OK, so I thought I'd recount a story that illustrates how wonderful it is to work from home. See, as many of you know, I work in the high-tech industry, as do pretty much all of my peers. This isn't all that remarkable, given that I work in link and live link. This is wonderful in many respects, but in particular it's nice for the work environment. Competition is so fierce for jobs here that employers work very hard to come up with perks to incline their employees to stay at their companies. Yahoo has film screenings. Google has chefs that prepare four-star meals on a fast food budget. I understand even Fanpop treats its employees to link...
Most employers, including mine, adhere to the concept of a "flexible work place", wherein you are given tools to do your work in various locations. Partly, this means that I can arrive at any of a number of business offices around the world, sit down in an office, and log in to a network terminal which will bring up my desktop, exactly the same no matter where I am. If I haven't shut down my session, everything remains exactly as I left it even if I started my work in California and then traveled to Dublin (or Munich, Boston, London or Tokyo, to name some other locations I've been for work). But mostly the flexible work space means that I'm entrusted with a network terminal of my own to set up at home, so that I can work out of a home office. In that way, I'm spared the commute of driving for ninety minutes in rush hour traffic to get to work...instead, I just walk ten feet from the bedroom to my desk and log in. But the home office depends on the integrity of the worker to actually do work while at home, rather than taking care of chores, balancing the checkbook, hanging out with family and friends. It's a big assumption, but it mostly works. For the most part, the Silicon Valley work ethic is such that being able to work from home results in MORE work, rather than less. You find yourself without excuses to stop working, or decide to just work for "just five more minutes" because you don't have a long drive to get home...
But life still intrudes, on occasion. Yesterday, I was working from home. One of the specific delights I get when working from home is time spent interacting with my son Blake. Granted, this interaction is usually him pounding on the closed door to my office yelling "Dad! Dad! Dad!" until Lucia shrieks awake from her nap in the bedroom, but it's quality time.
My work week is planned around a number of standing meetings. For those of you who haven't arrived in the corporate work force (yet): work as a professional is largely a matter of finding time to get a little bit of work done in between meetings. Meetings occupy the majority of your time. Meetings are held so that you can talk about the work that you have been doing until the meeting started, the work you could be doing if you weren't in a meeting, the work you're going to try to do after all the meetings, and finally to report on your work progress since the last meeting.
My wife Darcy is getting to know my meeting schedule. It's pretty impressive. Taking care of the kids, their naps, their education, their treatments, and their medical care, she's just about at the point where she knows that I may have a meeting on one or more days in the week. I have a standing meeting with my coworkers at 16:00 on Wednesdays, and when I work from home, I use the phone to call into meetings.
4:00 rolls around and I call the conference number. My coworker answers, tells me she's still on the road, and wonders whether she can call me back in a little while. I agree, and come out of the office to stretch my legs and rest my eyes for a few minutes before the return call. But Darcy tells me that she doesn't have the canned peaches that she needs to complete the chutney/salsa for dinner, and would I please go and get some right away? Clearly, dinner is at stake. On top of that, it's a fact that, while I've spent the day trying to concentrate on work while my daughter's been screaming, I know my wife has actually been dealing with Lucia that whole time. For this reason, as well as that my son has been chanting "Dad! Dad! Dad!" (sure to endear a child to any mother) while pounding two objects - any two objects - together all day long, I decided to drive to the store. I figured that I could rush out to the store and back again in ten minutes, no problem. I'd be back before the call! Just in case, I grabbed my headset and forwarded my work number to my cell phone so that I could take the call on the road if, against all odds, I got the call early.
My wife is hilarious. To be fair, it's not just her. I think it's the prerogative of married people everywhere that, no matter how much they love their spouse, they know deep down that their mate can't tie their own shoes without detailed help. While I strapped the headset to my head, Darcy went to great pains to explain that I had to buy canned peaches with clear juice. I'm glad she told me, as otherwise I guess I probably would have gone for the alternative, which apparently is (last time I checked) peaches halves floating in a marinade of used Penzoil.
So I hopped in the car and zoomed off to the local supermarket for the canned fruit. I drive two blocks and ring-ring! It's my coworker, miraculously home already and ready to resume our conference call. In the quiet solitude of my car, I continued the meeting as I found a parking space near the entrance. As I got out, I was taking mental notes on all the action items we were discussing, but by the time the automatic doors slid open at the supermarket entrance, my phone did that little beeping/muting thing that indicates that my wife is trying to call me...while I'm on the phone...in my meeting! I have to ask people to repeat themselves several times, because the beeping keeps bleeping out parts of their words, like a broadcast network censor airing a Martin Scorsese movie. The day just keeps getting better.
