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Ask Slashdot: What Features Would Your Ideal Telework Systems Incorporate? 125

Posted by BeauHD from the work-from-home dept.
couchslug writes: Physical commuting has a horrific and enormously expensive carbon footprint. It's costly in lives (auto and other transportation accidents, pollution) and wasted time (billions of hours every year) better spent doing something else. What software and hardware features would your ideal telework systems incorporate to minimize physical interaction? How can we use technology to avoid costly, wasteful and sometimes dangerous meatspace gatherings? What don't you like about existing options? I'd like to add that telecommuting is becoming a popular option for businesses trying to protect their workers amid the coronavirus outbreak. Earlier this week, Cisco said it saw traffic for its Webex remote meeting software in Asian countries increase by 400 percent since the outbreak began, and free signup rates in impacted countries have increased 700 percent or more.

Do you have a favorite remote work software? Let us know what you like/dislike about it below.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Ask Slashdot: What Features Would Your Ideal Telework Systems Incorporate? More

Ask Slashdot: What Features Would Your Ideal Telework Systems Incorporate?

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  • Hard to say, because optimal is to go pure virtual, and then I'll only have play, not work.

  • A boss that lets me Telework 5 days a week (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @05:04PM (#59797434)
    To be honest that's about all I want. My company has me come into the office and plop down a laptop. It's barely necessary. About the only time I find it useful to come into the office is for meetings where I'm expecting the attendees to try and dump work on my they know doesn't belong to my team. For some reason people will do a lot of bad things over the phone they won't do when they're looking you in the eye.

    • Yes, and as an employer I would like a shock collar to get the attention of slackers who think that remote work means they can be pulling weeds or laying by the pool when I need them at my beck and call

      • Re:A boss that lets me Telework 5 days a week (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @05:53PM (#59797622)

        when I need them at my beck and call

        Pick up your own dry cleaning.

        If you can't manage a group by handing out (better yet, negotiating) work packages and then leave them the hell alone until pre-scheduled status meetings, quit. Doesn't matter if it's teleworking or in the office.

        If you need people on call to take care of emergencies, then it doesn't matter if they are laying by the pool or reading magazines. As long as they can respond within a specified time.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by syn3rg ( 530741 )
          1. Unclear goals
          2. Direct deposit
        • I think the most important thing is....NO CAMERAS!!

          LOL...at this point, I'm asking my CPA if I can write off t-shirts and boxer shorts as "business attire"....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Yes, and as an employer I would like a shock collar to get the attention of slackers who think that remote work means they can be pulling weeds or laying by the pool when I need them at my beck and call

        If you need them at beck and call then you set the expectation and provide the tools. They make handy things called "telephones" that let you call someone immediately. If you expect them to answer even if they're in the bathroom, they come in wireless models as well.

        They even make handy things called "cameras

        • Except don't get those tools for spyware. Certainly get communication tools but for sure hire employees that you trust and judge them by results though?
      • If you want somebody at your "beck and call", you want someone who is ON call, not an employee.

        When I'm working, I'm busy. I'm not at anybody's beck and call. To any extent that I am, the less work I get done.

      • Yes, and as an employer I would like a shock collar to get the attention of slackers who think that remote work means they can be pulling weeds or laying by the pool when I need them at my beck and call

        As someone who often works remotely and also manages a half dozen associates, I think that Skype or Google Hangouts work fine for this. Workers should be able to respond to an IM within a minute during working hours, unless they have a meeting scheduled or are on the phone (Skype integration with VoIP works well for signaling the latter). It shouldn't be any different than if I visit someone's office and knock on the door.

        • Workers should be able to respond to an IM within a minute during working hours
          During working hours my IMs are set to busy/not-available.

          While I read most messages during working hours, it is unlikely I respond to them "in minutes" why would I? I'm WORKING!!!

    • Yeah it's really not complicated.
      Mostly the only thing I've missed anywhere is that it's helpful for the team to have a chat group. Real time convos make some things easier. I don't care which app.

      Email for things I need to follow up on later, chat for when a real-time convo is appropriate, and a bit of team cohesiveness. East peasy.

  • What does it matter what each of us reports here. All options along these lines have pros and cons, and in the end, they're all less than what you'd hope for. The only thing that you need is access to the internet (to access whatever shared resource is available - google docs comes to mind), and a telephone, and you can work from anywhere (provided you job doesn't require you to move physical items around a specific location).

