If you're a moron, like me

One of the banes of my existence is managing the timezone thing - I live in mountain time and work largely with clients and employers who are based on the East Coast. Normally it's not that big a problem, except when I travel there. Flight times are always local time, so you get hosed when you take the flight info stuff from a travel booking site and put it in your calendar - yes it lands at 11:00 pm, but that's mountain, so like 1 am Eastern. I'm forever making the wrong calculations.

Because I am a moron.

But I just added the Mountain timezone to my Outlook display following these helpful instructions from Lifehack, and I'm feeling better already!

Telecommuting Fashion Watch: It's Not a Bathrobe

One of the well known benefits of telecommuting is that you don't have to strap yourself into a work costume and trudge into the Real Office. You can pretty much roll out of bed and get to work naked if that's the kind of thing you want to do. I don't recommend this, mind you, because of the prevalence of webcams and windows and suchlike, but hey, I'm not here to judge.

Yes, you can be casual, but that doesn't give you a license to let yourself go, of course. No pajamas. I mean it. But do you need to make yourself uncomfortable? No, I don't think that either. Allow me to suggest real clothes that function like their more pajamaesque cognates.

Bathrobe? No.
Long sweater? Yes!
It's warm, comforting, and because it's long it can be helpful in managing the low-rise jeans/plumber issue that seems to arise these days.

Slippers? No.
Nice sandals? Sure, why not?
I like the idea of having a dedicated pair of house shoes, flip-flops or sandals to slip on, Mr. Rogers-style. I hate the idea of tracking dirt into my and home office, and I would prefer that people remove their shoes. But I understand that you might like to wear shoes to avoid seeming like a complete shlub.

Sweatpants? No.
Yoga pants? Maybe.
Here's the thing about yoga pants: elastic waist. It is a slippery slope from a forgiving waistline to sloth. I'd like to recommend that if you're going to wear work out clothes as clothing that this is only acceptable if you are actually going to or coming from the gym or other actual physical exertion.

I'm tying the belt on my long sweater and saying it over and over like a mantra: it's not a bathrobe.

Virtual Meeting Tips

This advice about how to stay together and seem professional during conference calls and teleconferences is all right on the money. Really the best thing to do is to treat a videoconference or online meeting as a meeting meeting. I find that I do well to pretend that I'm actually sitting in the room with people - don't do anything during the meeting that you wouldn't do in a room full of people.

Of course I do wear flip flops during meetings, which I would not normally do during a Real Office meeting. But other than that, I try hard not to get distracted and stay "in the room" even when that room is 2000 miles away.

Getting Beyond Pitfalls

Telecommuting is pretty much like regular work in most ways - if you goof off, people will notice, you can be unresponsive and annoy your coworkers just as easily from home as you can from the cubicle down the hall. But there are some particular issues that you'll notice when you work from afar most of the time. This piece from Read Write Web has some good ideas for dealing with some of the most common issues you might see.

How Far Away Could You Be?

All airfare and needing to be onsite aside (which explains in part why Stella didn't post much last week) here's the question: once you make the break to working from pretty far away, how far away could you actually be? Is there a limit?

This article from InfoWorld says: why not half a world away? I will say that the time difference could get confusing, but if you're really just a contractor and working through project work with a set need to meet with people or otherwise be available, why not just say Phuket?

If I didn't have children to educate, I'd be working from a little beach town in Mexico or the U.S. Virgin Islands so fast it would make your head spin. Just sayin'.

Telecommuting Job Watch: Elder Services

This morning I heard an interesting story on NPR about an application of teleconferencing tools to help monitor older people to avoid "I've fallen and I can't get up" incidents. This is a really great way for distant relatives to keep tabs on aging parents, aunties, uncles, or anyone who is able to live by themselves, but about whom you worry just a little bit.

I've heard of other applications like that - there are telemedicine programs, for example, where a nurse or physician's assistant looks in on people who have chronic health conditions. These programs combine teleconferencing with systems that send biometric telemetry (blood sugars, blood pressure, pulse, or data from wired medicine dispensers) to help medical professionals monitor a patient's condition and compliance with treatment plans.

Pretty nifty - it seems like a cost-effective way to prevent more serious problems and complications from a chronic illness (or from just getting older). And the monitors can also be telecommuters.

FiOS versus Cable in a Battle for My Internets

The phone company has been sending Stella some postcards lately with a bit of intriguing information: FiOS has come to my neighborhood. We're seriously considering making the switch to fiber optic internets, but I'm just not sure.

Could it really be that much better and faster?

