7 Things the Boss Should Know About Telecommuting

Esther Schindler writes "An article on CIO.com presents input from several telecommuting IT professionals about the benefits that working from home brings to the enterprise. They suggest some processes that help remote workers interact with other team members, and discuss the irritations that twist telecommuters' shorts in a knot. In short, it's what employees truly want the boss to know about telecommuting. Two sidebars also discuss tips for telecommuters who don't want their careers to stall because they're 'out of sight, out of mind,' and the out of pocket expenses that the company and telecommuter need to divvy up."

Comments

7 Things My Boss Shouldn't Know ...

[WrongSizeGlass]

... about me when I telecommute:

7. I have "Take This Job And Shove It" looping in iTunes.
6. Sometimes I follow links in Google that don't show up at the office when my "Safe Filer" is "On".
5. I work so hard at home that I need a break every hour.
4. Comedy Central replays the same stuff all day long.
3. My desk at home is very clean (in direct contrast to the pig sty in my office).
2. My cats are excellent proofreaders.
1. I'm naked.

Re:7 Things My Boss Shouldn't Know ...

[mistahkurtz]

you're fired.

Re:7 Things My Boss Shouldn't Know ...

[slashthedot]

same here except 3. which changes to:

3. I haven't taken a bath
  saved electricity, water, soap and time

Telecommuting = positive social change

[dsanfte]

Telecommuting has the potential to reduce pat/maternity leave, reduce the amount of time kids are left in the hands of babysitters away from their parents, and keeps parents at home during the day. This would represent significant beneficial social change. I'm surprised it's not mandatory.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[Maitri]

Actually, my understanding is that most companies won't let you telecommute if your main reason for doing it is to stay home with your kids. They think that you then spend a lot of your caring for your kids instead of actually working. From past experience I can state that taking care of kids is a full time job - don't know that I could work also...

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[tacocat]

Companies probably aren't primarily concerned with the social implications of work habits. To some extent, yes. But it's got to have a cost benefit attached to it or they simply cannot do it.

I think there is something to be said for this and many people that I work with do this to some extent but only on a very informal and infrequent basis.

I think it would be interesting to implement a rolling work schedule where you only come to work on one or two days a week and work the rest at home.

I personally find that when I do work from home my productivity is rather insane in comparison. I might only work 4 hours on some days, but I'll finish an entire week of work in that time and then spend the remaining 4 hours of the work-day observing the work in action (reading logs) while I watch a movie. A heck of a lot better than it might be at work.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[digitig]

From past experience I can state that taking care of kids is a full time job - don't know that I could work also... It depends on the age of the kids. By the time mine were about 11 they were happier for me to stay out of their way; I just needed to be around if things went wrong. And in the 2 hours a day I saved on commuting I could actually spend some quality time with them. Of course, during term time it was mainly a matter of taking them to school in the morning or collecting them in the evening, which was a lot more practical 15 minutes from the school instead of 75 minutes.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[starfishsystems]

Great point, and one that doesn't appear in the article, nor even in Susan Landau's piece cited therein.

Another point that didn't seem to come up anywhere is the cost of commuting. Perhaps it's so obvious that people assume it doesn't bear mentioning, but I think it represents a significant, and understated, part of the cost/benefit equation.

The evolution of technological complexity that makes it hard to match up a sophisticated enterprise with talented workers has produced a culture in which people transport their bodies substantial distances away from their homes simply in order to transport ideas. But this benefit is at best marginal compared to effective telecommuting, in cases where that's possible. To assume otherwise is simply an old habit that needs to be reexamined.

If we add to this equation a proper accounting of the effects of commuting on parenting, the development of community, environmental impact, mental health, opportunity for exercise, the enormous burden on road infrastructure and the cost of traffic accidents, not to mention the sheer waste of human time, the social arguments in favor of telecommuting would seem to dominate.

You should be even more surprised that it's not mandatory!

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[owlnation]

Telecommuting has the potential to reduce pat/maternity leave, reduce the amount of time kids are left in the hands of babysitters away from their parents, and keeps parents at home during the day. This would represent significant beneficial social change. I'm surprised it's not mandatory.

Couldn't possibly agree with you more. Note that there are also considerable environmental benefits too. The morning and evening rush hours are the dumbest things on the Planet. The technology now exists working at home can be productive for many jobs, we need to start changing thinking and make it happen.

It's not just work, why not also study? Why on Earth, with the technology available, does anyone need to go to a building and sit with 100 other students in a cold lecture hall for an hour or too. There's no reason why that can be video streamed and questions handled by chat or email. Then you can fit in the lecture when you brain is most receptive, and take breaks when you wish, or replay parts you didn't get. In fact for many subjects, the lectures need only be recorded once for use over many years. Transcripts of previous Q and A's can also be available online.

Sure, labs and tutorials need face to face, but that can be one day per week.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[Tuoqui]

Yeah I would not recommend doing this with younger children around that is for sure.

I'm reading the article (yeah I know) and I have to say that management is probably most resistant to telecommuting because of the fact that if they cant physically see the employee is only taking 20-25 minutes to complete a task they expect may take an hour that they cant see the employee sitting around doing nothing and pile yet more work onto them.

I read somewhere that employees now are doing 2-3x as much work as employees had to do 10, 20, 30 years ago... Its not exactly fair since workload goes up that much but the wages do not reflect that. We could have much less unemployment if instead of hiring people in high stress situations that they actually hire 2 people to do the work of 2 people. They'd get things done faster and presumably with less errors than the 1 person trying to do the work of 2 people.

Basically, resistance to telecommuteing is a result of not being able to unilaterally pile more work upon their employee which they could do if they were physically present in the office.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[ishobo]

You are sadly mistaken if you think a full time caregiver has any time to do professional work. I was a stay at home father for the first three years of my daughter's life. I thought I could work around 20 hours a week. If you combine the hands-on time with my daughter, and the laundry, cleaning, cooking, and other housework, I was exhausted and had little time for anything else. My extra hours in the day were spent doing things for me, not my employer.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[burdalane]

Can't you just put off the laundry and the housework? What's wrong with occasionally re-wearing dirty clothes or living in a messy house? As for the original articles, I have the same problems that telecommuters should try to avoid, and I don't telecommute. I'm naturally lazy, unresponsive, and uninvolved and if a task is expected to take an hour but really only takes 20 minutes, I'll spend the entire hour pretending to work, just sitting there, or doing something more trivial and getting nothing done.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[pipingguy]

a culture in which people transport their bodies substantial distances away from their homes

I always thought that this was done to avoid suspicion.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[ishobo]

What's wrong with occasionally re-wearing dirty clothes or living in a messy house?

Are you married? Do you have children? It does not sound like it. You need to have a baby and stay at home with that child to truly understand. After about two months of being the homemaker, I had a new found respect for all the women that stay home. Anybody that thinks it is easy or they will have leisure time, needs a dose of reality.

naturally lazy, unresponsive, and uninvolved

Have you tried therapy? Maybe you are clinically depressed or have other disorders. Reading your comment http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=233965&cid=190 52309 makes me wonder. What do you hope to achieve by dangling a laptop out a window? The last statement, "My feelings towards other people are similar," is quite disturbing.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[burdalane]

Nope, I'm not married. I'm a single childless woman who is indifferent towards children. I understand that staying home with a child is not easy, and that cooking, doing laundry and housecleaning make it worse. In fact, cooking, doing laundry, and housecleaning for myself are already way too difficult. But can't at least laundry and housecleaning be put off, the housecleaning possibly indefinitely?

I wasn't hoping to accomplish anything by dangling my laptop out the window; I just felt like doing it. I'm lazy in my work and uninvolved and unresponsive in most social settings, but I'm energetic enough when I'm hanging around or dancing around by myself.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[pnutjam]

sounds like a trust fund baby to me...

maybe without the trust fund...
Either way I would hate to work with you or employ you, or anyone else who describes themselves as lazy unless I'm partying.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[CrazedWalrus]

Companies probably aren't primarily concerned with the social implications of work habits. To some extent, yes. But it's got to have a cost benefit attached to it or they simply cannot do it.

This may be true for middle-to-small corporations, but I find that the really gigantic corporations I've worked for don't need a positive cost-benefit for everything. They give to charities, encourage employees to take company time on occasion for volunteer work, and the one I'm contracting to now even owns one of the world's largest private art collections, despite that being fairly tangential to their core business.

I personally find that when I do work from home my productivity is rather insane in comparison. I might only work 4 hours on some days, but I'll finish an entire week of work in that time and then spend the remaining 4 hours of the work-day observing the work in action (reading logs) while I watch a movie. A heck of a lot better than it might be at work.