Chances are she's just calling to remind me not to get the peaches in pea soup combo, so I don't answer her call. Another consideration is that I don't want to let on that I'm wandering around in a supermarket shopping for canned goods while on this very important call, so I can't just say "Oh, excuse me for a moment, I've got another call coming though. It's my wife, to tell me that, as long as I'm out, I should also pick up some more diapers." No, no, no: I'm clearly at home, hard at work in my lovely work-provided home office as I always am. Finally, I don't answer because I figure that there isn't much left to this meeting. If I can continue it for three more minutes, I can finish the call and then call Darcy back without the pressure of having to get back to the meeting. Then she can tell me about other groceries at her leisure.
So I don't answer, and eventually the phone stops beeping as it shunts her over to voice mail. But then, moments later, the phone starts beeping again. I look at the handset in disbelief, but the screen confirms it: yes, my wife, not content to just leave me a message, has finished recording her voice mail and is now calling me during my conference call...again. At this point it's getting really hard to convey the fact that nothing is going on, because not only is every fourth word getting bleeped out, but the canned goods aisle is situated in that one part of the store that exists in every supermarket where phone signals go to die. Yes, as I reach for the peaches, I discover the Great Microwave Burial Ground, and the call cuts in and out as I shimmy first one way, then another, trying to read the can label to make sure that I'm getting only the purest, most Artesian of peach juice, with no traces of fermented yak's milk. Picking up the can apparently breaks the RF signal, as well as bending too far foward. So here I am, saying "Sorry? Uh...what was that?" while doing the limbo.
The phone stops ringing and so it's a bit easier to follow the conversation. I find the can, too (I get a second one, just to be sure that we are set for next time). Just when I think things are getting better, the supermarket loudspeakers crackle into life, saying "Would Harold please report to the customer service desk, please? Harold, please report to customer service."
I grit my teeth, sweat beads my brow. Obviously, I haven't won some sort of Secret Shopper prize of all my groceries free for a year. No one has reported that my car headlights are still burning. Of course it's my wife. Having called me twice in the space of two minutes and leaving two voice mail messages, she's now called the store to track me down. If I can just finish this call, then I'd call her back. I just need three more minutes! Three minutes! That's all! It's like being in grade school again and the note arrives, summoning you to the Principal's office. The meeting call continues, and I'm trying to rush them along, get them finished. I'm agreeing to take every action item, just so I can get off the call before...
Nope, it was already too late. My wife had called again, or perhaps she was still on the line, and the loudspeaker spoke up again and said "Customer Harold, please report to the customer service desk immediately. If there is a Harold in the building, please come to the front of the store now."
For all the problems with service coverage, they make phones pretty good these days. My evidence: when the public address system in the supermarket said "Would Harold please come to the customer service desk immediately?" all the conversation on the meeting call stopped, and my coworker said:
"Harold, maybe you should get that."
************
But the rest of the time, I am hard at work in my home office. Really!
(This embarrassing story was last edited on 18 April 2008)
Most employers, including mine, adhere to the concept of a "flexible work place", wherein you are given tools to do your work in various locations. Partly, this means that I can arrive at any of a number of business offices around the world, sit down in an office, and log in to a network terminal which will bring up my desktop, exactly the same no matter where I am. If I haven't shut down my session, everything remains exactly as I left it even if I started my work in California and then traveled to Dublin (or Munich, Boston, London or Tokyo, to name some other locations I've been for work). But mostly the flexible work space means that I'm entrusted with a network terminal of my own to set up at home, so that I can work out of a home office. In that way, I'm spared the commute of driving for ninety minutes in rush hour traffic to get to work...instead, I just walk ten feet from the bedroom to my desk and log in. But the home office depends on the integrity of the worker to actually do work while at home, rather than taking care of chores, balancing the checkbook, hanging out with family and friends. It's a big assumption, but it mostly works. For the most part, the Silicon Valley work ethic is such that being able to work from home results in MORE work, rather than less. You find yourself without excuses to stop working, or decide to just work for "just five more minutes" because you don't have a long drive to get home...
But life still intrudes, on occasion. Yesterday, I was working from home. One of the specific delights I get when working from home is time spent interacting with my son Blake. Granted, this interaction is usually him pounding on the closed door to my office yelling "Dad! Dad! Dad!" until Lucia shrieks awake from her nap in the bedroom, but it's quality time.
My work week is planned around a number of standing meetings. For those of you who haven't arrived in the corporate work force (yet): work as a professional is largely a matter of finding time to get a little bit of work done in between meetings. Meetings occupy the majority of your time. Meetings are held so that you can talk about the work that you have been doing until the meeting started, the work you could be doing if you weren't in a meeting, the work you're going to try to do after all the meetings, and finally to report on your work progress since the last meeting.
My wife Darcy is getting to know my meeting schedule. It's pretty impressive. Taking care of the kids, their naps, their education, their treatments, and their medical care, she's just about at the point where she knows that I may have a meeting on one or more days in the week. I have a standing meeting with my coworkers at 16:00 on Wednesdays, and when I work from home, I use the phone to call into meetings.
