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RE: Not Just At Home

TravisDBA — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:45:12 GMT

[quote][b]Dave62 (10/5/2012)[/b][hr][quote][b]TravisDBA (10/5/2012)[/b][hr] ... but it's not about that. It's about "trust" and the truth is most managers I have known in this industry over the 28 years i have been in it, do not 'trust" their workers working remotely. ... [/quote] But a lazy and/or ignorant manager would rather have you sit in a chair and do nothing than be productive while telecommuting. :crazy:[/quote]True story. I never said it was right, I just said that many times that is the way it is.:-D

RE: Not Just At Home

Dave62 — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 12:42:21 GMT

[quote][b]TravisDBA (10/5/2012)[/b][hr] ... but it's not about that. It's about "trust" and the truth is most managers I have known in this industry over the 28 years i have been in it, do not 'trust" their workers working remotely. ... [/quote]That's what I've seen at some places too but it just illustrates their ignorance because trust is not needed when managers are properly measuring what gets done. Regular status meetings and other basic project management techniques can easily show who's working and who's not. But a lazy and/or ignorant manager would rather have you sit in a chair and do nothing than be productive while telecommuting. :crazy:

RE: Not Just At Home

TravisDBA — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 07:37:27 GMT

"The old out-of-sight-not-working attitude of many managers is changing, or should be. Most workers can have their productivity observed by what they get done, not by how many hours they sit in a chair."True, but it's not about that. It's about "trust" and the truth is most managers I have known in this industry over the 28 years i have been in it, do not 'trust" their workers working remotely. That's just the way it is folks in most cases in this IT industry. i hope it changes, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting on it either. Most managers don't know enough about what we do to quantify how much we get done anyway. :-D

RE: Not Just At Home

Carla Wilson-484785 — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:00:55 GMT

Just to clarify - I championed working from home for a former company back in 1990, where I used a 2400 baud modem with an XT-clone!! (showing my age) In 1999, I worked every weekend from home in addition to my normal work week, preparing for Y2K (so I know the downside of telecommuting). As a consultant, I spent 80% of my time working for a company in London, UK (I live in Denver, Colorado [snow 1/2 way down the mountains Sunday night - snow for Halloween is a good bet!]) So I have LOTS of experience with tele-commuting, which is why I find it SO FRUSTRATING now - given that technology really supports it so well today -- high-speed broadband cable, wireless connectivity, email as the dominant form of communication even in an office setting. And our department really just wants the flexibility to work from home one day a week, or a couple hours a day so that an employee can take their children to school and pick them up.What I see is a "If I can't do it, then neither can you" policy that is not based in logic. I really like working for this institution -- I like being part of an organization that is doing nationally recognized work in patient care and medical research, but I'd like us to be leading-edge in technology and tele-commuting too!

RE: Not Just At Home

Bob Hoffman-209065 — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:32:34 GMT

To Carla: No, I was being more sarcastic then funny. Sometimes it works.I live in Alaska. This morning the snow made it about 2/3rds of the way down the Mountains which means we could get some soon or at least by the end of the month(traditional-what's Halloween without 6" of snow?). This mornings drive was all about black ice driving conditions due to overnight fog and just barely freezing temperature.This was a morning clearly made for a telecommute session.Oddly and somewhat by default, because our State is so large, thinly populated and spread out, even going to an office might mean you are telecommuting to someplace else be it remote session or WAN. How else to you cost effectively tie together branches that are thousands of miles apart? Alaska enjoys multiple fiber lines and satellite backup for most of its telecommunication needs. This is to offer more redundancy as well as capacity.I know and work with people that do almost all their work this way. Even our own branches remote in. While we have no formal policy, salespeople and managers can be setup to work from home or road as needed. Great for some that are home with a sick child or waiting for a plumber. Not all can do this however because of their job here.As I recall, once I proved it could be done and made it easy by issuing a couple of floppies (danger - age showing) to the end user that autoloaded the client, telecommuting just happened for us.Downside is being home, sick in bed and getting the phone call from work wanting you to log on and fix something. Even worse when its after hours and interrupts what you are doing. Just like telemarketers do!However, that will probably all stop by the end of this year with the new owners. Their system is larger and more robust then ours and is all but set up to do it. But they have a policy...