I notice the same thing. I get a TON of stuff done when I'm working from home. It's nice to have everything I need in close proximity, better (and cheaper) food, and many fewer distractions. Since I don't have to drive 90 minutes, I even wind up working overtime at least that much. Better for them. I also don't mind staying on a little while longer, since I know I don't have to drive home afterwards. Overall, it seems to be a better deal for them *and* for me.

Just sayin'.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[Amiga Trombone]

Telecommuting has the potential to reduce pat/maternity leave, reduce the amount of time kids are left in the hands of babysitters away from their parents, and keeps parents at home during the day. This would represent significant beneficial social change. I'm surprised it's not mandatory.

You're likely to have lots of time to spend with your kids, since any job you can do at home can just as easily be done by someone in Bangalore, India. I suppose whether that represents significant beneficial social change is a matter of perspective.

As per it being mandatory, be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. And I don't think you'll be very happy about it if you do.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[burdalane]

You're right. I want the freedom to live like a trust fund baby. My parents are well-off enough, but not quite enough for a trust fund. I'm still mad at them for wanting me to be a hard-working, normal person. In school I worked hard enough to get excellent grades, and going on to be like everyone else seemed perfectly fine, even though I didn't really understand why they did the things they did. As I get older and more often encounter older people, I still don't understand them. I can understand wanting money, but not people's willingness to be content or proud working for it, or their desire to produce children to go through the same crap, whether the children want to or not.

I would also hate to work with or employ me. I would want to employ someone who works hard, follows orders, and enthusiastically dedicates much of their creativity and at least the required time to the company. In other words, I would hire the kind of person I don't want to be.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[x-caiver]

Actually, my understanding is that most companies won't let you telecommute if your main reason for doing it is to stay home with your kids.

Microsoft, in general, is pretty good about letting people work from home. Many jobs do not require constant meetings, or in-person discussions on a daily basis.

However, there are some teams at Microsoft that have their heads shoved pretty deep up their butts. Mandating that people be at work, regardless of if they have meetings or not, but then granting exceptions to people that have children. If the management in these team is worried that hte -adults- on the team are not going to be 'focusing on their work' when they are at home, but then allow someone who has a child to work from home they should get their heads examined. Providing preferential treatment to people with kids is simply not fair. There is no doubt in my mind that the people who request to work from home becuase they have children are -spending time with the kids-! I seriously doubt that they are locking their kid in a crate so that they can do their work uninterrupted.

Re:Telecommuting = positive social change

[mibus]

It depends on the age of the kids.

I'll back this up from the alternate viewpoint - I have two small children (1 & 2), and even when my wife is home it's just impossible to get anything done with them around. They don't understand "Daddy's not here, he's working, even though you can see him..." very well.

Personal Benefits

[KermodeBear]

I am able to telecommute two days a week right now. I enjoy this for several reasons:

1. I don't have someone stopping by my cube every 30 minutes interrupting my concentration for casual conversation. That is very annoying. At home I don't have this distraction and I'm able to get more work done.

2. Since I started working from home two days a week, I have save myself 2 hours of driving time a week. Less gas, less wear and tear on the car, and a lot less frustration dealing with traffic! That means a happier employee.

3. I can curse and scream as loudly as I please when somebody does something stupid. It's a great stress reliever. In the office, well. The HR department would have issues if they heard what I wanted to say half the time!

4. Comfort! Cube farms suck. If I'm comfortable you know I'll be more productive. I can sit out on my porch in the warm weather and enjoy FRESH AIR AND SUNLIGHT while I work with my laptop. It is a huge, HUGE plus over florescent lights and stale office air.

5. I save money on laundry. (o:

Overall, I'm a lot happier and more productive when I'm at home working.

On the flip side, it is useful to be in the office once in a while too. Meetings in face to face can be more productive and it can be easier to get things done. Other than meetings though, I really don't see the point. Offices are just too depressing and distracting.

Re:Personal Benefits

[__aaclcg7560]

5. I save money on laundry. (o:

I did laundry, mop the floors, and clean the bathroom during my breaks or when things were slow on my telecommute days. It's a nice perk to have.

Re:Personal Benefits

[SocratesJedi]

Meetings in face to face can be more productive and it can be easier to get things done. You really think so? I find that face-to-face meetings are a much more difficult medium to exchange ideas in rather than than e-mail or, when rapid response is required, using IMs or video conferencing software. When discussing in person ideas are often broken before being fully expressed or parties can be subtly influenced by social and conversational constraints. I know that I'm at least much more likely to express disagreement in written form rather than in conversation. Usually, also, I find ideas are sub-optimally expressed in conversation rather than in writing since one doesn't have the luxury of editing to ensure that all the written words actually express the true intent of the thinker in the most clear manner possible. Plus, you can't search reality the way you could e-mail or an IM or (maybe as a future speech-recognition application a recorded video conference?)

I would be a bit curious, actually, to know whether /.'ers think that meetings can be productive. Perhaps my own experience or preferences are not the norm (or perhaps they are?).

Re:Personal Benefits

[jbengt]

Face to face interaction is cery helpful. It's easier to pick up meaning that you'd miss in written correspondence, or even phone conversation. You're more likely to ask a good question and the back and forth nature of conversation makes it more likely that ambiguities will be cleared up. There's an upside to e-mails, though - they automatically leave a written record, which can help a lot a couple of months later.

Face to face meetings are necessary, but productive? They can be productive, especially one-on-one meetings. The more people in a meeting, the less productive they tend to be. A well organized leader helps. You tend to spend a lot of time listening to things that don't affect you. Still, meetings are necessary, and you'll often hear something that no one would otherwise think of telling you that does affect your work.

Re:Personal Benefits

[digitig]

I would be a bit curious, actually, to know whether /.'ers think that meetings can be productive. Perhaps my own experience or preferences are not the norm (or perhaps they are?). A lot of meetings are a complete waste of time, especially ones that are regularly scheduled. But if there are problems then getting around a table to find a way forward is the best way I have found. I've seen political deadlocks that have been bouncing around for months by email be resolved within 30 minutes face-to-face. And a face-to-face project brief at the start of a project is pretty handy, too. So it all depends on the meeting -- don't write them all off, just because most are rubbish.

Re:Personal Benefits

[KermodeBear]

Meetings, for good or ill, are indeed necessary. Managers like meetings. I suppose it gives them a sense of purpose. (o;

Seriously though, meetings can be helpful if there is an agenda and people stick to it. "We are meeting to discuss X and Y." So talk about X and Y. Keep the extra chatter out. I really don't want to waste my time hearing about what happened on The Simpsons this week. I also don't want to watch someone change a diaper (yes, that actually happened, it was gross and it really pissed me off). I have found that I tend to get much more done in a 30 minute meeting than a 2 hour one.

I suppose that with the right conferencing software that face to face meetings are a lot less necessary, but unfortunately where I work we don't have that available. I would imagine that it would be helpful, though!

Written (typed) communication is certainly great. There is a record of what occurred and you can take your time formulating questions and responses so that they are very clear and concise. However, you miss out on the spontaneity and interaction that a face to face meeting can bring.

And sometimes, not having a paper trail can be beneficial. (o:

Re:Personal Benefits

[ydrol]

A lot of meetings are a complete waste of time, especially ones that are regularly scheduled.

I would agree with this, except for one occasion I remember we were on a very tight schedule for the final delivery of a project. The project manager introduced something we called 'Daily Prayers'. Every morning we had a meeting *strictly time limited to 15 minutes MAX* to raise any issues and track progress. Often it just required confirmation that you are indeed still working on the bit you said you would be. It certainly helped us deliver on time, and we actually 'enjoyed' the meetings, they reminded be of the short playbook rehearsal & big hand shake a sports team might to before the game begins..

Re:Personal Benefits

[mabinogi]

Regularly scheduled meetings can be a good thing, as long as only people who need to be there are there, and they're kept short and relevant (which is easier when there's fewer people anyway).

The ordinary programming staff shouldn't need to be at a daily planning meeting for instance - their manager should be on top of things enough. Similarly, each individual salesperson shouldn't be present - their manager knows which accounts and jobs are the most important without seeing it through a commision tainted lense.

Re:Personal Benefits

[DerekLyons]

A lot of meetings are a complete waste of time, especially ones that are regularly scheduled.

I would agree with this, except for one occasion I remember we were on a very tight schedule for the final delivery of a project. The project manager introduced something we called 'Daily Prayers'.

Yep. When I was in the Navy, every day in port the division (all seven of us) met for about ten minutes to go over the days schedules for the division, department, and ship - and those were absolutely invaluable in getting everyone on the same page and going in the same direction. The complex interdependencies of the weapons system among itself, and with the ship, absolutely demanded that. (Yeah verily, Morning Quarters can suck badly if done wrong - but done right there is no substitute.)

Re:Personal Benefits

[partenon]

Meetings are toxic.

