to your right? That's your workmate complaining about another problem. BE QUIET! Hit the scroll on your mouse and you can hear the boss planning another meeting, and you're not invited.
I'll bet the survey was done over the phone....
Either spend all their time working and don't learn new stuff to a usable degree, or spend to much time learning new stuff and don't get their work done. There are a few exceptions, and YMMV, but this has been my experience with telecommuters. Face time with the boss is not as important as idea sharing and face time with coworkers. The days of treating coders like plants that you can water and expect code to grow are dwindling. More and more it is about the time you spend discussing the ideas and there is only so much you can do via the web. Sometimes you just need to spend that 1-1 time.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
At least, thats been my experience.
I've telecommuted now for 8 years.
If I want to progress to the next level in my paygrade, it requires that I take on project leadership responsibilities. That's something that requires a presence on campus and endless meetings.
For now, that's not something I really want to do.
So, I'll continue being the only engineer on night shift and work from home. It guarantees me job security. I've been told several times by management that if I wish to switch back to daytime, I can do so at any time.
So, it is a bit of a hindrance to advancement for me, but not a total killer.
some people may not want the added responsibilities when moving up the corporate ladder. they may be happy with all the time they get and the place where they work (may it be at home or some comfortable location.)
it's a tradeoff between flexibility and being exhausted and worked out.
i'd prefer to be happy and flexible with a decent pay rather than have a big pay with not enough time to spend it enjoying.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
If you want to climb the ladder, be the executive, make the biggest bucks, etc., for whatever reason, whether anyone else wants to, understands, or approves your motives, then telecommuting is not for you. There's always an exception, so there's got to be one or two die hard telecommuters who have become CEO, but it also has to be rare. You schmooze, or you lose. If you're Type "A" driven you may very well give up some personal freedom, but that's not inherent in wanting to work 'with people.' Some people prefer it.
If you don't care about any of that, for any reason, whether you value your 'family time' or think you are saving the environment by staying home, or are simply a crumudgeon who doesn't get along with people, but are otherwise competent to do the work from home, then it can be a delightful way to make a living. You gain that at the expense of the schmooze factor. You are less likely to be promoted, as has been well attested to here with examples.
The mistake is thinking that these two methods of work absolutely must be "equal" or otherwise "it's not fair." They each have advantages, but they are never going to be equal. You give up something and you gain something with either choice. The point is that by and large it is your choice. If the company provides it and you take it, don't complain about your lack of promotion. You made the choice and need to take responsibility for it.
(I work at home.)
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
In Charlie's case, not only did he telecommute, but he was the boss. Heck, I don't think his employees ever saw him. Just a voice on the speakerphone. But then... his employees were angels.
> "Over 60% of 1,320 global executives ... want face time with their employees, the study said.
Over 60% of global executives (I'd say probably 150% of 60%) don't get or even expect face time with the majority of their employees. They wouldn't even recognize most of them as employees.
They do, however, know how to understand what a question is asking and answer it in such a way as to present themselves in the best light, and darn sure don't want their employees to think they're hardly even known to their top level bosses. If you read TFA you find contradictory data which tends to make the answer to each question sound good, which is precisely what you get when ask questions rather than measure behaviors.
What most good executives understand is that most employees value appreciation over advancement, and provide that, which flies in the face of TFA, which flies in the face of previous data according to TFA. One wonders under what conditions one accumulates so many flies in one's face.
A person who telecommutes probably wants to, or at least comes to appreciate it, and wants to keep that position. Taking a different position, whether "advancement" or not, might mean not telecommuting anymore. Those don't don't like it will move out. Most do, and stay.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
The only thing that will hamper your career if you tele-commute is if you suck at tele-commuting.
I have been working from a remote location for 5 years now. For 3 of those years, I would travel once a month or once every two months for a week on-site. The rest of my time (that is at least 40, but usually 46, of the 52 weeks of the year) I was working out of my home. And during those three years, my clients were 3 time zones away. I was a senior technical lead and I usual lead teams from 2-5 people. I was a senior contributor and I received 2 "absolute best" team awards on one project. During the other two years, I worked exclusively from my home.
