Re: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.

[Joe Greco <jgreco () ns sol net>]

> Am 12/1/11 9:35 PM, schrieb David Radcliffe:
> > Since I like to work and code (I spend 10 hours a day on the computer at the
> > office, think about work related stuff in the shower, and often write Perl code
> > at home to deal with various household tasks) I work quite well at home.
> > There are more distractions at the office and my productivity is greater in my
> > home computer room during those times I have to put in some extra for the
> > office.
>
> The downside of this is that you are not around in the office in case 
> someone wants to talk to you. I often end up with guys from our 
> operations team or other teams stopping at my desk and ask questions. Or 
> guys who want to have a quick chat about a problem and want to ask for 
> an advice or idea. Or people who want to learn Perl and have a question 
> that you can answer in 30 seconds.
>
> Yes, I know, they can call you, or send an Email, but nothing beats the 
> good old "Let's go for a coffee, I'd like to ask you a question".

Which really stops being practical once you exceed (approx) one building 
in size.  It was interesting during the early days to note that there were
certain people who did a lot of their interaction on IRC, even when in the
office, even when sitting a few cubes away from each other sometimes.  It
definitely enabled telepresence - obviously not as good as "being there",
but it was funny every now and then when you'd go looking for that person
and find out they were out today at a different office, or telecommuting.

It seems to me that we've not been as successful as we might at this whole
telecommuting thing, because people - especially at small companies - ARE
used to being able to grab a coffee, and there's a reluctance to lose that.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.