    It's 2020, and this question seems outdated.

    • Why would you need a telephone in 2020? Would you like a fax with that?

      • Why would you need a telephone in 2020? Would you like a fax with that?

        You don't, but your company wants you to talk to people on the phone, of course.

    • No businessperson in their right mind would use Google Docs for official purposes.

      Everything that happens there goes straight into Google's databanks.

      • No businessperson in their right mind would use Google Docs for official purposes.

        Most business people must not be in their right minds then.

        • No businessperson in their right mind would use Google Docs for official purposes.

          Most business people must not be in their right minds then.

          Agreed. I work in the Credit Union industry, and I know of several small credit unions who use them. Many, Many others have moved to Azure and Office 365.

      • Wake up bro. Using your logic, no businessman is their right mind would use any microsoft products either. Oh wait, did you not know about microsoft's 'databanks'? Here, have a look, [pcworld.com]

        • You're quite right. My comment applies to Microsoft too.

          I quit using Microsoft, to the extent I could, even before I gave up using most Google products.

      • No businessperson in their right mind would use Google Docs for official purposes. Everything that happens there goes straight into Google's databanks.

        Read the GSuite contract. It obligates Google to protect customer data and prohibit its use for advertising or other purposes. Google would have to be completely stupid to misuse that data, not only would it expose them to enormous legal risk, it would generate a PR firestorm that would not only kill the mulit-billion dollar GSuite business but take down many other Google products.

        • If so, they've changed that in recent years.

          Even so, I don't trust them to be honest about that. They've been caught cheating on things like that before.

          Not as badly as Facebook, though.

          • If so, they've changed that in recent years.

            No, it's been that way since the introduction of GSuite. It's an obvious necessity to get corporate business, in many cases the business of handling data of Google's competitors.

            Even so, I don't trust them to be honest about that.

            You expect them to violate contracts? That would be really, really stupid. And it would be huge news if it happened and they got caught. And if it happened, they would get caught; Google's employees are notoriously bad at keeping the company's secrets.

            They've been caught cheating on things like that before.

            Cite? The only thing I can think of that's remotely close -- and it's not v

            • You expect them to violate contracts?

              Yes, I do. It would hardly be the first time.

              In fact, they have routinely broken not just contracts but the law. They are facing a rather large penalty right now for illegally collecting personal information about minors.

              • You expect them to violate contracts?

                Yes, I do. It would hardly be the first time.

                Cite?

                In fact, they have routinely broken not just contracts but the law. They are facing a rather large penalty right now for illegally collecting personal information about minors.

                That's a pretty fringey edge case. The allegation is that Google failed to do enough to determine which users are minors. The "fix" is that Google has to ask minors to self-identify. If the solution to the problem is that weak and imprecise, it's hard to say that the problem was really very clear-cut.

      • Lots of businesses use GSuite... I have set up a few myself.

        I have one customer though who felt as you do, didn't trust Google or Microsoft... or heck just about any cloud provider. I set them up with on-prem hardware (a couple of servers with a VSAN for shared storage) and hooked them up with Nextcloud integrated with OnlyOffice. And yes, they pay for commercial support on that, but at the end of the day it ended up being cost comparable with GSuite with decent resiliency and functionality that is privatel

  • An unobstrusive way to talk to co-workers (Score:3)

    by Qwertie ( 797303 ) on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @05:16PM (#59797468) Homepage
    I like walking over to coworkers' desks to see who's at their desk and to ask a question of whoever is available and might know the answer. I also like being able to overhear conversations once in awhile and possibly join in. It's hard to imagine liking remote work without these elements.

    • This is exactly what I miss about an office and ONLY this. The banter with co-workers.

      • b, b, b, but... Slack!

      • Yeah it is definitely a mixed bag. I am almost 3 years into complete telecommute and it really hasn't affected job function because the people I worked with were on remote teams and I rarely worked with the people in the office. OTOH, for an introvert like myself seeing people in the office during the day was a daily dose of interaction that I appreciated since I am living alone.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by whh3 ( 450031 )

        I cannot say yes enough to this.