RE: Not Just At Home

DBA_Rob — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:09:47 GMT

To Matt's point, a previous employer of mine justified telecommuting based on building rent. They reduced their square footage by 33% and had the displaced workers telecomute. In this case it was justified as a cost savings needed because of poor business prospects, but still there were cost savings even without any tax incentives. I will add that this solution is much easier to justify in the USA do to the fact that many US homes already have affordable high speed connections in place and the company did not reimburse for this. High speed connections were not as readily available (mainly due to high cost) for some of my European collegues. Affordable high speed may have come to Europe in the last year, but I'll let those currently outside the US comment on this.

RE: Not Just At Home

Matt Miller (#4) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:07:13 GMT

The process can work without tax credits. In just about any city where space is at a premium, a company not having to provide/plan for space for 100% of their workforce (since a good portion would be working from home at any given time) alone could provide the financial incentives to do that. One of the last companies I worked with as a consultant had a system like that. A fairly big portion of the office either worked 4 days a week (4x10), and/or worked one day a week from home. Most of those in that pool would "share desks", and would have something like a "corporate locker" for their stuff/files. You'd then "sign up" for a local desk that day, which of course were all configured the same, with roaming profiles, etc... carrying your config with you. You'd sign in to your phone number which would then forward calls to whatever you designated, etc..It becomes rather easy to justify it that way: rent + utilities + insurance on 80% of the space you initially needed AND everyone's happier. You could do this much simpler by making 2 people "share" office space - doesn't need to be that extreme.

RE: Not Just At Home

Carla Wilson-484785 — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:42:15 GMT

Bob, I hope you were just being funny, and not totally unsympathetic to the plight of people who would really like to telecommute for some portion of their work-week.What I would LIKE to see in this forum are some people who have success stories about what they did to convince thier employers that tele-commuting makes sense. (Consultants don't count - there are plenty of examples there.)As far as tax-incentives go, it's great that some cities in the country have started doing this. But the company still has to want to do it. I am concerned that a lot of companies would still see it as a lot of trouble to make a handful of employees happy. (Even though it seems it would be easy enough to implement without incentives!!)As a side note, our department recently interviewed someone for a developer position, and that person was clearly disappointed to hear that we didn't offer the ability to tele-commute. When it comes to filling this position with the best person, we could lose out.

RE: Not Just At Home

Bob Hoffman-209065 — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:20:34 GMT

Want a telecommuting job? There is at least one that is perfect if you want to telecommute.Telemarketing.Must be available to work during everybodys dinner time.:angry:

RE: Not Just At Home

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:49:38 GMT

Eric,Good points and that's interesting. Why isn't it pushed more in terms of tax credits. There are certainly a lot of jobs that could be done remotely.

RE: Not Just At Home

ericwenger1 — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 06:52:15 GMT

I don't blame you for looking for other work. The telecommuting option seems to be a plus for everyone effected(reduction of dependency on foreign oil, the need for less building space to house employees and other overhead associated with having a building, etc. etc). Like I said in my original reply, if tax credits and grants were given tobusinesses based off a certain percentage of the work force telecommuting, companies and state governments would do this in a "heartbeat". That's why I don't think any of our politicans are really interested in the reductionof our dependency on foreign oil. Samething goes for the evironmentalists, they don't pitch this telecommutingthing either! One things for sure you can't trust politicans(democrat or republican).Good luck finding a telecommuting job.

RE: Not Just At Home

Russell Shilling — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:40:28 GMT

About six months ago work from home was taken away from me and my staff. So, as the editorial said, I don't check my email or monitor the network's health outside of working hours any more. (After all, if I can't work from home when it's convenient for me, then I won't just because it's convenient for my employer.) And the productivity of my staff has declined quite a lot. Imagine that!I'm looking for a telecommuting-friendly job now.

