Managing The Mobile Worker

http://www.hrworld.com/features/trends-managing-012908/

Do any sort of telecommuting / working from home?  It's always nice to read up on articles like this - from HR World - about how management is being told to categorize you, and treat you accordingly.

Oddly, the article literally talks about mobile workers, like airline attendants, alongside the standard categories like "nomad salesman who spends all his time flying around the country."  I think my efforts barely register on their scale, but I'm probably a pendulum, swinging back and forth  between home office and work office.

Wait, I'm Going Backwards?

Every day when I get on the train, without fail I worry that I have gotten on the wrong one.  Unless somebody tells me "You are on the right train", it's only when I get to that first stop that I know for sure I am.  It's just a thing of mine.

This morning as I get on my 8:15 train the conductor is yelling "This train goes to Wilmington, and then Boston."  As long as it ends up in Boston I'm all set.  I get on.  It's more full than usual, but I manage to find a seat.  Then...the train starts going in the wrong direction!

I realize that the Wilmington station is in the opposite direction from usual.  That's fine, maybe the last local had to make up time by skipping them or something.  So we go backwards to that stop...and then sit there for 10 minutes, letting people get on this already crowded train.  It's now standing room only.

So then do we head in to Boston, as the conductor said?  Well, no.  We go back one stop...to my original station.  Where, again, we sit for 10 minutes and let people try to pile on.  And then for each of the next 4 stops we do the same thing.  Took forever.

So I suppose I could have been a good 15 minutes late to my train today and still gotten to work at the same time.  But hey, at least I got a seat. :)

Get Out Of The Passing Lane

I noticed something interesting this weekend.  Twice.  I'm driving on the highway, one lane over from the far left / passing lane.  There's a reasonable amount of cars, nobody's really going any faster than anybody else. 

Twice (two different occasions) the car in front of me moves over to the left lane where there's barely about 2 car lengths of space.  In other words, not much space at all.  We're moving, here, it's not like a traffic jam.  We're all doing 60+mph.  And yet, for some unknown reason, boom, gotta be left, right now.  It's not like the guy in our lane is going slow.  As a matter of fact, on both occasions, the ones in the left lane weren't going any faster, so the guy changing lanes basically made no forward progress at all.

Why bother?  I think people have got a mindset that in order to get there the fastest, you need to get over into the fastest lane.  Forget about watching the traffic and actually paying attention.  The left lane is the passing lane, therefore the cars there must be going the fastest, therefore that's where you have to be.  Right?   No.

It's worse when you watch it at an onramp.  Somebody's just gotten up to speed to get on the highway, and what do they do?  Within the next few hundred yards, zoom, right across four lanes because darnit the left lane is where all the cool people hang out.

Dude, it's called the passing lane for a reason.  Get in it to pass somebody, then get out of it.  Done.  You know what?  You'll get there *even faster*.

Is the MBTA getting Wifi?

As my train rolls into the station, I know that there is a public wifi hotspot that broadcasts a strong enough signal for me to get my email.  Just briefly (moving train, and all), I am able to do a quick email check and see what's waiting for me when I arrive at the office.

Last week I noticed a new hotspot called RiderNet that I'd never seen before.  I was wondering if maybe it's a community thing that they're starting?

Well, maybe that's exactly what they're doing.  Engadget has the story.  Not sure how the service will work or whether it'll be on my line or not, but that seems like too big a coincidence to me.  I just hope they don't charge an arm and a leg for it.  It's not like Starbucks where people can hang out for hours -- you're basically on the train for maybe half an hour at a shot, tops.

UPDATE : Apparently this will be for the Worcester / Framingham line, into South Station.  That is very much NOT my line, so I guess I'm sad. :(

Parking Lot Patience

When I get off the train in the evening, I have a choice.  I can walk right down the steps (outside) and be in the parking lot.  Or, I can go through the doors into the building, across the building, and out the other side.  It's warmer, it's quiet, there's a restroom and a vending machine.