        I am a remote employee at a fully remote company and I was hoping to ask for some sort of shared, persistent video room where we could (at the employee's discretion; not mandatory) all log in and just have a window open to each other. Not necessarily that we would be talking to each other the whole time. In fact, I would imagine that it would be quiet 90% of the time. However, it would be just great to be able to look up and see coworkers and perhaps share a laugh or two thro

        • That kind of feature would make workplaces a nightmare - most employers wouldn't make it at the employee's discretion and you'd end up getting reamed every time you got up to take a piss, smoke, or pick your nose off-camera.

      • This is exactly what I miss about an office and ONLY this. The banter with co-workers.

        I was already used to silence before we went telecommute. 'Heads Down and Working' was the mantra from Management. Conversations and meetings were restricted to conference rooms or phone calls. But, stick to work topics only. They had a paranoia about HR issues, I suspect.

    • On the other hand, I like to be able to avoid people coming over to me and interrupting my work.

    • It's entirely possible to ask random questions in slack, teams, etc and to carry on trivial conversations. Just avoid policies which prevent pointless chatter and make a random channel or similar for it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      I hate it when someone comes to my desk and interrupts what i'm doing to ask a question... It always tends to happen at the worst possible time.

      We have IRC channels and slack etc, where someone can post a question. I check the chat channels periodically when i take natural breaks from whatever i'm doing, and if i see an unanswered question that i'm able to answer, i do so.

  • The tools don't matter (Score:5, Insightful)

    by elohssa ( 317266 ) on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @05:17PM (#59797474)

    the culture does.

    With the right people, all you need is email and a phone.

    • I would find it extremely difficult to manage an Active Directory infrastructure using only email and phone...
      Widh my laptop and VPN, on the other hand, it works just fine.

    • the culture does.

      With the right people, all you need is email and a phone.

      Tools are less important than people and culture, certainly, but having the right tools does make things smoother and easier. Video conferencing is much better than phone calls, especially as the number of participants rises, and shared docs (a la Google Docs or Office 365) are really valuable. A good chat system is also very important. Depending on what you do, a shared whiteboard (which I describe here [slashdot.org]) can be very valuable.

  • In reality, very few jobs really allow for telecommuting. Sure most white collar desk jockies could do their jobs at home just as well as anywhere, but that makes well less than 10% of the total workforce.

  • Pay based on profit sharing & not location (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @05:19PM (#59797484) Homepage Journal

    Look, no matter where you work, or what kind of work you do, as long as you do it reasonable well, and in the time allotted, people should receive fair and adequate compensation. If people don't feel fairly compensated, the quality of both the product and the employee both suffer. Most mismanagement, and there is a lot of it, stems from not paying enough, expecting to much, or just being controlling rather than managing. Rarely does management look honestly at itself.

    Telework really isn't that different than working alone in an office. Companies could have smaller, offices with more shared space and an emphasis on group work areas. Smart companies would be flexible and base their metrics on quality and quantity of production and not on where or how the "worker" accomplishes the task. Flexi-time should be implemented. Sooner or later, people are going to design the concept of work in modern terms, based on human realities, not upper class fantasies of control and exploitation.

    • While I agree in theory, the problem with what you're talking about is that it is difficult to establish objective metrics by which to gauge whether someone is doing something "reasonably well", particularly in a field like software.

      It can be very difficult to gauge (let alone get rid of) an employee that you can't even see when you can't have well-defined metrics in the first place.

      Everything you said sounds like the words of someone without much (any?) management experience.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

        While I agree in theory, the problem with what you're talking about is that it is difficult to establish objective metrics by which to gauge whether someone is doing something "reasonably well", particularly in a field like software.

        It can be very difficult to gauge (let alone get rid of) an employee that you can't even see when you can't have well-defined metrics in the first place.

        Everything you said sounds like the words of someone without much (any?) management experience.

        I'm am retired manager, with many years under my belt. Everything I wrote came from personal experience. As a MIS, I've dealt with exactly these issues for years. My post was based upon that, and I stand by it. If management is competent, than having an exact grasp of what people are doing is paramount. I didn't need to be looking over their shoulders. In fact, if I had, I would have indicated that I didn't think they could do the job without my direct involvement. That's not how a manager evokes a sense of

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rho ( 6063 )

          I've worked with great managers and poor managers alike, and what you said rings very true. The good managers had their finger on the pulse of their team, and bad managers either had their boot on the team's neck or ignored them completely to play office politics.