Re:Personal Benefits

[Doctor Memory]

It's easier to pick up meaning that you'd miss in written correspondence, or even phone conversation. You're more likely to ask a good question and the back and forth nature of conversation makes it more likely that ambiguities will be cleared up. Amen! It's very handy to be able to note when someone in sales/management/marketing's eyes start to glaze over when you're explaining some technical detail. Then you can backtrack and re-explain so everyone understands, w/o having to respond to somebody's "I didn't understand your comment about X" message two or three days (or weeks!) later. It's also handy when your bogometer goes off and you can glance over at someone else on your team and see if they're likewise wary. I also find they're much quicker than e-mail if you just need to clear up some points on one or two topics.

Re:Personal Benefits

[GlacierDragon]

I actually find meetings where everyone calls in from in front of their own computer to be more productive. Part of that is because my team is in 2 different cities so someone will always be on the phone and it's just easier to hear and participate with everyone on the phone. I also find it more productive, though, because you have all your stuff right there and can email each other documents as they come up in conversation or quickly look up any stats (or whatever) that you need. No hunting for a meeting room that's not booked, too. And there are plenty of programs to let you share documents with each other. (Although, I really wish people would learn to "share application" rather than "share desktop".)

Re:Personal Benefits

[metlin]

Oh my boss does this, too. We have a 10-15 minutes meeting every morning, which are extremely useful and lets us all touch base and get an idea of what's happening.

We also we all have these cards with tasks assigned. So, as and when you are done with something, you can pick a new card (or trade a card with someone), which usually happens during these meetings.

A great way to touch base and keep track.

We call it agile development, even though there usually is no real "development" involved (most tasks are things like market-research, analysis, product evaluations etc).

Re:Personal Benefits

[fucksl4shd0t]

Man, I do some of my best thinking when I'm doing chores around the house. When I was telecommuting full-time, I did a whole ton of chores while worrying over some problem or other, then (frequently stopping in the middle, to resume later) going and implementing the solution I came up with. Most of the time, the solution I came up with worked the first time, or the second, whereas in an office, it would take 4-5 shots before the problem was solved.

Now I work in a lab, no telecommuting for me!

Re:Personal Benefits

[jafiwam]

I was going to mod you funny but realized it was accidental.

You just described (without the color and competing pirates) a game called "Ninja Burger" almost exactly.

It's a fun game if you are into that stuff and like ninjas.

Re:Personal Benefits

[sjames]

Meetings CAN actually be helpful but often aren't. The more formal the meeting, the less likely it is to be productive.

Ideally, meeting participants should feel free to break into sub-meetings if that is what is called for. For example, in projsct planning, once the overview is determined and people have naturally gravitated to a subset of the project, those groups should discuss their part in more detail amongst themselves.

People should feel free to excuse themselves from a meeting in progress. Sometimes, formal meetings just don't know when to end, or if a time limit was announced with the meeting, feel an obligation to actually last that long even though the purpose was already fulfilled. Water cooler meetings seem to waste a lot less time, in part, because once it ceases to be productive, people leave (look at watch, "Times flying by, I gotta go look busy").

Simple status reports are better handled by email. Let a manager poll each workgroup and then send out a summary. If one or more groups are having difficulty due to an unclear goal or boundary, they might benefit from an informal meeting to hash out the trouble. OTOH, if they're late because of a simple underestimation of the work or someone being out sick, don't heap a meeting on top of the workload.

A part of the problem is that different types of work call for different communication styles. At a more global level, different types of work attract different sorts of people who have different communications needs. For all I know, lots of "face time" and voice communications may actually be essential for sales people. Often for software developers, email is much better. It is adequate to the task, creates it's own documentation and notes, and queues up neatly. That's not to say voice or face time has no value to developers, just that it might be less frequent and more ad-hoc.

Re:Personal Benefits

[segfaultcoredump]

It depends on the type of meeting:

"Stand ups" where everybody gives a status update is best done in "virtual" sense (con-call, email ,etc). These are the big time suckers where you wait 5 minutes for half of the folks to just show up.

On the flip side, design meetings, especially when dealing with physical layout issues, can be a different issue. For example, this past week I had a 20 minute meeting with our network team to discuss rack layout, positioning and the other fun issues that arise when you are low on space in a datacenter and have a ton of stuff showing up in a few weeks. It was a lot easier to just grab a conference room and go at it on the whiteboard. Within minutes we had a plan worked out and everybody was happy. Compare this to a conference call and the thing would have taken forever. Yes, you can use virtual whiteboard software, but why bother when a real one is so much cheaper and easier to use. (I'll spare you my usual rant about /.'ers always wanting to use a high tech solution to solve a low-tech problem.)

For the team that I work with (a bunch of system and network admins), we can realistically work from home 2-3 days a week. This gives us a good mix of "face time" for meetings where such a thing is important and the rest of the week we can be at home getting longer term projects done that just require us to be alone and crank out stuff (ever wonder why things are never documented they way they should be? )

Anyway, my 0.02 worth. your work environment can and probably will be different.

Re:Personal Benefits

[x-caiver]

Some meetings can be productive. It really depends on what the topic is, and who is attending. I know several people who simply can't comprehend discussions in email. It is very frusterating when I end up having to go to a meeting with them where I say the same very simply thing that I had typed several times, and suddenly they 'get it'. "Wow, great meeting, really glad we had this!" is what they say, while I'm thinking about strangling them. Is that a productive meeting? Yes and no. It is not productive becuase I have to waste time going to it, but it is productive because I don't have to waste time replying to their emails. Recently I've been in a number of meetings where people get together to discuss feedback (that had already been posted for people to view) in person. These were effective at figuring out how all the different pieces of feedback worked together, some people deciding that others had better points, some people realizing that they were trying to make the same point as someone else but presenting it differently, etc. These are effective because there has been some amount of preparation. And for general 'brainstorming' or 'planning' meetings, these can be effective in person too. You have everyone in the same room at the same time, and focused on the same thing. Lots of stuff lends itself to being dealt with in a rapid, focused manner rather than via a more haphazard email discussion. I've been to more than my fair share of pointless meetings though. I have no problem walking out luckily.

I would love having this option

[DaMattster]

But it really only works for programmers. On the infrastructure side, you really have to be on site for a lot of things (correct me if I am wrong.) I work in a small company where I wear many hats so sometimes I need to interrupt a maintenance task or project to fix someone's PC. I'd love a telecommuting position but that would mean a radical change. I'd really like to find a telecommuting help desk analyst position. It would be worth even a small pay cut for having such flexibility

Re:I would love having this option

[TheRealFixer]

True... in a small company where you're doing everything, it can be almost impossible to telecommute. It really depends on your job, though. I'm a sysadmin/engineer, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to go into the data center to fix something over the past 6 months. Remote systems management capabilities like HP's iLO, moving to a SAN instead of individual hard disks... about the only thing I have to go into the data center for anymore is to rack a new server. Once it's physically in place, there isn't anything I can't do from just about anywhere in the world.

Re:I would love having this option

[zappepcs]

Let me just correct you... to some degree. I agree with all the benefits of working from home, and I do work on infrastructure. Some days you just can't avoid needing face time with the on/off button or CD tray, but other days (maybe 2-3 per week) you can happily set at home and do stuff that you would do in your cube. The trick is scheduling your work so that it can work out that way. I spend a lot of time making sure that I can do most things remotely. Most days that remoteness means doing it from my cube rather than in front of the machine. This also means that many days I can work from home as effectively, if not more so, as if I'm in my cube. Redirecting the work phone to my home phone is useful also. When you manage to do >50% of your work from your cube, you can do all of that from home.

If you work on infrastructure, you know that meetings are generally a waste, and conf. calls can be done from home. What you are left with is balancing the amount of work you do at your desk and what can't be done at your desk. If you work to ensure that >50% can be done at your desk, you have validation for working from home 2-3 days per week.

How's that?

Re:I would love having this option

[644bd346996]

Telecommuting works outside of the IT department too, you know. In pretty much any corporation, Middle Managers could spend at least a day a week working from home, often much more. For example, I know a project manager for an organization of several thousand employees. She works from home an average of 4 days a week.

Re:I would love having this option

[Anonymous Coward]

Telecommuting does not work for programmers in any sort of team environment, which either is or should be most jobs.

Development is not a solo effort, you need to talk to the users, the analysts, the other coders, the testers, there's a whole design process.

While you can do all this remotely via phone and video conferencing, it's nowhere near as effective as face to face, and raising the effort needed to communicate cuts out on a large amount of communication.

On top of just the job at hand, there's a whole lot of personal growth and exposure to new/different ideas/points of view that you just don't get when working from home or working solo.