RE: Not Just At Home

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 06:14:12 GMT

John,We use Hamachi at End to End training to connect remotely. I admit that I was a little worried about security with that project, but it's worked well and no issues so far. My partner loves it!A few links: [url=http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHamachi&ei=gxIOR8S-AaPwhAKaxMCMCw&usg=AFQjCNHUT6D5rgCctS7XQhVsr58ceAfumg&sig2=iuj1HDe2ynYKr0MCJQpYrQ]Hamichi Wikipedia[/url][url=http://www.grc.com/SecurityNow.htm]Steve Gibson's Review (#18)[/url]

RE: Not Just At Home

John Colby — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:48:39 GMT

I am a consultant so of course I don't run into the resistance to remote work the way employees do. I recently moved my business to North Carolina and work out of my Home Office almost exclusively although I occasionally travel to client sites. Under normal circumstances I use remote desktop to remote in to all my clients. I use TrueCrypt to set up mountable encrypted drives on my laptop, and I use it to store all sensitive data that I need to carry. I use VPN where provided by the client. Some small shops do not have the experience to get VPN set up so I use Hamachi (the free version) to set up a tunnel between my laptop and the system I remote desktop into on those clients who do not have VPN set up for me. I then use Comodo personal firewall to protect my laptop, in fact I run it on all of my systems even at the office when I am behind the hardware firewall.TrueCrypt, Hamachi and Comodo are all dead easy to set up and use. I set up a system at my home office with Hamachi and use a Hamachi VPN tunnel to get there when I am on the road. I can use Remote Desktop on my systems at home to do secure browsing (over a Hamachi VPN Tunnel) while on the road or in public.And yes, I get so much more done working at a home office. Having no commute saves an immense amount of time and gasoline. While I don't always work more hours in a day, they are more effective hours. I am also able to wedge in time with my son and daughter, even 10 or 15 minutes here and there during "the work day" so that it just feels like I am home more. I can attend school meetings and do many of the other things that are almost impossible if you have to "go to work" at an office somewhere.

RE: Not Just At Home

Pam Brisjar — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 13:00:25 GMT

My last job was 95% telecommuting. For me, that was actually a little too much. I found that I missed the interaction with the other team members. (Of course, that could be solved with proper setup of online sessions.)Now I'm working as a consultant and have a varying mix of in-office and telecommute work time. As long as I get the job done, nobody really cares where I am. In fact, my next assignment may very well be part telecommuting, part commuting to the opposite coast. Now how's that for extremes?The key is knowing your strengths and weaknesses (as in everything else) and finding the right balance for you and your work.

RE: Not Just At Home

Bob Hoffman-209065 — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:21:20 GMT

I currently can and do remotely log on to either work or fix problems. Still can't push a button though the screen but can nearly do everything else. But, with the company's acquisition earlier this year and the pending conversion to the new-to-us (but older technology) system, remote access is not supported nor allowed.I will miss that ability. :crying:And so will the salesman and other key staff that work on the road or from home when there is not enough daylight to complete their tasks.

RE: Not Just At Home

Matt Miller (#4) — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:16:42 GMT

[quote][b]Carla Wilson (10/10/2007)[/b][hr]A few months ago, President Bush said he wanted to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 20%. That could be easy - work from home just one day a week!! Unfortunately, I now work in the health care industry, and our institution's human resourses department just won't approve it. I think it's because there are so many people in the organization that could not take advantage of it -- nurses, doctors and a lot of their support staff. Our department head even went so far as to interview other similar institutions to see if their IT departments allow limited work-from-home opportunities, and sadly, they all said, "No"![/quote]I hate the "equity" argument - I find it usually gets trotted out when it's just something mgmt just doesn't want to do. Most don't get paged the way we do (we used to get paged more than most doctors in my organization, since there were 2400 of them and 12 of us); most don't get paged at all. Funny - that argument didn't work so well when we asked whether they were treating doctor pay for on-call work the same way as ours: since equity is "king" - the same argument ought to apply everywhere after all...I got tired of fighting that war - so I've found somewhere new that actually appreciates my efforts. And - allows for telecommuting. Fancy that:)

RE: Not Just At Home

Stephanie J Brown — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 09:56:23 GMT

