more stories of telecommuting

["Amy G. Peacock" <apeacock -at- WOLFENET -dot- COM>]

Thought I would share with you all how things go around here at my
house. :)

The home office is in another state so getting into the office is an
event that only happens a few times a year. Fine with me. I LIVE with
the programmer (my husband). Not to say that there aren't still some
of the same communication problems that other telecommuters face,
because there are.

One way I keep in touch with my boss is by sending him a daily summary
report which I send in with my timecard. It's like a diary in which I
state the things I worked on in a particular day, the problems I ran
into (even things like power failures, and blue screens of death...),
books or tools I looked into or am interested in, etc. I write the
entries for MYSELF as well as my boss. That means I have a record of
what I did on a particular day and can reference past events whenever
I need to. The more detailed I am the more my boss likes it. We also
stay in touch via NetMeeting and email.

But I think that largely it *is* an issue of trust. I don't lie about
how many hours I work (and I easily could) and I wouldn't violate that
trust my boss has in me. The problem is that I don't think that just
because my current boss trusts me that a new boss would. It's hard to
convey that trust relationship when all you have to show for it is an
end product.

The benefits of telecommuting are innumerable - and one big factor I
keep coming 'round to is the fact that the way we work, spending hours
on the freeways of the world everyday, is harmful to our planet. Call
me a tree-hugger if you want but knowing that I don't have to drive
into work makes dealing with telecommuting problems seem worthwhile.

Amy Peacock
techwriter & jewelrymaker
Snohomish, Washington
apeacock -at- wolfenet -dot- com

"How do I set my laser printer to stun?"

These are my opinions, not my employer's.


 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=