          Corporate culture plays a big role in how this plays out.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

            ...Corporate culture plays a big role in how this plays out.

            Indeed, the culture is always the direct result of the level of competence of the management. Competent managers can afford to be open, honest and sincere. Incompetence must be hidden, disguised and denied. The worst stage is when the managers start lying to themselves, that's the point of no return for most companies. If you see that happening, my advice is update your resume. ;~)

            Hi rho! Wow, how the times flies by.

        • I've managed for a long time, too. And just because someone questions whether your opinion is based on experience doesn't mean they're avoiding the issue. We're all entitled to our opinions, but you surely are aware that the great majority of contributors here spew forth their opinions without any actual experience. I think it's fair to question their experience if they're voicing an opinion. Don't you?

          I'm quite certain I made my point clearly before questioning your background (because your opinion doesn't

  • Slack! (Score:3)

    by dark.nebulae ( 3950923 ) on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @05:21PM (#59797494)

    Slack sucks. The UI is horrible depending upon how it is used.

    At my company everybody is about the threads. Why? Because they subscribe to 30+ channels and the little count overlay just keeps distracting them.

    So everyone wants to do threads, but threads are completely separate from the inline conversations. It is impossible to try and make sense of even 5 different conversation threads that are spread across different channels, the context switching necessary to pick a thread back up is exhausting. Plus that stupid right-side thread window is not resizable.

    I want to see inline threads where the convos can be expanded/collapsed right in the channel window with a color or marker on the main message to indicate activity on the thread. This way I could leave open the threads inline where I need them (to maintain context), close the ones I don't care about, plus be aware when there is activity that needs some attention.

  • I suspect some no longer even realize they can communicate directly with each other over IP and get better outcomes vs. continuously paying to use a third party service.

  • 5x6' panel of displays with Sonos speakers and multiple mikes would do the trick on both ends of the link.

    • Hrm.... the walls I'd need to remote work from home would be drywall, with a door, maybe a window. 3 bedroom house with a porch converted to another room and no office for me - each time I get a room to make myself an office, we either had a kid or the mother-in-law moved in.

      So my "office" is a computer hutch type thing in the corner of the kitchen. Workable, kinda, but when the dishwasher is going and the kids are home from school and the laundry machines are going and the wife is cooking.... gets imposs

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )

        The MIL is dead, the wife's tubes are tied, and the oldest goes off to college in Fall though so 6 more months!

        So you think.

  • I work in a lab, and a substantial part of my work involves physically doing stuff, not just doing abstract thinking. Until they make a robot that can change the oil in a vacuum pump, clean dirty parts on a mass spectrometer, change tubing in an HPLC, etc. I'm still going to have to come in to work and do it with my own two hands.

    Also, FWIW, commuting does not have to be dangerous and polluting. I walk to a public transit station and take a train to work. It takes longer than driving would, but I'm get

  • I have yet to see a good shared whiteboard (Score:3)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @05:41PM (#59797560)

    For me, slack works really well for communication, there are a few options for videoconferencing like Zoom and Slack Video that work pretty well for more direct communication.

    The one thing I've not seen a great solution though for is something like a shared whiteboard where we can all sketch/share ideas. We've tried using a few shared document editing platforms but something about that I just found very lacking. Like maybe some way you could track one particular persons edits, or perhaps the document could focus on edits by whoever was speaking over a videoconference...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by _merlin ( 160982 )

      You can pay a lot of money for shared whiteboard solutions that use a projector and special "markers" that it can track the location of. They require calibration, and there's always a bit of lag. I used to use one of these virtual whiteboard things (with the sharing turned off) when interviewing candidates. It always took them a minute or so to get used to the idea of writing on the wall with the "marker" and adjusting to the lag as the line followed where they wrote.

    • The one thing I've not seen a great solution though for is something like a shared whiteboard where we can all sketch/share ideas.

      I have a Jamboard [google.com] in my home office. They're expensive ($5K), but they work really well. The Jamboard is basically a 55" touchscreen computer with a couple of styluses. The drawings ("jams") are saved to Google Drive and can be pulled up later, shared, etc., and can be looked at or edited (drawn on) on phones, tablets, laptops or other Jamboards, with all edits being visible in real time to all devices with the jam open. The Jamboard is integrated with Google Hangouts Meet (Google's enterprise video con

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mchawi ( 468120 )

      Microsoft Teams actually has a whiteboard feature built in. When you go to 'share' one of the features is a shared whiteboard.