Don't wait for the Federal Government to pass an incentive; they are waaaay too slow. You can have a bigger impact at the state level. Washington (the state, not the district) already has a Commuter Trip Reduction plan, at least we have it in the Puget Sound area. We actually fill out a survey every year about how we commute to work in an average week.At my company, telecommuting is an option once you've been here for 6 months (the standard probationary period). We have workers who telecommute up to 4 days a week, and it's not just IT people - it's claims processors, and customer service reps. Heck, if you can route a call to India, you sure should be able to route it 20 miles down the road!We could use a better infrastructure for telecommuting; I think there might be some cost savings we could experience, but I'm not up to date on all the options (not my area of expertise). However since we're running out of physical space as the company grows, it would make budgetary sense to have more telecommuters and shared cubicles; hardware and software are usually cheaper than firmware! :P

RE: Not Just At Home

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 07:43:13 GMT

Doh, I thought I corrected those typos. Must not have saved it in my ID -10-T moment :w00t:

RE: Not Just At Home

DBA_Rob — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 07:41:52 GMT

My current company has been experimenting with virtual desktops which could help reduce costs even more -- it just assumes that people have a PC at home already :) We can get several virtual desktops onto one server for a lower cost than purchasing the equivalent number of laptops or desktops. Then from home, we install a VPN client on our home PC and create a remote desktop connection to our virtual desktop. This doesn't help working from Starbucks unless you have your own laptop thouigh ;)

RE: Not Just At Home

Carla Wilson-484785 — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 07:25:28 GMT

A few months ago, President Bush said he wanted to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 20%. That could be easy - work from home just one day a week!! Unfortunately, I now work in the health care industry, and our institution's human resourses department just won't approve it. I think it's because there are so many people in the organization that could not take advantage of it -- nurses, doctors and a lot of their support staff. Our department head even went so far as to interview other similar institutions to see if their IT departments allow limited work-from-home opportunities, and sadly, they all said, "No"!I find it frustrating because I have been working from home since 1990 and find I am MORE productive because I'm not interrupted and I can really focus and get into the "zone". And I really do want to cut back significantly on my gasoline consumption and time spent commuting.

RE: Not Just At Home

Sarah Dutkiewicz — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:25:59 GMT

Er... Steve, that should read "happiness" with 2 p's and "makes" instead of "amkes", right? ;)As much as I wouldn't mind telecommuting from home, I'm not sure about telecommuting from a Starbucks or another public location. Although there are security measures that can be taken for protecting data over a public network, I'd still be leery about people around me coming by to see what I'm working on. But telecommuting definitely offers the benefits you mention.

RE: Not Just At Home

ericwenger1 — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 06:23:09 GMT

Your are absolutely wright. Telecommuting should not be the rave for the future, but, should be common place today. Effective managers are more concerned with what you accomplish, not where the work is accomplished. I believe a lot of managers are afraid that they might not be needed if telecommuting is a success. And in some cases they are wright for companies that are really top heavy. Telecommuting actually provides more benefits than you have described. For our country, if telecommuting was done on a larger scale, the amount of gasoline consumed would go down drastically meaning less dependence on foreign oil. I'm sure alot of our money to buy oil from Saudi Arabia filters into the wrong hands and is being used against us over in Araq. So, in effect we as a nation are sponsoring the folks that we are fighting against. The CEO's of large companies could reduce their overhead with regards to less management, reduction in building expense(employees could share cubicles when coming to the office). I don't think there is a valid excuse for not allowing people who can telecommute(meaning connectivity via the computer) to telecommute. I really think the Federal Government could give out incentives to private companies through grants and tax reductions for companies that allow a certain percentage of their employees to telecommute. I really believe that most private companies would change their tune about telecommuting "in a heartbeat" if the Federal Government would do such a thing. That's why I think our country is really not serious about reducing our dependency on foreign oil.

RE: Not Just At Home

Markus — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:58:24 GMT

I agree. Being a DBA I have a wireless laptop and check email and do some work at home plus being on-call 24 X 7 365. Personally I'd like it if we'd work in the office four days a week and have one day a week work from home. The idea was talked about with Senior Management but so far no action.

Not Just At Home

Steve Jones - SSC Editor — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:54:56 GMT

Comments posted to this topic are about the item [B]Not Just At Home[/B]