The only time telecommuting hurts your career is if:
- You have poor interpersonal skills (well, this will hurt you regardless, but it tends to lead to even more misunderstandings if you are remote)
- You are not self-motivated. If you can't stick with the code instead of catching ST:DS9 on G4 because you are bored or frustrated, telecommuting is going to expose this weakness.
- You do not have a dedicated workspace. If you are trying to do 10 things at once AND work, you are screwed.
- Your company isn't telecommuter friendly (kind of a "duh", but it needs to be said). You can't force a company to accept you as a telecommuter if they hate telecommuters.
I find a lot of companies that are "family friendly" are usually good telecommuting places. They usually have the infrastructure and have good speaker phones in their conference rooms. They are set up for it and they don't look down on you if you attend a meeting by phone.You can also mitigate a lot of issues by coming in for face time on a regular basis. While it isn't my favorite approach, it tends to make most employers happy. Just having a good chat program and a dedicated phone will work wonders. If people can almost always get ahold of you exactly when they want to, they usually don't mind the telecommuting. It's when they can never get a hold of you and you never seem to be "on-line" that they get fiesty.
To be clear, I usually work the schedule of the company, not my own. So even if I could wake up at 12p and work till 8p, I don't do it. I work 8a-4p so that people in different time zones can reach me at a reasonable hour their time. And since most coders come in late and work late, that works pretty good when I am three hours behind them ;-)
All that said, I have never wanted to be a manager. Sr. technical lead is as far as I let a company promote me. So maybe I don't care about career advancement in the technical sense. I'm happy cranking out quality code, and companies continue to hire me for exactly that reason. Even if I had worked on-site all these years, my career would be pretty much the same, since I would never take a management position.
I don't think you can be a manager and tele-commute--unless your whole company is virtual or network based. There is just too much that goes wrong on a daily basis, and if 90% of your workers are in one place and you only see them once a week ... well, stuff is going to go bad.
Sometimes design or brainstorming meetings are difficult. But this could be solved with tech too--it's just that most companies don't want to be bothered with true teleconferencing setups and virtual whiteboards. I find this forces people to be a bit clearer when explaining things over the phone--which can be an added bonus. Or you just make sure you are on site for important design meetings.
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
I do almost all of my consulting work remotely since I live in the mountains in Arizona, 2.5 hours from the Phoenix airport. I do sometimes get to meet my customers face to face and from then on, work is a little smoother - the face time effect is real.
:-)
However, there are real cost and performance advantages to telecommuting: commute/travel time is freed up, long periods of quiet time for working on more difficult problems, energy savings, savings in office space, etc.
The question is, will your managers balance the benefits and draw backs for telecommuting in a fair way? Good luck
It seems to me that:
1. Your whole game theory application starts at "it may be provable that, all other things being equal, having an office presence provides social connectivity, allowing the player to advance more easily in his chosen direction" (my emphasis), and then proceeds to build something that sounds suspiciously like certainties on it. It's as if "may be provable" turned into "already proven" somewhere along the way, and I don't see any such proof. If something only " may be provable", but isn't actually proven, then anything built upon it is equally something that may be true or not.
2. It's also suspiciously skipping over such important notions as constraints. "All other things being equal" pretty much means that you found one axis that is completely independent from the others, and you can maximize without touching the others, which tends to never be true. At some point enough social connectivity is enough, and you can't increase it more without losing something else. And I know for example first hand that the guy going around all day long finding someone to talk to, precisely because all else isn't equal: all else pretty much hit zero. It's an extreme case, but it serves to illustrate that those variables aren't that independent. If you change one, all else usually doesn't remain the same.
As you undoubtedly know, min-maxing in an optimal solution in pretty much any space _can_, in fact, reduce the value on one axis, to gain more on another that matters more. In cases of planning what you do in an X hour day, there'll always be constraints: you can't say you're doing the same work _and_ adding a social and networking component for free. In practice, every hour spent socializing and networking is an hour when you're not actually programming. As in any min-maxing problem, you have to find some happy balance, not pretend that all cases get the same of one component, while the other is for free. Sometimes you actually have to reduce that social component a _lot_ to actually get some work done and show some technical achievement.
