RE: Long distance telecommuting

["Guru Kamath" <guru -at- bom5 -dot- vsnl -dot- net -dot- in>]

Hello,

I have been doing long distance telecommuting for the past two years.  I
have done so for two US companies -- one in Guam and one in Los Angeles.  I
am based in Mumbai (Bombay), India. I have written about my experience in
the May 1999 issue of Intercom.  You may check out the STC site at
http://www.stc-va.org for this article.

I have carried out a few translation assignments for a few US companies. As
the languages translated were Indian -- naturally choosing a local person
was in their interest.

But believe you me -- I feel there is a great reluctance to engage long
distance telecommuters.  Long distance telecommuting is only accepted as a
last resort or where the economics (Indian rates are definitely cheaper) or
geography (many US companies use developement shops in India) necessitates
it.

I think long distance telecommuting is ideally suited for Conversion jobs.
Converting files from Word to FrameMaker, from Word to RoboHelp, from
FrameMaker to Word, Word to PDF, any other word processor to PDF, etc.
Similarly, converting to HTML and other such formats (say SGML and XML) is
what we may dream about in the future. Traditional technical writing is
difficult, if not impossible, through telecommuting.  In most cases -- you
are unable to work on the product (product is too large to ship, database is
too large to ship, connectivity is not possible, etc).  When we talk about
review cycles in such a case -- I think it becomes a bit of a pain.  Whereas
in case of conversion jobs -- the text has been finalized -- and processing
it can be done anywhere in the world.

Time difference can be used to great advantage. The US Tech writer finishes
a chapter by evening and emails it to an Indian counterpart. Next morning,
he can have the RoboHelp file or the same file in some other format.  This
will also have great savings in terms of overheads (rentals, PC, consultant
cost, hrd cost, etc).

In LDT (long distance telecommuting!), I personally am comfortable with 95%
completion. I feel to complete the balance 5 percent of the job (typically
corrections) -- it may not be worthwhile to have the telecommuter handle the
job. The local person should be able to handle it.

I have found a few telecommuting opportunities on the Techwhirl Premium Job
announcements list.  I am happy to confess that most of them have shown
interest and I am likely to get some business soon. Similarly, I have found
a large number of telecommuting jobs on http://www.hotjobs.com. (Hey --
three telecommuting jobs are a large number for me!)

Happy telecommuting!

Guru
guru -at- bom5 -dot- vsnl -dot- net -dot- in