  • ... a big red STOP button that shuts down all methods of communication with the outside world with immediate effect.

    • ... a big red STOP button that shuts down all methods of communication with the outside world with immediate effect.

      And now you know why they invented offices (with real walls and doors) in the first place.

  • I just started doing work for an organization that uses Teams. I don't know the background on Teams, but it looks like it was an acquisition that they are still trying to integrate properly. That said, it works really well. I go into the office maybe once a week or so to meet people for coffee or collaborate on a physical white board, but that's it. Every call I have is on Teams.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chill ( 34294 )

      I'll second this. As a lifelong Linux geek, I find this hard to say but Office 365 w/Teams works really well for telework.

      I currently use my own laptop at home (Linux), and work provides a VDI instance (Amazon Workspaces) of Win 10 in case I need it. I do, because the web versions of Word and Excel are weak and not up to real work. Firefox is my main browser, but there are one or two apps where Chrome does better.

      That fits fine as an InfoSec manager who teleworks 3-days a week. Time for me to check out the

  • An AI that does the working for me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      An AI that does the working for me.

      If you find one, your employer is likely to find one and then it might not end as you expect...

  • My employer has always been really flexible about telework because our people are highly mobile anyway. (Lots of salespeople and creatives who work from all over the globe on various projects, and in I.T. - we've built ourselves an environment we can mostly remotely manage as needed.)

    The biggest challenge with videoconferencing, and even with traditional conference phone calls, seems to be call quality and reliability.

    When you decide to use any kind of public wi-fi for your Internet connection, there's sti

  • These requests might be at odds, but better caching and better syncing: Caching - when I click a link or use corporate infrastructure I don't want to sit there for 30 seconds waiting for everything to reload the exact same information it loaded 10 minutes ago. And then once it finally loads, I need to click the next link and wait another 30 seconds (because for some reason the most useful components are always 10 clicks in). Syncing - My company has switched to Office 360 and the syncing is terrible. We're
    • Your problems indicate a connectivity problem. I work over VPN from home, and the delays are minimal (fiber connected). My Office 365 response is good whether I am in the office or at home. I guess a lot of people are not really well connected.

  • Slack is great. But... I would like to chat with a coworker privately. A truly ephemeral boss proof encrypted DM capability would be great.

  • My employer provide me with a laptop with VPN which connects to the corporate network.
    At home I have the same laptop docking and monitors that I use at the office.
    As connectivity is pretty good, and a lot of the data is in Office 365 anyway, the access delays are minimal.
    So there is no technical reason for me to go to the office.
    I still do most of the days, as I find my own company quite boring.

    • I'm a little bit like you, my commute should be ~20 minutes (15 miles highway) so I don't care going to the office, but whenever there is the slightest problem on the road, accident, snow, whatever, it can take 45-60 minutes. When this happens I stay at home to work.

      I have a 100D/30U cable connection, and a VPN to the office so there's basically no difference in term of speed.

      We have tons of way to communicate, email, phone, lync, slack, skype, hipchat, teams, etc.

      And my suburb 2 stories 4bedrooms house is

  • I regularly remote work. This is less about the right software (all you need is live chat and video conf, for which there are many solutions) and more about people that buy into working with these resources as a matter of course - as well as their consideration for remote workers (IE, talking loudly enough in on-site meetings to be picked up by a mic).

    The best way to get people into this mindset is to get them to experience it first hand for themselves.

