Dashing My Remote Working Dreams
I recently read (or actually listened to) “The Four-Hour Work Week,” which is pretty much about how you need very little time to complete your work if you use the author’s productivity methods and outsourcing. Fascinating. Doable, I thought. So, I started trying out some of the methods at my current 8-5 gig. Let me just let you in on a few of the blunders I committed and obstacles I ran into that I didn’t hear anything about in the book.
Auto-Reply Blunders
The first thing I did was institute the auto-reply method. I won’t go into it here, but I did blog about it last week. I made a blanket auto-reply message that bounced back to anybody (and everybody it turned out) who e-mailed me. Including my boss. Including his boss.
It worked like a charm until I realized that I had gotten an e-mail from my boss’s boss. Now, this would normally be a good thing. This means that my role is important enough to be receiving requests directly from the Big Man. The bad thing is that he immediately told my boss that I needed to remove the auto-reply.
“Corporate sees that, too,” my boss reminded me. “Besides,” he continued. “You should be answering e-mails as often as possible.”
Auto-reply killed. I still have the dinging alert and pop-up window turned off so that if I’m deep into a project so a forward of cute kittens and puppies won’t distract me from the task at hand.
Punching the Clock – Literally
OK, this was my bad. I had a hard time getting back on my sleep schedule after being on hiatus from what will be henceforth known as Two Weeks of Hell. I came in late twice last week (30 minutes late), prompting my boss to remind me that my hours are 8-5 and that’s important because I’m the only one in from 8-9 am.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Boss says. “Besides, next year we’ll probably be moving to a clock-in, clock-out system anyway.” Say what?!
Apparently, I’m not the only person appalled at the idea of having to physically clock in. A recent article described the rise of fingerprint clock systems as “creepy” and intrusive. Aside from being amazed at the level to which corporate America will stoop in its pointlessness, this throws a major wrench in my plans to work towards a remote working environment in my current job. What will be the point if once achieved a few months later I am forced to be present for clocking in?
This is presenteeism at it’s worst in my opinion. Perhaps I’m merely a product of my generation, but I don’t understand why my presence is necessary when I spend the whole day in front of the computer, interacting with no one outside of e-mail and the very occasional phone call.
Never one to admit defeat, however, I am prepared to regroup and figure out a work-around. Unfortunately, if these things are true at my present job, then it may be that my work-around is a new source of income. Which was sort of the point anyways. I wanted to pick the easier way, but it doesn’t look like it’s viable. In all fairness, Ferriss (author, “Four-Hour Work Week”) did say it was better to lose the corporate gig altogether, but hey, sometimes we have to leave our claw marks in what’s comfortable before we’ll give it up.
Auto-Reply Blunders
The first thing I did was institute the auto-reply method. I won’t go into it here, but I did blog about it last week. I made a blanket auto-reply message that bounced back to anybody (and everybody it turned out) who e-mailed me. Including my boss. Including his boss.
It worked like a charm until I realized that I had gotten an e-mail from my boss’s boss. Now, this would normally be a good thing. This means that my role is important enough to be receiving requests directly from the Big Man. The bad thing is that he immediately told my boss that I needed to remove the auto-reply.
“Corporate sees that, too,” my boss reminded me. “Besides,” he continued. “You should be answering e-mails as often as possible.”
Auto-reply killed. I still have the dinging alert and pop-up window turned off so that if I’m deep into a project so a forward of cute kittens and puppies won’t distract me from the task at hand.
Punching the Clock – Literally
OK, this was my bad. I had a hard time getting back on my sleep schedule after being on hiatus from what will be henceforth known as Two Weeks of Hell. I came in late twice last week (30 minutes late), prompting my boss to remind me that my hours are 8-5 and that’s important because I’m the only one in from 8-9 am.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Boss says. “Besides, next year we’ll probably be moving to a clock-in, clock-out system anyway.” Say what?!
Apparently, I’m not the only person appalled at the idea of having to physically clock in. A recent article described the rise of fingerprint clock systems as “creepy” and intrusive. Aside from being amazed at the level to which corporate America will stoop in its pointlessness, this throws a major wrench in my plans to work towards a remote working environment in my current job. What will be the point if once achieved a few months later I am forced to be present for clocking in?
This is presenteeism at it’s worst in my opinion. Perhaps I’m merely a product of my generation, but I don’t understand why my presence is necessary when I spend the whole day in front of the computer, interacting with no one outside of e-mail and the very occasional phone call.
Never one to admit defeat, however, I am prepared to regroup and figure out a work-around. Unfortunately, if these things are true at my present job, then it may be that my work-around is a new source of income. Which was sort of the point anyways. I wanted to pick the easier way, but it doesn’t look like it’s viable. In all fairness, Ferriss (author, “Four-Hour Work Week”) did say it was better to lose the corporate gig altogether, but hey, sometimes we have to leave our claw marks in what’s comfortable before we’ll give it up.
posted by Holly Hoffman at
6:23 PM
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2 Comments:
Hi Holly,
This is a well-written and interesting post.
There's so much hype about Ferris' book (actually reading it, is still on my to-do list) so your pragmatic take on his ideas adds a valuable perspective. I also appreciate that you listened to the book - I also enjoy audio books!
Keep up the great blogging.
As you mentioned, if you have a job where you physically have to be somewhere (meetings, clients, whatever), yes, I understand a punch clock.
However, a punch clock doesn't always ensure productivity. For instance, I used to have an employee that had an 8AM shift. He would waltz in at 8 sharp, swipe his punch card and head over to the cafeteria to have breakfast for about 10-15mins. This was a call center, so I had to explain that if his shift starts at 8, he needs to be on the phone at 8 because clients are calling.
Unless you're in that type of job/environment, I see no reason to track someone's time/hours as long as the work is getting done. I’ve said it before: We have to be very careful of marrying time and value.
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