Does Telecommuting Make You Invisible?

jfruhlinger writes "Telecommuting provides many joys, including the ability to stay in your pajamas all day and the chance to work with a cat on your lap. But it does have some major drawbacks, perhaps none so serious as the fact that, if your co-workers are for the most part in an office, they can forget you exist — which means you don't get credit for your work as you deserve."

Comments

I think we've been over this before

[theshowmecanuck]

But in a word: yes.

There is probably truth to that.

[dmomo]

The question is, does the benefit of working from home offset that? Visibility is important to some, not so much to others. It all depends on your plan or lack of it.

Personally, I think a lack of visibility can only help me!

Re:There is probably truth to that.

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Who do you suppose gets picked come layoff time, the 'C' player who gets seen every day, or the 'B' player who nobody ever sees?

Re:There is probably truth to that.

[SQLGuru]

I was at a company that allowed telecommuting (and in fact promoted it) but never opted to do so (mainly because I don't have a good quiet space to work from home -- kids and all). Marginal and average workers who worked from home were thought of as "goofing off" and having "reduced productivity". Above average workers were thought of as just average. Those that telecommuted but continued to come in to the office three or four days a week (using the hotel cubes) didn't receive this stigma. Those that worked in the office were seen as more productive because they were visible.

So, yeah, they were "invisible"......which doesn't matter except for during key times -- layoffs, raises/promotions, and project assignment (you want the good ones, right?). But, for those that were skating by, being invisible isn't that big of a deal.

Re:There is probably truth to that.

[Another, completely]

Until the department manager is asked to name people to downsize, nobody in the room remembers the last useful thing you did, and you don't even hear rumors that you should make the case for yourself, since you don't have lunch with your co-workers.

A lot of important information is exchanged over lunch and coffee.

Re:There is probably truth to that.

[TheCarp]

Unless the perception is that the 'C' Player is an 'A' Player and the 'B' player is actually an 'F' because he "never does anything".

I knew a few 'D' Players who were treated like they were some sort of bad ass ninjas, just because nobody in charge had any clue how to evaluate them or their work... and the few people who did realize it were less visible and thus got totally ignored.

Ever met a sociopath? You would be shocked at how far just a little charm will take you, especially in the eyes of non-technical people who can't call you on your BS.

WTF?

[gstoddart]

If telecommuting means you're not interacting with co-workers and being 'seen', then yes, you might become invisible and/or deemed irrelevant. It also might mean you are.

Both my wife and I work from home lately, as the contract I work on is across country and her job went to telecommute-only a couple of years ago. I'm in conference calls, email threads, planning meetings, and all sorts of things all the time. My wife is on the phone a good chunk of the day as well as countless emails and IMs with people.

If you are doing your job in a corner, never interacting with people, and it becomes possible that people forget you exist ... well, maybe that's not the fault of telecommuting. I've worked in offices where there are people who nobody really knows what they do, who they report to, or what their role is -- it's possible to be invisible in the office too, and in my experience if nobody knows who you are and what you do then maybe you're just putting in time and waiting until someone realizes they don't know what they pay you for.

Not saying telecommuting is for everyone, or that it fixes everything ... but I've been doing it for over a year, and it's not like anybody on the project I'm working on doesn't know who I am. They may have only met me face to face a handful of times ... but between email and phone calls, I'm hardly invisible. Quite the opposite, in fact since I was kind of the technical lead.

What kind of job can you even be doing that doesn't call for interaction with your co-workers? If you're regularly doing the kinds of things that normal people do, there's no reason for you to disappear as a teleworker.

Re:Credit is not everything

[Sam Andreas]

"Credit is very nice, at the end of the day it is getting the job done that matters"

Maybe to the owners and shareholders but not for anyone else. Having worked under both good and bad managers, and now in a position of leading my own team, I have to say you'd be crazy to ignore this. The worst case is not people leaving your company. The worst case is turning great employees into average employees.

Re:Telecommuting sucks the infinite Wang

[SirWhoopass]

I've worked in the (same) office since 1997 and I don't get lunch, beers, or t-shirts either.

I do, however, get to sit in traffic for 40 to 60 minutes a day.

It has been said before here on Slashdot

[Stonent1]

If you can telecommute to work, so can someone else in another country who will do your job for cheaper.

Re:Expanded answer

[s73v3r]

I think it still takes a company with a culture of telecommuting, or even outsourcing, for that to work. If you're the only one telecommuting on your team, and the company doesn't have operations overseas, or outsource anything, then it's much different.