Missing telecommuting

posted by Jeff | Tuesday, March 19, 2013, 11:19 PM | comments: 0

I spent all of last year telecommuting, and as I've said before, it was an enormously positive experience. I'll be doing it a few days a week in the current contract gig, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't prefer it was all remote.

I have to qualify, however, that some of the issue is simply that commuting in winter in Northeast Ohio sucks. It's cold, people don't know how to drive, and you end up seeing all of that flat, gray deadness that is the sky. Working from home, you can at least partially offset that by the comfort of home and non-exposure to the cold.

More than anything though, it's the efficiency of remote work that appeals to me. I'm not sure when I became so cost conscious about work on behalf of employers (probably when I was directed to hold a $10k meeting at Microsoft, I'm sure), but I like the idea of being efficient and productive. The asynchronicity of communication in a remote scenario tends to group distractions into times of your choosing, leaving you time to think and act deeply on things that matter.

I'm realistic in that I don't think this would work well for all disciplines, but it sure works well for software development. I also acknowledge that I'd rather work with The Best People Ever in person before I'd work with mediocre people remotely. There are always qualifiers to these things. In fact, I suspect my opinion would change greatly once Simon is of school age, and isn't around for lunch time tickle fights.


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