My last job shut down their Sydney office and let everyone either work from home or from a serviced office. Within a month all the people I regarded as clued in had found other work, and the remainder reduced their quality to the point where I made a point of asking not to be put in teams with them.

getting back towards the topic, I think telecommuting very occasionally, like maybe one or two days a month is ok, it's like a bit of an extra holiday and can give people a bit of space when they feel their job has become a little stale.

Once you're doing it every week though you should really look at the reasons you don't like going to your work place and try to fix those problems rather than running away from them

Re:I would love having this option

[IdleTime]

I'm not a programmer but I have worked from for the past 4 years and so does my whole team. My company, a HUGE software giant (no, not MS or IBM), have had very good experience with work at home and support it 100%. After doing it for 4 years, there is no way I'd go back to working in an office. Nothing beats sitting out by the pool with my wireless laptop and something cold to drink and yes, I live in Florida so I can do it most of the year.

Re:I would love having this option

[bberens]

Telecommuting does not work for programmers in any sort of team environment, which either is or should be most jobs.

Development is not a solo effort, you need to talk to the users, the analysts, the other coders, the testers, there's a whole design process.

getting back towards the topic, I think telecommuting very occasionally, like maybe one or two days a month is ok, it's like a bit of an extra holiday and can give people a bit of space when they feel their job has become a little stale.

Once you're doing it every week though you should really look at the reasons you don't like going to your work place and try to fix those problems rather than running away from them I think you vastly over-estimate the level of involvement required in most development jobs. Sure when the application is being designed and developed there needs to be a lot of face to face interaction. However, once the application is in maintenance mode there's little to no need for face time. I can read a bug out of bugzilla, look at the screenshots and fix the bug just as well from home as I do in the office. Secondly I can add another screen that looks similar to all the other screens and uses the same dao + a couple of columns without any real face time. I can also create a report that shows [whatever] without face time. The VAST majority of development is in maintenance mode or upgrades to software that already has a large foundation.

Re:I would love having this option

[bfields]

Telecommuting does not work for programmers in any sort of team environment, which either is or should be most jobs.

Any number of open source projects would serve as excellent counterexamples of highly productive projects involving teams that collaborate closely across large distances. Most of my day job is Linux kernel development, and while I'm fortunate to have great kernel hackers in my office and in the neighborhood who I can go hang out with and ask questions, the nature of the project dictates that most of the people I work with are people I've never, or only occasionally, met face-to-face.

It certainly takes some getting used to. It's been a real test of my reading and writing skills--you need to be able to understand and explain complex technical ideas, and keep discussions going despite personality conflicts. And it'll help to have good local computer resources, a fast network connection, and a mail client that helps you handle massive mailing list traffic efficiently....

Re:I would love having this option

[ulzeraj]

So, Telecommuting does not work for programmers? Yeah... as if the hundreds of Linux programmers work in one big office.

Re:I would love having this option

[starfishsystems]

I'll add another response which accords with the first two.

In a very small organization, you end up with your hands on the hardware a lot, but this condition dilutes in larger organization due to economies of scale. For example, the person in charge of infrastructure is not doing desktop system installs. A more junior person can do that at less cost. Even then, a knowledgeable person doing desktop installation and maintenance has figured out the value of doing that centrally as well. There comes a point where an untrained office worker can go over to the supply closet, pick up a box, and plug it in. Half an hour later, a fresh new system fully configured and ready for login. Because that box is not infrastructure, it represents an effective use of infrastructure.

The real infrastructure work is about anticipating the evolution of technology, adding capabilities to the infrastructure pyramid, and capacity planning. And as this whole pyramid tends to become larger and more complex over time, the hardware layer becomes proportionally less prominent. This holds true on the desktop, in the server room, and on the network.

If you add up what you really do in a day's work, most of it does not require dispatching staff to the site. User support, though only peripherally an infrastructure function, is worth mentioning because it too doesn't actually require staff on site either. This does not match popular expectation, of course, which is that infrastructure is just a fancy word for laying cable and installing desktop software and things of that nature.

Re:I would love having this option

[cpuh0g]

Telecommuting does not work for programmers in any sort of team environment, which either is or should be most jobs.

Speak for yourself. I work for a BIG company that writes ALOT of open (and closed) source code and have been doing so for 7+ years. I am highly productive, I get top reviews every year, I make a nice 6-figure salary, and I get to work on tons of interesting projects developing operating system code both as a developer and a technical lead. The fact that it doesn't work for you means that either you or your company is not properly supporting you or does not fully grasp the telecommuting concept.

I do it every day, 5 days a week. Several times a year I fly out to visit the main office for a week and mingle with my coworkers and work on-site, but otherwise most of my communication is done via email and conference calls. It *can* work, but it really depends alot on the company, the culture, and the employee.

Re:I would love having this option

[DerekLyons]

But it really only works for programmers.

Yup - and that's one factor that keeps companies from implementing telecommuting, there are too many jobs you simple can't do remotely. If only a few get to do it, the rest feel disenfranshised and morale can plummet.
 
Anecdote time: My wife is an accountant - at one job all she did was review reports for completeness and correctness, and either forward them to the client or kick them back to the staff. (Essentially QA work.) Since the reports were already on the computer, it seemed to her boss that allowing her to telecommute (after working in the office for a couple of years) was an ideal solution to reducing the overcrowded conditions in the office. Within days of her starting - the level of hostility from her coworkers rose to incredible heights, because she was 'at home' rather than 'at the office'. In the end she had to quit, as the boss wouldn't let her return to the office or adress the issue, and the hostility of her coworkers made it impossible for her to do her work. (Within a month of starting - all three of the telecommuters had quit because of this.)

Re:I would love having this option

[rs79]

"elecommuting does not work for programmers in any sort of team environment"

That's ok, programming doesn't work in a team environment either.

Re:I would love having this option

[uk086242]

I think you should change your login name to 'Miss De Point'. :D

Re:I would love having this option

[ningjing]

and remote support isn't an option? My company support 12 sites from one base and it does work.

Re:I would love having this option

[Asic Eng]

Development is not a solo effort, you need to talk to the users, the analysts, the other coders, the testers, there's a whole design process.

I have similar experiences showing that face to face is a lot more efficient than conference calls (though lousy conferencing equipment is one of the contributors to that). On the other hand, programming is a job which requires concentration, constant interruptions are a big problem. I have experience with that, too - when I'm in the office very late or very early I get so much more work done than during the day. So now if schedule permits I try and telecommute once a week, it helps my productivity and doesn't hurt communications with the rest of the team too much. I think it's a good tradeoff.

This might depend a bit on personal preferences, too - one of the most efficient of my colleagues works solely from home, so for him that must be ok, but I know others who claim to work from home, but don't show any results for that time.

Re:I would love having this option

[SuperMog2002]

Were I work, we almost all use MacBook Pros, which have built in cameras and support 4-way video conferencing. Need to talk to someone? You've got phone, email, IM, and video conference to choose from.

Re:I would love having this option

[x-caiver]

On the infrastructure side, you really have to be on site for a lot of things (correct me if I am wrong.)

It depends. As you say, in your role you sometimes have to go fix someones desktop, but that isn't always the case. We've got several decently sized computer labs, and depending on which person on the 'infrastructure team' you are talking about would change if they can work at home or not. Planning a big install (figuring out what parts to buy, figuring out how to space them out, figuring out how much power is needed, how to rack them, etc) doesn't require being on-site. Doing the actual racking of course does. Once a lab is set up you have some things that you need to be there for (if you need to swap out a drive, or do hardware-level troubleshooting) but other stuff that you don't necessarily need to physically be there. Our labs have these KVMs that work over IP (not sure what brand) so you can do a lot of stuff remotely, we even have some hardware that lets you reboot a frozen machine remotely. There are days when our main lab guy spends more time driving to all the different buildings than he does doing actual repairs though...

Re:I would love having this option

[x-caiver]

Telecommuting does not work for programmers in any sort of team environment, which either is or should be most jobs.

That is a pretty sweeping generalization. Just because you are on a team does not mean that you need to be in constant communication with the other people on the team.

Development is not a solo effort,

I agree with that statement, but...

you need to talk to the users,

Developers do not need to talk to users every day. Actually no one on a development team (testers, program managers, etc) needs to do that. There are times when people need to talk to customers, especially when gathering feedback on the program, but that is not a daily thing. It also does not need to be an in-person thing. We have customers around the world, and while we do fly to visit them every now and then, we don't fly over weekly.

the analysts,

Not sure what you mean be 'analysts' so I'll skip this one

the other coders,

If the project is so poorly spec'd that developers can't code up their parts without constant face-to-face meetings with the other developers than there is something wrong with the specs.

the testers,

Testers should be skilled enough to file bug reports that are coherent. If screenshots are needed, paste them in; if log files are needed, paste them in; if actual access to the machine is needed, provide a telnet/debugger/vnc/whatever connection.

there's a whole design process.

