December 20, 2005

Via He Who Needs No Links, this WSJ article concerning the lack of respect afforded to those of us in the home office:

Many people seem to think that jobs that can be done at home aren't real jobs. Never mind that home-office dwellers are their own cafeteria staff, shipping-and-receiving clerks and janitors. They never get credit for cutting an employer's costs, or saving commuting time to do more work. Instead, managers believe that if they aren't there to witness someone working, it can't be happening. They envision homebound workers getting away with something, like lounging in their bathrobes and watching "General Hospital."

It's as if they believe that the people working under their noses don't waste a tremendous amount of time talking about last night's college basketball game, making bids on eBay, or reading only like-minded blogs while on company time. The misconceptions are yet another indication that vacuous symbols of productivity, rather than productivity itself, are all that really count.

I have also found that the willingness of an employer to let me do my contract work offsite is directly proportional to their tech-savviness. I write for a living, and there is almost nothing I do onsite that can't be done offsite via e-mail and telephone. I do recognize the need for face-to-face contact at the beginning of and periodically during the project, and that's fine with me. But these days a computer is a computer, and I can be as much a part of company's network sitting in my office as I can sitting in a cubicle with distracting thumbtacks.

Working remotely also avoids snafus like this: "Millions Are Left to Make It to Work Any Way They Can". Because I work at home, there is no need for me to tackle a stray circus dwarf, saddle him up and whip him across the George Washington Bridge as I make my escape from Manhattan. Unless I just feel like riding a dwarf. Is that wrong?

I'm seriously considering putting the remote office idea to its ultimate test as I pedal across the country. My contacts are willing to send me jobs that I can do off-site - way off-site - if they come across them. I'm no Steve Roberts, with his trailer-borne satellite terminal and his ham radio, but I'll be almost as connected as he was, at a fraction of the weight and cost.

That's progress for you - fifteen years ago, he had a 68K Macintosh, two 286-based DOS PCs, 80MB of hard drive storage, a 9600-baud modem, and a slew of other equipment and batteries. His rig weighed 580 pounds. I'll have a 2.4 GHz PC, 80 GB of storage, cellular data connectivity at up to 400+ kbps, and my rig will probably weigh in at 100 pounds or so. Granted, he toted a lot more equipment, but he was doing R&D for the whole "Technomad" lifestyle concept. I'm just making a journey.