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"Murphy was an optimist!"

I need my batcave! April 6, 2009 10:36 am

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life, Family
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I love telecommuting! I’m a huge advocate of telecommuting. I think we will find great societal benefit to having a group paradigm shift and having at least half our workforce work from home. Imagine if suddenly companies only needed half (or less) of their existing infrastructure needs. Less electricity spent heating, cooling and lighting them. Fewer monolithic roads needed since fewer people are commuting. Who can telecommute? Accountants, lawyers, sales people, technical people, IT people, customer service, technical support, and so many more. Basically if you work from a desk, all your collaboration can be done online or in weekly onsite meetings. If you have to lay hands on materials like at an assembly line, then unfortunately that is more difficult to do remotely. Barack Obama encourages telecommuting and so does the US Patent Office. Ask your employer to let you work from home to save the environment, make you a happier more productive employee, save the company money, and spend more quality time with the family while simultaneously getting more work hours in for the boss.

Now, the downside! To be a successful telecommuter, you need a batcave; complete with a secret passage. The kids and animals cannot know about your batcave. Nor can the wife! It must be impossible to find. Now where’s my butler?!

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Work from home does not always work April 23, 2008 6:26 am

Posted by Doug McCaughan in : Daily Life
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Yesterday I accomplished nothing..nada..zilch. And I needed to pull a 16 hour solid work day. I am the world’s biggest advocate of telecommuting and working from home. However, I will warn that if you are going to work from home, you must accept that there will be days that nothing gets done because the family will get in the way or you will be too distracted or emergencies come up. The list of reasons could go on but you will have the occasional day that might as well be considered a mental health day. Mine was yesterday. I have no explanation and no excuses as Tuesday is typically one of my most productive days of the week.

When these days happen, I recommend not fighting them. All that does is raise the level of stress to debilitating heights and worsens matters. Accept the day. Roll with it. Let clients know that deliverables will be delayed. Then pull some extra hours the next day and night and/or the weekend.

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