Yes, a whole design process that should absolutely not require constant dialogs between every single person on the team (and the customers you mentioned!) Before you call BS on me, let me just say that I've worked in all those situations. We have developers in 3 time zones, testers in 2, customers in a dozen. I've filed bugs, with repros/screenshots/logs/etc, for developers that I've never met. This isn't rocket science - it isn't the easiest thing in the world, but nothing worth doing ever is.

Re:I would love having this option

[WuphonsReach]

But it really only works for programmers. On the infrastructure side, you really have to be on site for a lot of things (correct me if I am wrong.) I work in a small company where I wear many hats so sometimes I need to interrupt a maintenance task or project to fix someone's PC. I'd love a telecommuting position but that would mean a radical change. I'd really like to find a telecommuting help desk analyst position. It would be worth even a small pay cut for having such flexibility

I wear the sysadmin hat (in addition to many others), and I spend 99% of my days offsite, about 5-6 hours away from the office. The key items IMO are:

1. Remote control software on every desktop. We used to use e/pop Professional (chat software + remote control) but are switching over to RealVNC + Jabber. Being able to see the user's screen makes it less likely that I'll have to take a drive.

2. Reliable hardware. Plan for failure. We build our own desktops with RAID1 and using commodity parts. We've had 1 hard drive fail in the past few years, and if it had been one of the newer ones with RAID1, it would've been a cakewalk. I'm still working on keeping a library of drive images for quick restoration. The cost of a 2nd drive and imaging software pays for itself pretty quickly when you have a user's machine go down.

3. Periodic trips into the office. Once I move in a few months, I plan on going in about once every week or every other week. Most technical issues can wait a few days to be resolved. We also have a semi-technical person who works in the office a few days a week who can act as a "pair of hands". But I also have other users who are smarter then the average bear who can reboot servers or read off status information. Other years, I've done 3 weeks home 1 week at the office.

4. In-house IM system. Saves a lot on phone calls. Easier to give someone technical information such as a URL. We're even able to connect to our IM system (Wildfire jabber server) from our cell phones.

Things I still want to do:

- TCP/IP controlled power plugs on the server rack
- TCP/IP KVM for the server rack

Most important:

[r_jensen11]

Telecommuting supplements working at the office, not replaces it. People still want/need that face-to-face contact. There have been plenty of stories posted about how telecommuting can really put you on the slow-track for promotions and also reduces the opportunities when you accedentally come across a gold-mine of an idea thru means of mis-communication.

Re:Most important:

[technomom]

The slow-track only happens if the people you work with and your bosses aren't telecommuting.

Here in IBM, 40% of the workforce is classified as "mobile" or "at home". The difference in classification is really just the percentage of time that you travel or work at customer sites. My boss and his boss telecommute. My department consists of people scattered around the globe, some telecommuting, some not. So, there's no real hit to the career for to anyone for telecommuting. In fact, you have to justify having an office these days.

The important thing to remember is not to cut yourself off. Keep an IM session (in IBM it's Sametime) alive while you're around, keep your cell phone on if you're at a customer site, get a good speakerphone, and get the best broadband you can get (for me it's FiOS). Have weekly teleconferences with team members (or more often if needed). Set clear agendas for meetings so they don't drag on and for pity's sake, learn to use the mute button, especially if you are a mouth breather or have kids/dogs in the room.

Telecommuting can work very well if there's a culture for it.

Re:Most important:

[metlin]

Exactly.

For instance, I do telecom R&D and there are at least 5 times during the day when my boss walks in to brainstorm some idea or vice-versa (or do so with someone else I work with). It is wonderful to exchange ideas back and forth, and you can get a surprising amount of new ideas this way.

Also, there is something to be said about having a whiteboard to hash ideas out with your team - that's not something you can do when you telecommute - at least not easily.

I do work with a couple of people who telecommute and some of them are in Europe, which makes for some interesting meeting scheduling. But there have been times when I have just wished for them to be right there in the room with me, so I can explain what I have in mind (of course, I usually end up setting up a webcam or taking a pic and sending it to them). But that is still a work-around and the original problem remains, unchanged.

Now, if you do come to work on most days and telecommute ever so often (say, a couple of days a week), that works. I live in downtown, so on the very rare occasion that I do work from home, I can always walk down to work if they really need me. Which, I suppose, gives me a lot more freedom to work at my own time and place.

Secondly, working from home has an informal feel to it. Usually, I find that I get a lot more done when I do not have a million things distracting me and when I can just sit down and concentrate. Besides, working from home means you mix work and home, which means that people call you at odd hours and expect something. By leaving work at work, you do not have that problem.

And then there is the matter of resources - the handy printer and copier at work when ever you need it is at work, and at home, you end up paying for your inkjet cartridges. Add assorted office supplies and you've quiet a list. I also have several binders full of data and data-analysis results (which may give you a hint on what I do) which I don't have at home. Replicating them at home is an option, but it's not one I can do legally (nor easily).

Besides, it's fun talking to people at work, networking with folks from other areas of the business etc. Wouldn't trade any of it!

Re:Most important:

[Evil Poot Cat]

I totally agree with the above, especially the live session. Run a freaking IRC server if you have to, but leave some form of 'live' chat/talk mechanism.

Expanding on the mute button concept: Phone manners and voice practice become typing/writing-level skills. So, practice. Leave yourself a voicemail, to hear how you sound. Playback your test messages over the office phones, if possible, and any other phone you have around. Use your own feedback to improve your sound over the phone. (This is different from knowing wtf you're talking about -- just the phone presence.)

One day a week

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently I can swing one day a week from home, in the near future I am hoping to work exclusively from home.

The hardest thing about working from home is trying to explain to family and friends that you are trying to work. When they know you are at home, then tend to treat is as if your on vacation, and its ok to call and small talk or pop-in.

Re:One day a week

[Neumann]

The hardest thing about working from home is trying to explain to family and friends that you are trying to work. When they know you are at home, then tend to treat is as if your on vacation, and its ok to call and small talk or pop-in.

And this is different from your co-workers popping by your cubicle how exactly?

As a long time telecommuter

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

My tips

1. Background noise - Parents, shut your children up! Nothing sounds more unprofessional than hearing kids yelling in the background. This goes for barking dogs, parakeets, laundry room, the kitchen and taking a conference call from the local pub.

2. Get a dedicated phone line for office work with a vmail that has a professional greeting. No "Hi, Jim and Linda are unable to answer the phone right now..."

3. Don't milk the expenses. In fact you'd be better off not charging any expenses as it is a factor when it comes time for layoffs. Software licenses are a different matter, but you may want to consider your own license if you develop on the side.

4. Be available/no sneaking out.

5. There are no set hours. It's not 9 to 5, and being flexible for your customers across timezones puts you at an advantage over cube jockeys with a commute.

6. Avoid day trading.

7. Don't become a hermit. Meet up with the local coworkers for lunch at least once month.

Re:As a long time telecommuter

[jbn-o]

5. There are no set hours. It's not 9 to 5, and being flexible for your customers across timezones puts you at an advantage over cube jockeys with a commute.

In the interest of clarity: Are you describing what some call "flex time" where workers get credit for working whenever they work and are in the clear with management so long as they fulfill their weekly work hours? Or are you saying that telecommuting ought to be a message to one's boss that one is willing to work whenever management says to work? The former seems quite reasonable for self-starters, the latter is unreasonable for any worker. I'd work my hours and produce good results. I'd make appointments with clients and meet them in person, on the phone, or online as the client prefers. But I would become unavailable outside those hours because businesses aren't charities and I expect to be paid for my labor. Even if I'm still in possession of the work-supplied laptop and telecommunication device during my vacation, I can go on vacation and not work.

Re:As a long time telecommuter

[Sparr0]

2. Get a dedicated phone line for office work with a vmail that has a professional greeting. No "Hi, Jim and Linda are unable to answer the phone right now..." Why on earth would you have your own line and vmail at home? You don't have your office number forwarded to your computer at home?

Re:As a long time telecommuter

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

Are you describing what some call "flex time" where workers get credit for working whenever they work and are in the clear with management so long as they fulfill their weekly work hours? Or are you saying that telecommuting ought to be a message to one's boss that one is willing to work whenever management says to work?

Depends on the compensation, position, situation and ambition of the individual. In my experience, those in the latter tend to thrive professionally ... that includes being tracked down on vacation where-the-hell-ever they may be.