3. Not _all_ advancement directions have similar requirements. Min-maxing an optimal solution on for one problem or goal can actually mean cutting down on something that was part of the ideal solution to another. Even assuming that the same space and general rules apply, some directions, such as just proving you're a smart programmer, in fact need more proving technical skill. I might actually be better served by spending an hour learning some new technology or technique, than spending an hour commuting so my boss will see my face again. While other directions, such as branching into marketting or becoming some sort of manager, require a lot more social presence and networking.
4. There are problems and factors which you seem to not even consider at all in your ill-described model, since in practice they don't actually depend at all on impressing your co-workers and boss. Quality of life, for example, is something that isn't achieved by impressing the boss, but more often by knowing when to stop impressing the boss and just have a life.
Ok, so they're not quite as binary, but again, you end up with constraints. If nothing else, a day still has 24 hours, and you can't really get that much for free. Every extra overtime hour put into impressing the boss and co-workers, is one hour you're not doing something else in. Every hour spent commuting is an hour you're neither doing anything for your quality of life, nor impressing the boss and co-workers. As with any other min-maxing problem, you have to reduce X to get more on Y and Z, or reduce Y to get more of the other two.
Two solutions to two different problems can end up _very_ different, once you throw those into the mix and give them wildly different weights in the desired result. Someone's optimal solution may involve doing 80 hour weeks to impress the boss and get any promotion at any cost, while someone else's optimal solution will be spending as muc
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I just got shafted on Rentacoder.
I labored for a month over a database/GUI suite for an asshole in Canada. He agreed to pay $800 for the software. I gave him full source code, documentation and an install-shield package for automatic installation. It was my first freelance job after I got laid off.
He received the package and told me it's crashing. There is no way in hell it's crashing. I asked him to show me a screenshot and the error messages he is getting (I wrote the code so i would know the messages.) He showed me a Visual Basic drawn dialog with a stock icon! The program has an MDI window.
The site moderators ruled in his favor and I'm out of 4 weeks of hacking. He even told me to download Visual C++ from bittorrent, because he owned a license and that would be fair use, I never used VS before as I'm a GCC/Borland guy and had to learn all the auto-generated crap.
The only good news is that he didn't give me a negative vote which would affect my standing there.
Learn my lesson kids, stay in college and get your degrees. Or learn web development; "Joomla" and other shit that isn't real hacking.
Face time is important because pretty faces and bodies advance faster than ugly ones.
So of course, your boss wants to see your body, that way he (or she) can rate you just like they do on "hot or not", and decide who to give a raise based on that.
So dress nice guys and gals, your boss wants to see you now.
It is hard to find talents locally, often companies all over the world hire people, not only just in united states. As well carbon footprint of communting is too high and personal price is like that as well. Problem is that there is lack of really easy and intuitive collaborative tools and most people won't like to be called at their computers. But walking over and talking to a person is fine. So people will evolve tools until they are comfortable with them and then CEO's will have to do away with some better way of evaluating your performance, then by smiles, complements, business gabber etc.
Its like those people predicting that internet will implode due to various reasons, execpt it grew because of them.
I like working in the office. But if there is a process where one can spend technical coder time at home, I think it would be great. You can always drive out to some meetings that are held in non rush hour traffic time...This is how today people of level of peasants say, live alot better then kings of 700 years ago. Except change is accelerated nowadays.
2c
I worked in a position where I was telecommuting for over 4 years. I took a new position a couple years ago to "move up". The pay was not much better, required me to drive into the office everyday during the worst part of rush hour, and has burned me out so I'm putting out less quality work than before I took the new position. I used to work 50+ hours a week and not feel burned out, because I managed my own time and could take a mental break or a nap if I needed it. Now I'm spending 40 hours a week working which translates into 60-70 hours a week with commuting! From home, I put in more work, at a higher quality, and am willing to put in time during less desirable hours when an emergency comes up. And because I've burned out putting out less quality work and less time, on paper I look bad, blocking any ability for me to move anywhere else within my company.
If I ever take a job working in the city for a big company again, it better come with a huge raise so I can live with the same quality of live as I do living and working at home.