    And trust. Managers must allow autonomous workers and t

  • Virtual Desktops (Score:4, Interesting)

    by OpinOnion ( 4473025 ) on Wednesday March 04, 2020 @06:45PM (#59797810)
    I'd rather just login to a virtual PC in a virtual office and use the PC like normal, that way I'm not learning half asses collaboration software that I probably have minimal actual need for and will be chore to keep people using in the long run. Resources can be easily shuffled, offices can be easily moved, downsized or up sized and you can have anywhere from 1 to tons of employs work from home without huge expenses for things that rarely happen. You also get datacenter level knowledge instead of random IT guy. You can hiring better training/teaching talent too instead of so much technical talent. It's much easier to calculate costs on a per user subscription system too. You don't have to liquidate assets or upgrade computers. As for features.. uh... I don't really see why email and folders won't work for most people. It's not like that many people go collaborate in person with their co-workers all that much, they mostly coordinate through email even when they are on the side of the office. It's nice to have that 'paper' trail you get with email and it's nice for all that to stay in one place vs having email and other messaging methods just to make IT suck that much more. The one thing that would be nice is IM and full unified messaging. I don't like having to go to more than one app for email, voicemail and txt and I don't like doing work stuff over a phone. I hate video conferencing, it seems like a complete waste of time. Office life already has too many meetings and not enough real work ethic. Shit.. people get mad at your if you work too hard at half the jobs..fortunately I don't get subtle social messages..AND I NEVER WILL! ;)

  • W2 not 1099 and health insurance (usa only)

  • No bloody Slack, Microsoft Teams, or other chat.

  • I have managed a telecommuting operation. They can work if there is an easily understandable set of performance metrics and if there is enough in-office time for the telecommuting group to maintain a place in the company culture.

  • There is nothing more annoying about a conference/video call than spending the first 20 minutes handshaking with everyone on the call. Just say hi and tell me what you want. For some reason, on conf/video calls, this process takes forever. It's like everyone is still shocked that we can talk, but not be in the same room and they feel the need to increase the informal banter, or worse, overly explain something because they can't see the reactions of everyone on the call. If I have a 30 minute conference cal

  • Not everyone has the dicipline to work remotely, some need the social interaction that comes with office life. We're social animals, I don't mind a day or two week at home but I hate being out of the office, I miss my good colleagues. We have a coffee, lunch a few laughs and we trade knowlege and ideas. We talk about our lives, when I'm working remote it's just IM's and emails, we don't chat on IM, we just fire instructions and requests at each other to get stuff done. I couldn't do that all the time, it's

    • some need the social interaction that comes with office life.

      Makes sense.

      We're social animals

      See, this is where I disagree. As the "outsider" for every group that has ever formed in the office I'm the poor sod who they offload to when they can't handle the "social" aspects of office life anymore. I think we are less "social" animals than creatures that have been trained to be utterly neurotic about what's going on in other people's minds and some friendly social interaction is what we do to gauge other people's thinking of our personal being. As people get older, they get more settled a

  • That would include physically being together with the people in your team and such. At a physical place. Where things like social interaction, body language, empathy, and all the other core features of human interaction, can happen, that we need for a normal healthy life.

    Aka: not telework!

  • I work remotely and manage remote teams a LOT. My situation is that often Iâ(TM)m remote and the entire team is in one place, working on something physical.

    I generally use a combination of TeamViewer for screen sharing/control and a FaceTime session on a cell phone where I can see the team.

    There are two major setbacks which slow me down: the ability to control my own viewpoint (someone is always off-screen, I have to have then point the camera at a physical device, etc.) and the ability to physically

  • I find that I can neither grope nor be groped remotely. How do we rectify this alarming lack of discomfort and objectification?
  • I and some colleagues worked from our homes for 20 odd years. All we used was a VPN to the server in the office, a phone and Skype. In the early days I was working with a dial-up connection to the office server. Once every couple of weeks or so we'd meet at HQ an do all the things we couldn't do remotely. I don't think I'd use Skype now - it got so bad I uninstalled it form all my devices.

  • I've been exclusively working from home for about 14 years now. I travel to the office in another state for about a week every 5 or 6 weeks. I don't manage a team.

    I have good connectivity from home via a VPN and aside from actually being able to touch equipment and see blinking lights or plug in cables I can do pretty much everything with fewer distractions, it is highly productive. The systems I manage are either in the cloud or widely dispersed anyway. The customers and co-workers I routinely speak with a

  • I live only a 15-minute bike ride from work. It's a lovely small community. However, I work at a major university, so the work is constant and overwhelming. Well, it wouldn't be if there weren't so many different people needing meetings. I practice "defensive calendaring" to try to mark off at least 3 hours of desk time per day, but it rarely turns out to be that much.

    The only time I feel like I'm even approaching catching up is when I telecommute from home. Why telecommute? I'm not saving on commute time.

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