Re:As a long time telecommuter

[x-caiver]

Those are all excellent tips that I wish more telecommuters would follow. A couple comments... 2) Dedicated phone line This is good for more than just the 'professional' voicemail message. It allows you to seperate your work and personal lives more effectively. If people are calling your home phone all the time for work, the line gets blurred. The only people at work who know my home phone number are the HR people since it is listed as one of my emergency numbers. My coworkers have my cell phone number as the 'non office' number if they need to get in touch with me - this also lets me turn the ringer off if I need to. 3) Software licenses and developing on the side You have to be pretty careful here. Lots of companies have rules about anything you develop on company time being their property (or at least giving them right to first purchase). I'm not sure how that would apply to a telecommuter - what is 'company time' when you don't have set hours and your home / work computers are the same. Also, the actualy license to the software you need to pay attention too. If the company provides the software (or reimburses your expense) it would be considered company property, and some companies also have rules about using company property to do personal work. If they own it, then you are also technically supposed to give it back (and delete from your computer) if your employment ends, and that would be a hassle if you were working on personal stuff when you quit. A jerk company could also require you to turn over your hard drive immediately if they reimbursed you for an extra hard drive. If you happened to have personal stuff on there that would be quite the pain too.

How To Hired?

[toonerh]

I been a programmer for many years. I am disabled (problems using my hands and arms) and can't drive at present. I live the SF Bay Area. Think I can contribute to many companies, but does anyone have any ideas about getting hired? This is the barrier I've encountered.

Re:How To Hired?

[pikine]

Since you can submit post on Slashdot, I assume you can input text to a computer. As long as you maintain a portfolio of your coding that demonstrates your programming skill, I think any company that worths its salt should be more than happy to hire you. You may want to specifically look for positions that require you to produce less number lines of code but demand the code to be of higher quality.

Small companies are usually focused on growth, and they want to push for more lines of code, so they're less ideal for you. Of course at one point they'll eventually realize that they spend 90% of time debugging rather than writing code, but it will be too late for them. Fortunate for you, the best way to find bug is actually to read code and figure out what it is doing, all in your head. You could be an excellent code auditor.

ISP Help Desk

[evanknight]

I'm a level three support (phone jockey) for a pretty large ISP. Customers ask all the time if I'm working from home. Drives me nuts; I'd love to, but i'm in a cube farm on floor two.

one

[way2trivial]

rentacoder.com

Telecommute != Teleworking

[the cleaner]

I am currently deciding if I want to accept the offer for a job that would have me work from home (Europe) completely, for a company in the US. The decision is not easy, because of the reasons mentioned in the articles. Another point to keep in mind is, that with me at home it will maybe put more stress on the relationship to my SO. I'm still undecided...

Re:Telecommute != Teleworking

[GiMP]

It can be difficult, but also rewarding. My wife hates telecommuting, she doesn't like the fact that she is stuck in the house all day long; however, I felt the same way when I first started. I had actually worked 2 years telecommuting, and then 2 years in an office, before returning to telework.

So far, I'm enjoying the time that I spend at home, and I too moved to Europe -- so I get to enjoy the culture and the cafes, even when working. With highspeed wireless internet (up to 1.8mbps with UMTS/HSDPA), I can work from anywhere.

By the way, what these articles don't mention is that sometimes you're not looking for promotions when you switch to telecommuting. The truth is that telecommuting has fewer social distractions and if you live in a small enough flat, you have shorter distances to the restroom and coffee pot / water cooler. What this means is that while you might feel bad for firing up the tv, remember that almost no matter how much you goof off, you're probably doing more than you would if you had gone to the office. The important thing, of course, is that you can get the work done.

Re:Telecommute != Teleworking

[GiMP]

By the way, what these articles don't mention is that sometimes you're not looking for promotions when you switch to telecommuting.

I feel that I mashed a bunch of ideas together... I forgot to elaborate on the above.

Some people are looking for other opportunties otherside their normal office rather than promotions. Rather than spending time around the water cooler, teleworkers can get their jobs done and still have time to pursue other interests... hobbies, contract work, etc.

Now, some might not think this fair to their employer, but neither is spending time at the watercooler, or taking long walks to the restroom (the restroom often being a shorter walk at home); however, it is important that you get your work done and don't create a major conflict of interest.

Not to have this bite me in the ass in the future when someone data-mines this later and out of context... my point is that many jobs have 'down time', and its better for an employee to use that time productively than unproductively, even if that productive 'down time' isn't exactly directly beneficial for the company. Google knows this, you should too. (note, I don't work for google, but they do have a policy *requiring* employees work on personal projects)

Re:Telecommute != Teleworking

[egburr]

The biggest problem I have with this is that when I work from home my boss wants proof that I am working the entire time. When I work from the office, no questions are asked. Even he commented a few times how I tended to log less work when at the office.

At the office I get a lot more interruptions from people wandering by and chatting. At home, I can actually work; it is much easier to delay response to instant messaging than face-to-face, so I can finish my current activity. I also tend to spend a lot more time away from my desk when at the office; must be that tiny cubicle closing in on me. And, as you say, the bathroom is a lot closer at home; the one at the office is like walking two laps around my house first.

The need to *prove* I'm working when telecommuting has gotten so bad that I don't do it very often lately. The really frustrating part is that since this is level 3 tech support, my work volume is largely driven by our customers. If they aren't asking for help, I don't have anything to do (well, that's not true anymore; I now have busywork to make it look like I'm doing something (creating documents that nobody but me will ever read)).

Re:Telecommute != Teleworking

[diaz]

HOW did you find a job like that?? I'm looking for a situation where I could work from Spain for a US company.

All of global IT is telecommuting

[autophile]

If your company deals in IT spread all over the globe, then the company's IT workers are already telecommuting. They're just living in your office space 8 hours a day. NOW do the math!

--Rob

Re:1 thing the EMPLOYEE needs to know

[mike3k]

I live in Florida and my job is in Vancouver.

Not just social benefites...

[Belial6]

It's not just social benefits, but the environmental benefits of massive telecommuting would be huge! I telecommute 4 days a week. I can tell you that I drive about 1/4 as much as I used to. That has to be better for the environment. I still think if our (California's) governor wants to hit a home run, he could appeal to individual residents, family groups, environmentalists, AND big business if he would get a tax break for businesses that have over a certain percentage of telecommuters. Family groups would love the extra time that parents get to spend with their kids. Individual residents would spend a smaller part of their day dedicated to work, as they wouldn't be commuting. Environmentalists would love to have the number of miles cars in the state drive cut in half, as well as not needing to expand roads, since having few cars on the road means our current roads would be big enough. And what business doesn't like to have a nice big tax break. This would also lead to expansion of our telecom business, as telecommuters would need, and be willing to pay for better internet access.

The only problems I see are those interests that want us consuming as much fuel as possible. Obviously oil companies wouldn't want a state like California to cut it's fuel consumption in half. That would be a huge revenue hit. The state might also dislike the reduced revenue from fuel taxes as well. I would think that the reduced cost of road infrastructure would off set that though.

Re:Not just social benefites...

[houghi]

A study in Belgium revealed that telecomuters still drove as much as others. They just drove for different reasons. Bringing the children to school was a major one.

Re:Not just social benefites...

[misanthrope101]

Maybe something other than the bottom line is perpetuating the on-site job culture. I think a lot of people want to get out of the house, away from the spouse and kids, etc. Office politics, despicable as they are, fulfill emotional needs for conflict, schmoozing, alliance-building, backbiting, and so on. A work environment where people were judged solely on the quality of their work would be a lot less invigorating to many people.

Plus, many managers like in-person management because they like being in charge and telling people what to do. Not all of them are fascist jerks, but giving orders in "the voice" and having underlings scurry to comply is a heady feeling, and telecommuting undermines the opportunities for that. My point is that resistance to telecommuting isn't always about the bottom line. People like me, who view a job as a paycheck, have trouble understanding it, but a lot of people are very happy with the face-to-face job culture and all the politics and intrigue it makes possible, not to mention the friendships and other relationships they find there. But I still agree that we should push for more telecommuting.

Re:Not just social benefites...

[pipingguy]

I work in engineering (major projects) which sometimes offers the opportunity to work many overtime hours. I often get the feeling that many people who choose to do a lot of overtime hours do so in order to avoid home life (although they'll claim that they're doing it for the money). After 25+ years in the business I've noticed that productivity drastically declines after about 45 hours/week and most of the OT hours are spent socializing or just waiting out the clock.

Re:Not just social benefites...

[ishobo]

When I started telecommuting in the Silicon Valley area, my yearly miles went from around 10k to 2k. I saved money on the car insurance too.

Re:1 thing the EMPLOYEE needs to know

[nurb432]

Not true, i work from home on the weekends, to avoid the drive to do 'after-hours updates'. And it qualifes as 'comptime' so i dont bother going in the following monday.

And to clairfy, i didnt say it NEVER makes sence, only that its rare.

O.U.T.S.O.U.R.C.E.

[Tablizer]

I don't want to telecommute because one's boss may start to figure that if you can work from home, then so can someone in Asia or Russia for one-fifth the cost.