The other thing that you don't realize with working from home, is that you spend less money on so many things, like food, car related expenses like fuel, etc. When you are cooking for yourself at home, you also tend to eat better so you are in better shape, which also makes you feel better. And if you live in an apartment like the one I used to, if you get stressed you can go hit the gym for 20-30 minutes and come back mentally refreshed.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
It depends on the situation you're in and the company you work for. I do however think that if you telecommute, that you have to work a little bit harder to make sure managment "sees" what you are doing. As long as they know you're being productive you should be fine.
I've been telecommuting for about six months now. I worked at the office for a year, year and a half, before my family and I decided to move. The company actually asked me if I would be interested in telecommuting. Now I actually have two other programmers that I directly manage. It's a lot of work to manage remotely, but VPN, phone, internal IM, email, etc. help. You don't have the cooler time talk, so you have to make up for it in other ways. It's easy to let your guard down though.
With all that said, I do enjoy telecommuting. It gives me more time with my wife and son. I can sleep in until I have to get up and clock in for work, and then take my shower on my lunch break if I want. My day is a lot more flexible, and because of that I think I'm more productive. Communication is very important though. You can't be a black hole that people only hear from time to time, that's when telecommuting is dangerous.
Face time and office hours defines with the suits where you will be in a year or two.
I had sleep apnea, narcolepsy and insomnia ( working till 3 AM was not a problem ) and
was initially told that 10:00 AM was not a problem. Soon that changed to 9:00 AM,
I was able to meet that with no problem on my part.
After 7 months it was 8:00 AM. I was working till 1:00 AM and meeting all the
deadlines for a post SI test but could not stay awake in the morning.
I was canned soon after that. Yes, I needed to lose weight and get more exercise, but
with a 14 Hr work day, I didn't have much personal time.
I told the test manager the schedule was unrealistic on day one.
At IBM, 40% of us work at home or are "mobile" (visiting customers or working from home during down times). I'm not sure this theory applies when my manager, his manager, and his manager, etc. up the chain are all either working from home or are people in different timezones than me. These days at IBM, you have to justify why you are taking up precious office space.
What telecommuting has done is to allow me to compromise on my "no travel please" deal. I agreed to do some travel when I made the deal to work from home. So, while I travel maybe once a month for a couple of days, I end up having more family time because on the non-travel days, I'm home when they leave for and return from school/work. Meanwhile, I'm saving a bundle of cash on what had been a 40 mile daily commute and after school care.
So dollarwise I'm doing better and careerwise I'm doing better.
But even with all that, I still think it makes sense to get out and see people face-to-face. There's a bunch of us local to the area (all but 2 are telecommuters) that do a once-a-month lunch. It's good to keep the networking lines open and frankly, it keeps us sane.
I run company where we all telecommute - there is no real office. Due to unique nature of small company, there is no way for us to do anything but.
After 7 years, I honestly dont think it is so great. You end up working more and doing less, because you are so easily distracted at home.
When you work at office, you know when your hours are, and your team is just next to you, so it ends up being much faster.
I would suppose it is even worse in large companies, since it is hard to be appreciated by your coworkers when they never see you. How do you promote someone who is telecommuting?
... who know nothing or very little about software development and just have nothing else to do than eyeing their subordinates with disapproving looks or asking them about their status every 30 minutes or so? Of course they need their playground, telecommuting would take away the very reason of their existence. Sorry, this may sound extreme, but I've been bugged by such people some time ago.
diginferno
The corporations are kings (they're corporate persons, after all); the executive class are their viziers and viceroys. While some of the staff might be replaced, the corporation itself is regarded as perfect and infallible.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
if you're just a voice on concalls and a name on emails, what do you expect? You got to have at least some face time.
In such a case one has to wonder if the position could just be off-shored? Telecommuting may be a proof-of-concept that a position does not really require personal interaction. If so, why not have a long-distance telecommute rather than a local?
Umm, well, now I understand what you mean, but then it's a bit mis-leading: that's not what a Straw Man fallacy means. A Straw Man is when you deliberately mis-represent the opponent's position, and then proceed to fight that imaginary point of view instead of what he said. E.g., if I were to pretend that your post is about denying global warming or gay marriage and proceed to demolish it based on that, that would be a straw man.