4:00 rolls around and I call the conference number. My coworker answers, tells me she's still on the road, and wonders whether she can call me back in a little while. I agree, and come out of the office to stretch my legs and rest my eyes for a few minutes before the return call. But Darcy tells me that she doesn't have the canned peaches that she needs to complete the chutney/salsa for dinner, and would I please go and get some right away? Clearly, dinner is at stake. On top of that, it's a fact that, while I've spent the day trying to concentrate on work while my daughter's been screaming, I know my wife has actually been dealing with Lucia that whole time. For this reason, as well as that my son has been chanting "Dad! Dad! Dad!" (sure to endear a child to any mother) while pounding two objects - any two objects - together all day long, I decided to drive to the store. I figured that I could rush out to the store and back again in ten minutes, no problem. I'd be back before the call! Just in case, I grabbed my headset and forwarded my work number to my cell phone so that I could take the call on the road if, against all odds, I got the call early.
My wife is hilarious. To be fair, it's not just her. I think it's the prerogative of married people everywhere that, no matter how much they love their spouse, they know deep down that their mate can't tie their own shoes without detailed help. While I strapped the headset to my head, Darcy went to great pains to explain that I had to buy canned peaches with clear juice. I'm glad she told me, as otherwise I guess I probably would have gone for the alternative, which apparently is (last time I checked) peaches halves floating in a marinade of used Penzoil.
So I hopped in the car and zoomed off to the local supermarket for the canned fruit. I drive two blocks and ring-ring! It's my coworker, miraculously home already and ready to resume our conference call. In the quiet solitude of my car, I continued the meeting as I found a parking space near the entrance. As I got out, I was taking mental notes on all the action items we were discussing, but by the time the automatic doors slid open at the supermarket entrance, my phone did that little beeping/muting thing that indicates that my wife is trying to call me...while I'm on the phone...in my meeting! I have to ask people to repeat themselves several times, because the beeping keeps bleeping out parts of their words, like a broadcast network censor airing a Martin Scorsese movie. The day just keeps getting better.
Chances are she's just calling to remind me not to get the peaches in pea soup combo, so I don't answer her call. Another consideration is that I don't want to let on that I'm wandering around in a supermarket shopping for canned goods while on this very important call, so I can't just say "Oh, excuse me for a moment, I've got another call coming though. It's my wife, to tell me that, as long as I'm out, I should also pick up some more diapers." No, no, no: I'm clearly at home, hard at work in my lovely work-provided home office as I always am. Finally, I don't answer because I figure that there isn't much left to this meeting. If I can continue it for three more minutes, I can finish the call and then call Darcy back without the pressure of having to get back to the meeting. Then she can tell me about other groceries at her leisure.
So I don't answer, and eventually the phone stops beeping as it shunts her over to voice mail. But then, moments later, the phone starts beeping again. I look at the handset in disbelief, but the screen confirms it: yes, my wife, not content to just leave me a message, has finished recording her voice mail and is now calling me during my conference call...again. At this point it's getting really hard to convey the fact that nothing is going on, because not only is every fourth word getting bleeped out, but the canned goods aisle is situated in that one part of the store that exists in every supermarket where phone signals go to die. Yes, as I reach for the peaches, I discover the Great Microwave Burial Ground, and the call cuts in and out as I shimmy first one way, then another, trying to read the can label to make sure that I'm getting only the purest, most Artesian of peach juice, with no traces of fermented yak's milk. Picking up the can apparently breaks the RF signal, as well as bending too far foward. So here I am, saying "Sorry? Uh...what was that?" while doing the limbo.
The phone stops ringing and so it's a bit easier to follow the conversation. I find the can, too (I get a second one, just to be sure that we are set for next time). Just when I think things are getting better, the supermarket loudspeakers crackle into life, saying "Would Harold please report to the customer service desk, please? Harold, please report to customer service."
I grit my teeth, sweat beads my brow. Obviously, I haven't won some sort of Secret Shopper prize of all my groceries free for a year. No one has reported that my car headlights are still burning. Of course it's my wife. Having called me twice in the space of two minutes and leaving two voice mail messages, she's now called the store to track me down. If I can just finish this call, then I'd call her back. I just need three more minutes! Three minutes! That's all! It's like being in grade school again and the note arrives, summoning you to the Principal's office. The meeting call continues, and I'm trying to rush them along, get them finished. I'm agreeing to take every action item, just so I can get off the call before...
Nope, it was already too late. My wife had called again, or perhaps she was still on the line, and the loudspeaker spoke up again and said "Customer Harold, please report to the customer service desk immediately. If there is a Harold in the building, please come to the front of the store now."
For all the problems with service coverage, they make phones pretty good these days. My evidence: when the public address system in the supermarket said "Would Harold please come to the customer service desk immediately?" all the conversation on the meeting call stopped, and my coworker said:
"Harold, maybe you should get that."
************
But the rest of the time, I am hard at work in my home office. Really!
(This embarrassing story was last edited on 18 April 2008)