Half true...

[Kjella]

...if they're all in different parts of the world. Then you are forced to use online tools to get people coordinated. What usually happens is that on a team you have several people colocated in the same location, which needs to communicate with indvidual workers or teams in a different location. What happens is that information is explicitly or implicitly shared with the people on-site, but never put into the tools so the telecommuting workers are completely blindsided. That is also a big problem with offshoring or outsourcing, that the teams talk past each other. Paricularly if you're the odd exception you'll find that no, we're not all "telecommuting".

The Net

[KnowledgeKeeper]

I, for one, don't want to be known as Ruth Marx. The name sucks. Oh, yeah, that possible identity theft thing could suck, too. :)

What are other aspects of this kind of work? Sure, it could save time, money and nerves. But it could also cheat you out of meeting that cute girl standing next to you in the bus, by the water cooler or somewhere else.

If you are a workaholic you could start losing track of time and work yourself out like a slave - you could end up losing friends, family, etc. Besides, I can just imagine the problems of proving I've been working overtime.

Telecommuting == career suicide

[xtal]

Unless you work for youself, as a contractor, whatever - telecommuting is career suicide. There are exceptions, but that's the rule, IMHO.

Re:Telecommuting == career suicide

[mabinogi]

You did say it was just your opininion, but if you want anyone to give your opinion any weight, you're going to need to give a little more than just the opinion itself.

Why should it be "career suicide?" In fact, how do you define "Career suicide" in the first place?

Re:Telecommuting == career suicide

[xtal]

I'm basing it on 15 years experience in the industry. The only telecommuters I've seen make large metric volumes of cash, or achieve any metric of advancement - defined as senior management - in a company are ones who run their own companies, or are independant contractors.

You best be immersing yourself in the culture of a company up to the eyeballs if you want to go that route, and telecommuting is not the way to do that. I'm not saying it's optimal; I'm not saying it's right, either - but I am saying that based on my observations about how the majority of companies work in North America, it's not compatible with advancement.

Re:Telecommuting == career suicide

[mabinogi]

Ahh - you see, my definition of "career suicide" is - you lose your job and any chance of getting a similar one.
Yours is "you probably won't get into management".

I don't _want_ to get in to management. I've already advanced as far as I possibly can within my company - a senior R&D programmer (having advanced litterly from the bottom - doing casual handline envelope stuffing jobs). I don't see getting into senior management as "advancing my career", I define it as "Starting an entirely different career, and one I'm not suited to, telecomuting or no telecomuting".
But in anycase, I don't believe the telecomuting would necesarily stop that - I'm pretty heavily immersed in the culture of the company - I've been here ten years, and believe I have earnt the sort of level of respect and recognition required for a move into management if that were my goal (and if I had any actual talent for it).

Maybe five day a week telecomuting might put the breaks on advancement a little (I personally do two to three), but it's more about personality than face time. You just have to be the sort of person that people notice - and ensure that when they do notice you, that there's good things to see.

A supplement, not a substitute

[Wansu]

My previous boss viewed telecommuting as a supplement rather than a substitute. See, we had flex time. You could stay up as late working as necessary, so long as you were in by 8am. Telecommuting was viewed as "overtime lite". He wanted us to report telecommute time separately from time spent at the office.

And 1 thing you probably shouldn't mention

[Rogerborg]

If you can do the job from home, so can a guy in Bangalore who charges 1/5 of your salary.

Re:And 1 thing you probably shouldn't mention

[bwohlgemuth]

If you can do the job from home, so can a guy in Bangalore who charges 1/5 of your salary.

And on a different timezone with a lovely inability to speak to customers in decent English!!!!

I telecommute. Cell phone is always attached and I return calls within 10 minutes unless on a conference call. E-mail is turned around as quickly as possible. I love telecommuting, I know that it will get old eventually, but they keep sending me checks!

Re:And 1 thing you probably shouldn't mention

[deepestblue]

And what I'm from Bangalore myself? Insensitive clod.

Re:And 1 thing you probably shouldn't mention

[SpaghettiPattern]

Nah. The guy in Bangalore will NOT be able to come down the office twice a week for a meeting. Doing stuff is easy. Knowing what to do is the tough part.

Re:And 1 thing you probably shouldn't mention

[dodobh]

There's the guy from Kochi willing to work for a 5th of your salary.

Re:And 1 thing you probably shouldn't mention

[tech10171968]

Fortunately I work on off-site infrastructure, so telecommuting wouldn't bother me a bit. After all, you might be able to hire a code monkey from Beijeng or Bophal, but he sure he sure as hell can't fix a hardware-related issue within 30 minutes of receiving a customer complaint.

Re:And 1 thing you probably shouldn't mention

[aralin]

No, he cannot. Our company has problem to get people in Bangalore to do much less demanding jobs than mine. And if we ever get someone they don't stick for long enough to learn my job. I am feeling so utterly safe that I will gladly go to Bangalore anytime and train any number of people they hire to do my job, knowing I am still going to have it 2 years from now. Besides, going there and doing that is a nice stress free vacation in India. Can you say "personal chauffeur" and not smile? Oh, and I love other people folding my clothes.

Its pretty simple

[gelfling]

Office phone (VoIP)
Most/all of the broadband data
Allotment for office equip: Printer, Router, etc. up to a fixed dollar amount
Monthly office supplies, paper, ink, etc.
Use a corporate credit card and submit expenses monthly

I do this and the only noise I get is about the high price of printer ink. But it's from their preferred retailers so screw them.

Re:How To (Be) Hired?

[toonerh]

If you're disabled with respect to your hands and arms... how do you code?

I normally use a mouthstick to type and a "foot mouse" to move and click.

Regarding being mod'ed down as offtopic, TFA mentioned a disabled programmer - I was following up on that person.

Yea but...

[Duncan3]

Thats all great, really.

But the number one thing they will realize, is that if you working at home works, someone working in India for 1/6 the wage will work just as well.

Don't be stupid people, if your boss is letting you telecommute, they are just beta testing offshoring.

.

Re:Yea but...

[MurphyZero]

Ah but if he does that, HIS Boss may realize that he can cut costs further by hiring a manager in India that reports to him for that low low price. So if your boss is smart, he won't look at it that way. However, I have seen many bosses, and they barely plan forward enough to unzip when they are in the restroom. Realizing that something they do could cost them their own job, impossible.

Re:Yea but...

[swillden]

Don't be stupid people, if your boss is letting you telecommute, they are just beta testing offshoring.

And what if your boss, and his boss, and his boss, and her boss are also all telecommuting? In some companies telecommuting is simply the normal way of doing business.

I'd come at it from the other direction

[Weaselmancer]

Once you're doing it every week though you should really look at the reasons you don't like going to your work place and try to fix those problems rather than running away from them

If you like your office more than your home, I'd worry more about that says.

University of Telecommuters

[Nonesuch]

It's not just work, why not also study? Why on Earth, with the technology available, does anyone need to go to a building and sit with 100 other students in a cold lecture hall for an hour or too. There's no reason why that can be video streamed and questions handled by chat or email. Then you can fit in the lecture when you brain is most receptive, and take breaks when you wish, or replay parts you didn't get. In fact for many subjects, the lectures need only be recorded once for use over many years. Transcripts of previous Q and A's can also be available online.

Sure, labs and tutorials need face to face, but that can be one day per week.

Professors might not be too happy with their lectures being recorded once and used forever, but how many actually teach their own courses these days anyway?

University of Phoenix might be considered by many to be a joke, but the concept is sound, just needs better execution.

Re:Goatse!

[utopianfiat]

Telecommuters hack off the Boss's HP like nobody's business, HUTTAH!

full time job?

[misanthrope101]

I was only a full-time parent for a month or so, when I was on vacation and my then-wife (now ex) was out of town. I had two, aged 2 and 3. It was incredibly boring because I couldn't go do anything, but I didn't find it hard. They need to eat, be clean, be watched so they don't hurt themselves, you play with them occasionally, and so on, but it wasn't nearly as full-time as my actual job. Many days I sat outside and played chess with a neighbor all day while her kids and my kids played together in the yard. When someone got hurt/hungry/dirty/tired, we intervened, but otherwise we were just there.

I could never have done that in my actual job. The life was limiting in that I couldn't exactly take the kids to a bookstore or library, but it wasn't hard, and certainly didn't require the sustained attention and effort that an actual job entails.

Additionally, I've always wondered, if being a parent is a full-time job, who made Oprah so rich? I mean, someone was watching her shows all those years, and someone watches enough daytime TV to make it a profitable advertising medium. To me, being a full-time parent would be hard mainly because it's boring and limiting, not because it's actually full-time. It doesn't require the sustained attention and activity of a job, but you can't go out and do things as if you had nothing to do. My then-wife's biggest problem was that she didn't get to talk to grown-ups all day, unless you count the other housewives, who were also going crazy from the same problem.