Here are the decision points, most of which, I realize, are irrelevant and crazypants. And yet:

1. Which company is likely to be a more reliable source of customer service? Qwest or Comcast? Who knows?
2. Which company is less of an evil, crippling monopoly? They both kind of are.
3. Is it really faster, the fios?
4. Would the productivity gains we make by ditching the cable television at the same time (because that's what we're thinking about doing) have a multiplying effect on any internets speed increase that we might also see?
5. Can Mr. Commute live without hot and cold running ESPN?

You see, it's quite a quandary.

A Vacation Day is Best Taken Not In the Office

Okay, I know it's intuitively obvious to the casual observer, but your best vacation day will be one taken outside your office. But when you telecommute full time and you take the occasional vacayday it can be so tempting to just pop into your home office and do a little work. Stella is not going to lie to you: she did pop in the office this morning for a little work, but now I've taken myself out for a quick bagel.

And I'm blogging to you live from the coffee shop. I've totally become that guy tippity-tapping my keyboard at the coffee shop.

Don't hate me for my battery life.

Oh, Man

It's funny because it's true. Help me.

Making the Case for Telecommuting: A Simple Approach

As Stella has mentioned, she's been traveling a lot to different on-site things, conferences, and other things. Everywhere I go, I have to explain to people how it is that I work for an institution in upstate New York but live in Albuquerque, and everyone I explain it to asks immediately, "How did you manage that?"

I try to counter by asking them: do you ever log in from home on Saturday to do a quick task?

If the answer is "Yes," then you have a fundamental case for experimenting with telecommuting at least some of the time. Because dig it: if you can log in from home on your time, why can't you do the same thing on their time and be just as effective? If that kind of access is good enough for an emergency, then it should be good enough for a regular work day as well.

I just don't understand what is hard about this. If you're feverishly working in the evenings and weekends on stuff when you're on business travel, or god forbid working while on vacation, you should be able to extend this style of working to the regular work day as well. It's a benefit that costs the employer very little -- once they've put in place the basic infrastructure you need to have safe remote access to systems, it's really pretty easy to just let people use it all the time.

So let them. And you, the employees: Ask For It At Work.

Could It Be The Heat?

I don't know if it's just summertime laziness or what, but my computer has a new afternoon trick. Every day around four in the afternoon it grinds to a halt. It's absolutely infuriating because not only is it close to the end of the day, making its usual 20 minute start up a reallly un-appetizing option, but also because it tends to be an extremely busy time of day.

In Stella's line of work there are two busy times: end of the tax year and end of the fiscal year. We are trying to get in as much cash as possible before the end of the fiscal year and so that means we're asking a lot of people to fulfill a pledge, make an additional gift, send us five dollars in an envelope, anything. Solicitations mean email solicitations and my customers all wake up at about 3:45 and say, "Gosh, we might should get that email out!" and send along their datasets and content.

So I really need to crank at 4:30, not click and wait seven minutes for whatever is going wrong in there to redraw the screen.

I am thinking about getting a chill mat for the darn thing - could it be getting too hot by the end of the day? Does that happen?

Summertime Focus

It's only early June but we've been having one hundred degree plus weather here at Stellacommute central. Luckily my office is an air conditioned wonderland because the sad truth about evaporative cooling (which we have in the rest of the house) is that it only lowers the temperature about twenty degrees which is awesome when it's 85, but less inspiring when it's fifteen degrees hotter.

All of which is to say that I shouldn't be complaining about getting to be in my office all day.

Except everyone else is on vacation. The children don't have school, and at least 40% of the in laws work in the school system so they're goofing off, too. It's hard to stay focused and feel good about staying out of the sun when everyone is going for ice cream by the pool and whatnot.

But I can do it. I might take some calls on the patio though, I'm not even gonna lie. It's a pretty nice day here, after all.

Telecommuter Fashion Forward: Flip Flops

Summer is officially here at StellaCommute headquarters. While we fired up the office air conditioner a couple of weeks ago, it's really kicking into gear now. With that in mind, it's time for our irregular feature on telecommuter "fashion" -- note those are not unnecessary quotation marks, because we're talking about flip flops here, people.

 What Did You Say You Bill Hourly?

For the truly discerning shut-in, these lovely numbers from Roberto Cavalli are ON SALE at Zappos for more than a grand. I kid you not. These are perfect for the telecommuter who doesn't actually need to work for money. Or who bill out at, like, $500 an hour. And really, I'm not sure what you can do at home for $500 an hour, but I'm pretty sure it involves different shoe styles than these.

My Legs are Cold, But My Toes Are Warm

These are the perfect choice for the telecommuter who suffers from chilly calves on those jaunts to the refrigerator. Or maybe you're too lazy to shave your legs every day -- wear these and keep your hirsutism to yourself. Elegant brocade plus white leather mean you can only wear these between Memorial Day and Whitsunday, though, so govern yourself accordingly.

