atw: Re: Welcome aboard, Rob : sequed towards remote work...

  • From: Peter G Martin <peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:26:13 +1000


On 9/06/2010 12:17 AM, Robert Levy wrote:
That's just the kind of thing we're thinking about. We're also thinking of Geelong, as my wife's parents are in Torquay (her sister is in Melbourne proper).
The commute doesn't seem too bad, since I could sit on a train and read. But, to tell you the truth, I really (really really) would like to work from home. I'm not sure if that kind of thing is done over there.... 



Stand by for a pet rave.....
Yes sometimes it is done... Some companies in the IT and communications business actually seem to believe that the technology they sell every day might actually work. Most don't seem to believe that at all: presumably they think they are in the confidence-trick business: sell 'em stuff that doesn't really work....
There are some exceptions, I know. IBM seems to be one company that seems to accept that saving on pollution, CO2 emissions, family life style, productivity and ridiculously high CBD office rent for all are things worth pursuing.
Many of the others would rather waste millions of shareholders' funds, the future of the planet etc etc by having the 90% or so of their office staff who could do 80%-90% of their work from home, traipsing into the city and back every day from distances of up to 100 kms away. As far as I can see, the main cause of this is that managers have no idea of how to measure productivity unless someone arrives in the office at 9 and leaves at 5 or some appropriate later time. It's a threat to managerial control somehow, apparently.
For a few years, I worked for a firm that was an exception: I worked 500kms from the office and seemed to cope fairly well. I did make it into the office for meetings on a regular basis (initially once a fortnight, later once a month). The work didn't just get done: as is apparently quite common, my productivity went up. (And I have a written reference to attest to that.) Later I worked for a few months under similar conditions with a programming team leader whom I have never laid eyes upon because he was in Salt Lake City or some such one week, and on the US west coast the next. I did meet other team members in the office on a regular basis. The office there was 500 kms in the opposite direction... we're talking Sydney and Brisbane here.. (My home is on the NSW mid north coast). I have yet to see contract work which couldn't have been done in remote work with internet connection -- on the understanding that it might have to start at a CBD site, and involve occasional visits thereafter.
Can anyone tell me why that is impossible in sensible business or managerial terms ?
The coming of the NBN doesn't yet seem to have sparked off any interest in shareholders in why their companies waste so much money and contribute to planet pollution by centralising office work unnecessarily. Governments don't seem to have woken up to the fact that continuing land releases on city fringes are not required as much as many people think, and that the huge transport and facilities infrastructure expenditures that have to follow that aren't really needed.
They don't seem to have woken up to the fact that housing costs, notoriously expensive by world standards, can be dropped down by having remote work done in places like Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie, etc etc. Why not live by the beach and work at home ?
There are areas in NSW close by the beach, with quite adequate ADSL and in some places, cable and wireless, where the unemployment rate is about 20% and the cost of housing way below city prices. 

What are we doing ?

This is madness!
Anyone know companies other than IBM that are showing any common and business sense in this area ? Who are the goodies ? 

-Peter M
(Now working in Brisbane, 500kms from home. .....)

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