That being said, both of my kids were (and still are, strangely) well-behaved, healthy, and relatively low-maintenance. Talk to them, listen to them, feed/clothe them, and they're fine. I've known parents whose kids had health problems that made their care actually a full-time job, and I don't presume to ever say anything about their situation, because I respect what they have to do. But I've always felt that this whole "parenting is a full-time job", much less the famous "the hardest job in the world" is a bit overblown.

Re:full time job?

[Maitri]

Well - all I have to say is that every two and three year old I have watched required at least 80% of my attention 100% of the time they were awake just to make sure that they didn't kill themselves. (Kids that age are walking suicide machines - they haven't yet learned fear. They love to jump on and off things and are very tactile and orally fixated which leads to jumping off steps, fingers in electrical sockets, or the wrong thing in their mouth, etc. In addition, they are extremely curious and have short attention spans.) Even after they grow out of this stage, it isn't just a matter of keeping them safe. It is also about raising them to have good morals, teaching them how to think critically, how to be a good friend - relate to others - have social skills, how to read - ride a bike - drive a car - have good hygiene. All of the million things they need to know not to be one of the obnoxious members of society that we meet everyday.

So - not only do you have to keep your kids safe and teach them all of the skills they will need in life but you have to do it without going insane because they ask you "Why?" a million times, have fights with each other, occasionally seem like ungrateful brats, you are bored and can't get out to do something for yourself, or because you are just dying for some adult conversation that doesn't revolve around Barney/teletubies/winkies/whatever the heck obnoxious show your kid fell in love with. You have to deal with putting your professional life on hold and putting them first while having people with attitudes like yours stating that what you are doing isn't hard. On top of this - you can't quit, there are no sick days, your hours are 24/7, the pay non-existent, and the "other jobs as required" portion of the job tends to include tasks that no one else wants to do (changing diapers, cleaning up all sorts of bodily fluids, cleaning, cooking, chauffeuring, etc.), that you might not feel qualified for (professional organizer, group leader, counselor/therapist, teacher, security specialist, doctor, etc.) and that you will likely receive little to no recognition for unless they are left undone.

If all of that isn't a full time job, then I don't know what is. I am also far more terrified by the prospect of not going a good job raising the next generation well than I am by anything I have ever encountered at work. There is no doubt in my mind that parenting is one of the hardest jobs there is to do well.

Re:full time job?

[ishobo]

It does not sound like you cooked, cleaning, shopped, etc... Try it for a year.

The life was limiting in that I couldn't exactly take the kids to a bookstore or library

Why not?

Re:full time job?

[misanthrope101]

I remember those ages. I guess I just didn't consider watching them, making sure they didn't hurt themselves, to be that big of an imposition. Maybe it was because I felt innately responsible for them (funny, that) as opposed to an actual for-pay job, which I only do because someone pays me. I was lucky with the "why" issue because my kids, even then, were understanding, and as long as I made a concerted effort to answer as many questions as I could in good faith, if I said "Daddy is getting a bit cranky, so could you go play for a little while? We'll talk about your question later" they actually understood. Even the diapers issue didn't bother me, other than the stinky factor.

I wouldn't say that I'd be happy staying home and being a full-time dad. Saying it's "not difficult" isn't the same thing as it being desirable.

A weird side note is that when my wife got back from out of town, she was a little disappointed that I wasn't a frazzled mess. I didn't get it, and still don't. They required care and feeding, and I had to clean the house, check the mail, and so on, but I still did a lot of reading, played a lot of chess with the neighbor, and so on. No, I wouldn't want to do it for 18 years straight, or with five kids, but the experience I had wasn't all that difficult.

But I think the difference is that I feel an innate responsibiity towards my kids, and don't begrudge taking care of them, whereas my job requires constant mental attention to staying "in-character" because I really, honestly don't care about it beyond the money it brings in. I'm not saying that other parents begrudge their kids, but many do seem to keep a mental tally of all the stuff they do and expect a cookie or something. I'm especially amused when people complain that kids aren't grateful. I certainly wasn't grateful as a kid, and I don't expect my kids to be grateful to me for feeding and sheltering them.

also good for cleaning up the air

[alizard]

I've spent more hours than I want to think about in Silicon Valley traffic (some things work best in meatspace) reflecting that the great majority of people around me have home computers comparable to what they use at the office and network connections. . . so why are they around me driving at 5 miles per hour belching fumes, contributing to air pollution and global warming when they could be at home online actually getting something done? Why am I paying as a taxpayer for multilane freeways that enable people to do this? Why are companies buying employees computers and renting / leasing / buying office space when they don't have to?

This makes the 20th year I've spent telecommuting. I started at an engineering gig telecommuting with a MacPlus and a 1200 baud modem before there was a word for what I was doing, turning my work in via company BBS. Now I write about technology... and telecommute with a dual core AMD on a box running linux with a broadband connection. I think I've missed one deadline in that 20 years.

Telecommuting works.

you cant telecomute a game studio

[kaizokuace]

it just sux for a game studio. From my experience anyone working from home on a game project becomes out of the loop and to get a game done on time requires easy communication. Getting up and talking to someone about something in the office increases productivity so much. My friend once worked for a startup that was connecting on the internets only and that failed. some of the programmers were in completely different time zones and that took a drain on the project and communication was terrible. So until we can have star wars holograms or a holosuite at home to simulate everyone being at the office together i think telecommuting sux for a studio. Oooh with a holosuite the office wont have to look sucky. No cubicles and everyone can enjoy some sort of awesome view or something.

Seven contradictory things

[dark-nl]

According to the article, two of the things your boss should know are:

  - it takes a particular kind of worker to be a successful telecommuter
and
  - if telecommuting is an option for one employee, it should be available to all

This sounds like it would be a problem.

Many benefits

[sjames]

Any company that even considers outsourcing should first consider telecommuting. Telecommuting DOES reduce an employee's overhead, both in time and money. In many places, an employee would much rather work for an extra hour rather than waste it in traffic. In return, they don't have to buy so much $3.00/gal. gas. As TFA pointed out, it's much easier to find good people when they don't have to move to accept the job, and if they can choose to live where they want, they don't have to demand a king's ransom for a salary just to afford a decent place to live near work.

Telecommuters, unlike outsourcers are likely to be in a reasonably close timezone and share a common language and culture. when it comes to work, that alone can fix a great many communication problems. If you have an international customer base, there are benefits to having each country you sell to represented in the development team. That's how you learn that the "perfect icon that instantly conveys it's exact purpose" means nothing to most of your potential user base (for example) or that nobody in France would actually say that the way your prompt does even if it is technically correct.

One advantage that hasn't really been discussed is flu season. Most people who come down with the flue get it from coworkers. Productivity will be improved by not having as many sick employees. Even part-time telecommuting will tend to encourage employees not to come in when they think they might be getting sick and so misery need not insist on company.

In 10 years of telecommuting, I have had the flu exactly once and I was even sort of productive while I had it.

In addition to the other reasons management may be against telecommuting, I suspect that deep down they believe that if you're not suffering, you're not working. The cramped windowless cube farms with harsh lighting and the bad coffee are there to make sure people are "working" rather than enjoying themselves.

Audio Mail for Telecommuting

[Video_Wizard]

This is an audio announcement (0 Hours, 06 Minutes, 07 Seconds long) in MP3 audio format. Click on the link below to hear the audio message. If you need a MP3 player, you can use the free open-source Audacity program (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix.

Listen Now

http://www.gftgroup.com/Guest/Petrana_Audio_Announ cement_75.mp3

  This audio mail was created using the Petrana Audio Mailer, a helper program for Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. The Petrana Audio Mailer enables recording and sending an audio mail message with three spoken commands, keystrokes, or button clicks with the mouse.

Available now at http://www.petrana.net/

STFU

[nurb432]

" STFU and log off permanently" You first, pinhead.

Work at home breeds lazyness and costs in lost productivity as only lazy people do it on an ongoing basis. Get back to your office and get back to work.

Quite a change from 7 years ago

[heroine]

7 years ago the posts on these stories were 100% in favor of telecommuting. Now they're probably 50% against it. What happened? It seems the jobs which allowed telecommuting went to Mongolia and the remaining jobs involve a capability that is only available in the office. Maybe it's some kind of network, test environment, or prototype hardware that only exists in the office.

As predicted, the jobs which don't require being in the location are gone and the posts confirm the truth.

Whew.

[/dev/trash]

I don't wanna be a manager. So this is great news for me.

Easier to outsource?

[Fastolfe]

It occurs to me that the type of IT job that can be easily done from home is the type of job that could easily be done from India.