Fringe Benefits

Buckle up, it's going to be a ticklish ride. These shoes will make you feel like you have small flies landing on the top of your feet all day. You'll get a nice workout from twitching and shaking your feet to get them off GET THEM OFF NOW AIIIIIIIEEEEE!

The Enterprise Edition

Something about these just makes me think "Trekkie" and I'm not sure why. The angular cut of the straps, the groovy 70s refrigerator/stove/wall oven color scheme, it's hard to put my finger on it exactly. Hey, they look comfortable.

Okay, at this point I just want to note that none of these shoes is less than $100. For flip flops. Am I so hopelessly out of touch with what shoes should or could cost or is that unreal? Okay, hopelessly out of touch it is! Let's continue...

Not Safe For Work (If Your Job Is Cowboy) 

Don't be fooled by the top people, these will not protect you if a horse steps on your foot whilst you try to saddle him or her. They are very sparkly, though. But bedazzling is, generally speaking, not a safety feature.

Back To Basics

All right, enough of this silliness. These are your basic flip flops, like the ones you had as a kid. They're less than twenty dollars, the straps look like they won't wear you raw, and they're perfect for staggering around your yard looking at flowers while you listen to a conference call.

So there you have it, a nice selection of extremely casual footwear. Please feel free to go to Zappos, where I found these fantastic shoe pictures, and purchase yourself a new pair of flip flops for the summer. After all, as a shut in, you don't spend nearly the money you might otherwise on clothes shoes and stuff. And please, don't call them thongs. That's something else entirely.

Like I Don't Already Look Like a Corpse

This is an interesting product, a monitor top light that is designed to better light online videoconferencers. I think it has potential to make it easier to see people's expressions when doing online video, and I like the idea. Of course part of me thinks, "Nobody wants to see that!" And by "that" I mean "my face at 6 am my time". High-definition cameras for the desktop? Ai, papi, no.

But maybe this is deeply flattering light, like those old makeup mirrors they had in the 1970s where you could change the light (Office - Daytime - Home - Evening) -- the office setting was green, but the evening setting? Mood lighting straight from the best bordello.

I'm sure that the monitor light has the same settings. At least I hope so.

Responsiveness Works Both Ways

Stella firmly believes in relentless responsiveness. All people can see of the telecommuter is how he or she responds to email and phonecalls. That's it - other than that you might as well not even be there. But it turns out that the flip side of that equation is also true.

All you can know about your colleagues and customers is their responses.

Seriously, that's it. And as a telecommuter it can be incredibly exasperating to feel like you're the only one talking in a conversation when the other person is unresponsive. You don't have the benefit of seeing the person rushing around the office clearly harried, sitting in a conference room all day obviously occupied, or otherwise busy-but-present.

So if you're a Real Office employee (or another telecommuter in another location) do the shut-ins in your life a favor and let them know that you received their communications. You don't need to give a full-blown answer, just a shout-out that says, "Hey, I know you exist. I'll get there! Thanks!"

An Object Lesson in Availability

I've said it before and I'll say it again - working from home means you can work from anywhere. I can see where this would be a problem for those who are over-utilized to start with, or for those who must work all the time to keep the freelance fires going. If you are relying on your billable hours and work all the time, then you should set boundaries and try to be more in your real life when you can.

But for a Real Office employee like Stella, in an environment where people are still grudgingly getting used to the idea that you can, in fact, be a Real Office employee, you should remove boundaries and be as responsive as is humanly possible.

I received an ASAP request for data this evening on the cell, and was able to fulfill it within an hour. That's not the kind of responsiveness you'll get from a person who might have to go into the office to do a thing; that's what you get when you have people and tools that work from wherever they are.

Even if that's two thousand miles away.

Using Music to Cue Tasks

I listen to music almost all day while I work. I'm finding that I soundtrack different sections of my day with different genres, and the more I do this, the more it cues certain mental changes. I find baroque music really good for detail oriented but not necessarily super-creative tasks, for example. It just maintains a calm focus, and the "rightness" of baroque music is condusive to an orderly state of mind.

For more creative work, or to rev myself up for a writing project that I've been delaying on, I look to something more modern: Gorillaz et al. It's complex, energetic, a little challenging but not overwhelming.

Brazilian music is also good for energetic focus - I don't speak Portuguese so I'm not distracted by words, and the rhythm gets me going.