Accusing someone of using straw men is kinda impolite, unless they actually do and it's of some importance to their point. It's accusing them of deliberate handwaving, smoke and mirrors and sophistry, which tends to not be OK even in informal discussions.
I think what you mean is more along the lines of the Hasty Generalization fallacy, which is just that: extrapolating from one example or too few examples to being a rule. Maybe also a bit of Biased Sample, as in, for example, picking one's examples in a primarily telecommuted company and extrapolating them to everything else.
These are are really only "mortal sins" in academic papers, not in a discussion among friends or on slashdot. In informal discussions we all use such samples and generalization at some point, so pointing out the exceptions or limits is also OK.
Sorry if it sounds like a lecture, but, well, just as information.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Of course one would be considered for management quicker if one was in the office. How else can one kiss a$$ if one is not there? It is much more difficult (though not impossible) to kiss a$$ remotely than it is shmooze the boss in person.
Of course, that's just my opinion--then again, I could be wrong.
"Care about people's opinions and you will be their prisoner." ~~Tao Te Ching~~
If you can do your work from home.
Then someone else can do your work from India, China etc. at a lower cost.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
There is also the degradation of the earth's surface by covering a significant portion of the earths surface with offices, that instead could be covered with trees.
The only purpose for all these offices, is to maintain the status quo, for the minority of people who insist that their role in life, is to think for us all.
Wake up people - we are killing a planet.
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
Even when you have face time, if you have developed your own position in a growing company, then you still can be unappreciated at times. Even if the Boss is well meaning, you can get questions like "so tell me again why that took 5 hours?"
The advantage of face time is you can deal with the direct question, instead of discovering your Boss's assumptions have festered for months.
>Face-to-face time is only really needed these
... I've worked remotely for weeks at a time from home and from foreign countries (while traveling for adoption, during family illnesses and tragedies, etc.). And I do freelance web programming on the side which is *all* remote. So I'm not speaking from total ignorance and inexperience here. I work pretty effectively remotely.
..." over the cube walls, etc.
>days for those who get some sort of warm, fuzzy
>reassurance from it.
It's still not the same.
Now, I do have some experience "telecommuting"
Nonetheless, when I stayed home for just a day recently from my day job (normally 100% in the office, cube worker), which just so happened to be the day we were frantically finishing testing some stuff and moving it to our live website, I was floored by how much of a pain communication was, by contrast. So much goes on "over the cube wall", so to speak, that I hadn't even realized. It's so beneficial to have all those electronic tools of communication that you mention *and* be able to stroll over, see what somebody is doing, call "does anybody know
So I've been telecommuting since Summer for a giant telco.
... 0%.
... a real dad now, instead of the dude who gets out of the house at sunup and shows up just before bedtime.
... if you were never management material to start with, it's probably worth the "risk".
I worked in the corporate HQ for about 8 years before I started the telecommuting, and honestly it wasn't by choice. I just had to start doing it, because my workload skyrocketed, no new help was hired, and my friends just wouldn't stop wasting my time in the office.
Is it hurting my chances for promotion? Chance for promotion before telecommuting 0%, chances for promotion after telecommuting
At least in this company, when you're technically competent and people depend on you, that's a virtual guarantee that you'll be doing the exact same thing you're doing presently for your entire length of employment.
Telecommuting is a fantastic lifestyle. I gave up my social life at work, but in return, I got my family back. I'm like
If I didn't get more work done this way, though it'd never work, and I'd be looking at a lot worse than "no promotion".
If your considdering telecommuting:
A) know and understand the "risks" to your "career"
B) I can't emphasise this enough: Make a separate space in your home for working.
When you enter this space, you're at work. When you leave this space, you're at home. Do NOT enter this space on your free time FOR ANY REASON. Keep your personal and work life physically separated. Otherwise your life will turn into a nightmareish comingling of work and personal time. You'll go nuts in 6 weeks flat.
When I work from home my remote connection is closed at exactly 17:00.
I don't understand why people can't make the simple exercise of stop working once they have completed their duties for the day....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
why do they like offshoring? Oh wait... it's supposed to be cheap...
