Beeeeep. Beeeeeep. Argh! It’s 5 a.m., and your alarm clock announces the start of a new day. You hurry to get ready for work and then climb into your trusty automobile (or aboard the ACE train) for the sometimes stressful one- or two-hour commute to work.
If your day is normal, you might talk with clients on the phone, spend a few hours on the computer, design hardware or software for the next great product, research ways to save the environment, write reports or attend hours of meetings — none of which is pointless, right?
At 5 p.m., you get back in your car (or climb aboard the homeward train). If there is an accident or cows on the rail, don’t count on being home before 8 p.m.
All of the time you spend in transit leaves precious little time for a quality family life — helping the kids with homework, cleaning up the yard or getting to know your neighbors. If you are getting older, sleep beckons, because you know that the alarm will mark the arrival of a new day before you know it.
Repeat 200-plus times a year — for years and years.
There has to be a better way
As it turns out, if the first paragraph accurately describes a typical day for you, chances are you can work at home at least one or two days a week, and maybe more. You can telecommute.
The concept of working at home has been around for quite a long time, but there have always been barriers to block the wide acceptance of telecommuting or “telework.” Some of these barriers are cultural, and others are (or were) technical.
With the growth and increased reliability of the Internet, the availability of affordable high-speed connections to the home, as well as improved computer and network technology, the technical barriers are pretty much a thing of the past. But the much harder cultural barriers remain.
One such barrier is the old-fashioned opinion that you need to be at your desk to be working. If you are not there, you are not working. Right? Wrong.
In this day of increasing gas prices, nearly continuous traffic congestion on interstates 5, 205, 580 and 680, long commutes from the bedroom community of Tracy to the Bay Area, global warming, terrorism and the threat of disease (remember the bird flu?), the need (yes, the need) to telecommute is increasing.
In short, times have changed. Telecommuting was once thought of as a perk for an employee (and could quickly be taken away). Now, it is clear that telecommuting benefits both the employee and the employer and is fast becoming critical for an organization, for example, to remain operational in times of distress.
This series of articles, written with the Tracy commuter in mind, will, over the next month or two, introduce you to the following:
• The concept of telecommuting, its advantages and disadvantages, and who may be able to telecommute.
• The basics of telecommuting, including what the employer and employee must know and accomplish to make the telecommuting experience the best it can be.
• The basic technology (phone, Internet, computer, network) needed to effectively telecommute, and how to keep your computer as safe and reliable as it can be.
• The advanced technology (videoconferencing and collaboration) that may help to overcome many of the cultural out-of-sight, out-of-mind issues and allow the remote worker to more effectively participate in the “normal” workday.
• Interviews with Tracy residents who telecommute and some companies that allow telecommuting in the surrounding area. If you telecommute now and want discuss your experiences, please e-mail me at mike@
telbitconsulting.com.
I have put up a short questionnaire at www.telbitconsulting.com/survey.html. I will include the results in a later column.
In the meantime, don’t be afraid to talk to your employer about working at home. The benefits for both of you, as you will find out, are overwhelming.
• Mike Pihlman lives in Tracy and has two blogs — one called YeOldeTechy and the other, TracyReaderDad. He can be reached at mike@telbitconsulting.com or www.telbitconsulting.com.
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