For a while I was putting all my proclivities into a single Pandora station, with hysterical results. First, my mood would change abruptly as it moved from genre to genre, and it also started mysteriously equating some of that smoove R&B (Anthony Hamilton and the like) with "F*ck Her Gently" by Tenacious D, or "I'm gonna Love you Tonight" by Tripod. Not quite the same thing, and I got distracted by trying to figure out what the heck Pandora was thinking as it put these together into a sexytimes set.

So now, separate stations by mood, and all is well and productive in my ears.

Third Place Is Still A Win

I really enjoy going out on a school night and participating in Geeks Who Drink. I don't like to lose. Really, I hate it. But I'll accept a third place finish -- at least we're finishing in the money here people. Also: I take it as a point of pride that I had no idea what the name of Michael Bolton's heavy metal band was, and that I do not associate with anyone who does.

Just sayin'.

4 Tips for Tackling Telecommuting Skeptics

Stella is an unbridled telecommuting enthusiast. I think that telecommuters are more efficient, more available, and more productive than other knowledge workers, in large part because we get to structure our days in the ways that work best for our habits and proclivities.

And we get to wear slippers. Or flip flops in the summer.

But how do you address hardcore telecommuting skeptics in the workplace? There are (I know, perish the thought, but it's true) people who truly believe that telecommuters are less available and less useful than people who are sitting in the office. I work with some of these people now, and I'm really trying to think strategically about what I can do to make them feel more comfortable with working with me. I've got a few ideas about what I'm going to try:

1. Relentless responsiveness. No matter when these key opinion leaders (and telecommuting skeptics) call or email, I want to get back to them immediately. I tend to anyway, but particular aggression in problem areas is key.

2. Technology streamlining. I want to be easy to be in touch with, so reducing the complexity of working with the tools that let you get to me is key. This may mean using the cellphone instead of the Skype, just because cellphones dropping calls is "normal", and Skype doing something weird is "on the computer and therefore something weird I have to do to be in touch with this one difficult person." It means taking time at the start of every web session to go over how to use the online meeting tools and make sure everyone can see and hear okay.

3. Clear availability. I make a point of telling everyone, "Oh, don't you worry about what time it is where I am. I always work east coast hours, so if you guys are in the office, I'm in my office, too, and available for a quick conversation anytime. Just stop by!" I am also going to work on getting the casual contact tools we use (Skype for the most part) on more desks because it helps people to see that I'm online, available, and pop-in-upon-able.

4. Aggressively communicated results. If you got a problem, yo, I'll solve it. Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it. I am the guy who gets things done, and I need to not only do that, but communicate that one of the reasons that I'm able to kick out productive work so fast (and often in an urgent situation) is that I can work from wherever I am. Telecommuting means that I'm never not in the office because wherever I am is where the office is. At. I just need to make sure that the skeptics know that things are getting done because I'm not there, not in spite of the fact I'm not there.

Four simple steps. I'm doing all of this, plus going on site a lot more. What the heck, I like to fly, and Rochester is a beautiful city. We'll see how it works.

Stella's Secret Shame

I have a confession to make. I watch those Housewives shows. I don't know why. There is something about them that fills me with moral outrage and schadenfreude, and it happens miraculously all at the same time. I have the same feelings about the matchmaker lady show, Invervention, the OCD show, that show about the drunk stupid girls on the Oxygen channel (I am pretty sure it's called Bad Girls Club but it should be called Drunk Women Who Might Should Get Sober Club because that's what it is).

Most of these shows are vile -- I sit around feeling smug because I know better than to wear spangley tank tops and go to tanning beds. Almost everyone on these shows needs to get a j-o-b and stop asking other folks for money.

There is one reality show that is the opposite: it makes me feel like I should work much, much harder. This show is Kell on Earth and Kelly Cuttrone truly an inspiration for a number of reasons:

1. She works like a dog and expects everyone who works for her to do the same. They work hard. All the time. All of them.

2. She is smart and understands the difference between the work being important (doing a good job, making sure that the details are nailed, that everything that can be handled is, and that nothing is left because you weren't willing to work a little harder) and the business being important (it's fashion -- as she says, "Nobody is going to get excited about paying $2,000 for a pair of pants in this economy.")

3. Technically, she works at home. As a single mother of a school age kid, she's designed her life so that she lives and works in the same building. She runs downstairs and works works works works, and then darts upstairs and Swiffers the kitchen.

I love seeing people actually doing work for once, rather than "launching lines" (whatever that is -- it seems to involve paying other people to draw and make clothing, makeup, or jewelry), going to spin class, drinking too much wine, and generally sponging off of other people's ideas, money and energy. It's one of the few things I watch on television that makes me feel like going back into my office and doing more work.

I'm sure that feeling will fade if I watch the Countess drink wine on Ramona's rented boat. Er. Yacht. God, how I hate them.