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
. . . faster than telecommunting. If you get out on the green with the boss's boss a few times a quarter, but are never in the office you'll go much farther than if you're in a cubicle everyday.
I suppose, if you're a corporate ladder climber, then yes a lack of promotion means that your career is dead.
But if you're say, a technical engineer like Dilbert (as most Slashdotters are), that's already ensured that you will never be promoted.
I know that's certainly happened to me.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Why would that be the case? Are you saying that people can only learn if they are on-site with their co-workers? Most people in this industry are self-taught to one degree or another. Even if you have a degree you have to train yourself because of the pace of new technologies. I would think that someone who doesn't learn anything while telecommuting isn't going to learn that much chatting over lunch with you--they sound like they have bigger issues than not being their for "1-on-1 time".
I'm not saying you can't have some interesting conversations on-site. But most of my time on my last project was spent fielding questions from junior team members. I mentored quite a few of them. So clearly the information flowed from me to them just fine over the phone. And I know I learned stuff--I designed 3 new frameworks based on some new design patterns and created a build system by learning all the ins and outs of Ant (heck, I'm an Ant "expert" now--too bad that's not a lucrative thing to be an expert in!).
But I will grant you that I am also very senior. I had 7 years of experience when I moved to my new location in the boonies and started working remotely. So if you are saying "Kids fresh out of college shouldn't tele-commute" I might agree with you there. If only because they lack experience and usually need a lot of mentoring, in terms of the corporate culture of the actual craft of software engineering.
That said, I have worked for a lot of "virtual copanies" and I have mentored junior coders in those situations--they seemed to learn a lot and grow in their skill. So I'm still not sure this applies.
I will grant you this: there are quite a few people who telecommute who suck. But I believe they would suck in person too. And that's been my experience. Telecommuting just distills it all down. If you are good, you prosper and contribute. If you are not very good, telecommuting does not hide it--it exposes it even more. Telecommuting seems to expose all your weaknesses, rather than hide them.
That said, it is awful quite and you get a LOT done. I was usually 2x as productive as my on-site counter-parts. Not because I was working longer, but because I could actually work a solid 7 hours out of 8 instead of the 4.5 - 5 they were working (with constant interruption).
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
If your job can be done from home, it can be done from India.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
...as those who would lower your chances of success (as YOU define it) by not having enough face time?
The though of "face time" as some kind of standard of merit makes my blood boil.
Result count, not much else.
You can do better than "face time" with your life. It's precious, it's all yours.... use it well.
BWilde.
I've been telecommuting for about 5 years now. Three years at a major tech company, and currently at a smaller startup. I've found that it completely depends on the manager. At the first company they had a very specific desire to get more people to telecommute because of cost savings for the company. My first couple of managers understood it, and worked very well with it. The last manager I had wasn't comfortable with remote management. Me being in the office would have made no difference at all since he wasn't in the same state I was in to begin with.
At my current company, the CEO was against the idea of a full time work from home employer. He still has misgivings about it, and I know it effects his view of me. However, I have traditionally been the one person that they can call on to get work done on time. I've made a reputation for myself in that regard. As a result, they know that the work from home thing has a big benefit. In fact they ask me to spend more time in the office to mentor other people, but I'm frankly not that interested.
For me, I don't care about career growth. I've been there and done that as a manager for 15 years in the tech industry, I went back to being a heads-down coder, and don't want to go back to management. So if I get passed up for promotions, so much the better.
-- Should there be smoke coming out of my CPU?
Never underestimate the level of security a manager can derive from knowing your kneecaps are only a twenty minute drive away from his baseball bat.
Joking aside, there is a premium companies are willing to pay for the familiarity of having a long term relationship with an employee which is regulated by laws and societal rules familiar to them. I'm not saying outsourcing-oriented nations and companies don't make a huge effort to reduce/eliminate problems, but if something goes wrong, trusting someone thousands of miles away to fix it, or knowing just how to pursue legal remedies if they won't, can be a jarring experience.
Eventually this will stop being an alien concept and the paths to take will be common knowledge and well documented. But until then, companies may find the hassle and risk worth the extra cash for local talent.