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--- Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
> The majority of Americans are lazy, selfish,
> spiteful, and obsessive. They will
> do the absolute bare minimum required to get their
> paycheck. If you run a
Andrew, if I've told you once, I've told you a
million times: don't exaggerate.
> Finding good, motivated,
> hard-working people is very hard. Most people
Quite true.
> ... simply do not want to work. And
<snip>
> ...but they are not willing to do
> what it takes to get there.
> Nobody has a good work ethic any more. They think
> putting in their 32.5 hours a
> week and attending 3 meetings constitutes hard work.
<snip>
Well, you're certainly entitled to your own
opinions, but--at least as far as gross
generalizations are concerned--I'd disagree.
Sure, I've worked with many people just like those you
describe. However, I've also worked with a number
of people who follow the "get the job done, very well,
period" ethic. To the degree that anyone
can be externally driven or motivated, I'd suggest
that appropriate training/expectations/corporate
climate can make a world of difference here.
That said, discussions of human nature and the
applicability to any work environment probably
belong on the (hypothetical)
rage-against-the-machine-l
list, with Ayn Rand as required reading.
> Telecommuting is great for people who work hard.
> Sure, some people do work very productively at home.
Agreed.
> You cannot participate in a
> team if you're holed away at home. One of the most
> serious problems among tech
> writers today is isolation. Writers sit in their
> cubes (or at home) all day
> theorizing how it all works. without constant
> connection to the real world,
> tech writers get even more obsessive. This is about
> when people start thinking
> they need some huge process to help them handle
> reality.
As you describe it--no. I've telecommuted all
but about 6 months since 1995, and started
telecommuting in 1990. I like telecommuting,
and am quite productive (and well grounded in
the real world) doing it. Additionally,
I work for a company that aggressively supports
telecommuting, with the explicit policy of hiring
the best people for a given job, regardless of
their location. (Newest member of the current
team is in Germany.) I can't see myself taking
a job in which telecommuting wasn't an option.
Isolation, per se, isn't an issue, nor is it
the biggest problem among tech writers--if
it's perceived as a serious problem, it's probably
masking the _really_ serious ones.
That said, there's another
angle to the teleproductivity discussion that hasn't
been addressed: When is it the best choice?
In my current job, although I have remote access
to all of the tools I need, work with remarkably
well-grounded and cooperative engineers, and
work in a climate that fosters telecommuting,
I'm much more productive, with far less effort,
in the office than at the home office. Why?
I don't know--the job, equipment, and environment
aren't much different from the previous one, and
in that case I was equally or more productive at
home than in the office. But, I'd be interested
in hearing more specifics of _cases_ in which
telecommuting works for writers or doesn't, or
more of what makes it work, or doesn't, and less
of the hyperbole (either on the "if you have a
pulse, you're lazy and shouldn't telecommute, QED"
or on the "telecommuting solves all problems known
to tech writers anywhere, and only control-freak
management can't understand that I shouldn't even
see the office except for parties" side).
Any takers?
Eric
ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com
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