But you know what else?  When I emerge at the other side of the building, after stopping at the facilities and/or grabbing a pre-dinner snack, the parking lot is a much different place.  The mad scramble to get home has no mad scrambled itself a few hundred yards away, trying to get onto the highway. I can now walk across the parking lot without getting killed by oncoming cars.  I can walk in a straighter diagonal to my car, because enough cars are gone that I don't have to walk around them anymore.  I take my time getting situated (hat and gloves off, heater on, iPod switched from headphones to FM Transmitter), and I can leisurely pull out and get right out. 

Try it sometime.  It's a relaxing way to end your day.

Now if I could just quit stopping at the vending machine......

Shameless Plug for My Day Job

Hi Everybody,

Over at my real job we've just launched our Facebook application, Connect At College.  The idea is to bring social networking to the college planning process and allow students (past, present and future) to choose the schools that interest them, and then compare notes with their friends, ask questions of alumni, stuff like that.  These days your "friends" go well beyond the kids you see in the halls every day.  Some of them you may have never even met!  Going to college together could be that opportunity :).

The application works primarily for high school students, but it's also setup to handle college students past and present who set themselves up as advisors to offer suggestions and answer questions. 

Future plans for the app include the opportunity to speak directly with representatives and admissions officers from the colleges themselves.  Personally I'm not planning on stopping until we've completely transformed the whole going to college thing.  My oldest is 5yrs old right now, so I figure I've got a good 10 years to change the world! :)

Hope you get a chance to check it out!  Thanks for indulging me.

- Duane

Raise the Gas Tax? Are they stupid?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/15/transportation.safety.ap/index.html

Wow, there's a spectacularly bad idea.  Let me sum it up -- raise the gas tax so high that you are in essence punished for driving too much, thus forcing you to look for alternate means of transportation.  Then take all the extra money raised and use it to fix the roads and bridges now that the traffic has gone down.

In a day where $3 gas is common and $4 is not unheard of, they want to bump up the tax by another 40 cents.  That's like the cable company who tells you that you can have their service for $29.99 a month, but then when you get the bill there's another $10 in various FCC taxes and carrier fees.  As the consumer I don't care what you call it, I care how much of my money comes out of my pocket.

You want me to take alternate means of transportation, then incent me to do so, don't punish me for not doing so.  Let's talk about getting better mileage out of all the cars, how about that for starters?  How about taxing somebody based on the mileage their car gets?  Nothing would drive the auto companies to get better mileage than a bunch of people saying "Sorry, the tax on your car is too high."

Or maybe figure out a way to tax on actual miles driven?  If you tax gas, then that means that my wife who does little more than shuttle the kids around town is going to take the same hit that I do for driving back and forth to the train station every day.  When in reality I do 34 miles a day, she does maybe 1/3rd of that.  Meanwhile you've got a few thousand people going around us every day doing double what I do.  And yet we'll all still take a beating on gas prices? 

Too Smart Windshield?

http://www.wired.com/imageviewer?imagePath=/images/article/magazine/1601/found.jpg&imageCaption=&imageCredit=Erik%20Pawassar

I'm sure they're trying to make a point, here.  But actually I kind of like it, if you could control the density a bit.

Telecommuting : Bad For The Other Guy

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080113-study-telecommuting-makes-work-worse-for-non-telecommuters.html

The premise of the article makes sense - when some people at the office telecommute, those who do not (most often because their jobs do not allow for it) end up feeling left behind, and suffer numerous negative effects.

It's a legit argument, to a point.  When I am in the office and I can't get in touch with someone I need because they are at home (and "away", or not at keyboard), it drives me nuts, like they personally are holding me back from getting something I need done.  But fair's fair, I'm sure they can say the same about me.  I feel guilty every time I work from home.  Then again, on the flip side, I can recall many times when I've been at home, laptop on lap, working well into the wee hours of the morning (sometimes on production problems) wondering where the hell my coworkers are now?

At the end of the day, I think that if you overly stress the importance of the office environment, then you will get more people with a punch-clock mentality who don't start working until they've had their coffee, and then the minute the clock ticks 5pm they drop everything and go home.  Hey, I'd be one of them.  If you insist that I have to be in the office to do my work, then I am not going to waste any of my personal time on you.    However, if you recognize that the importance is in the work getting done, however that may happen, then we can do business.  I've never fancied myself a conformist.  Expect me to show up at meetings in my socks, too.  But that's a different story.

No Pants Subway Day

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=28844

Aw man, apparently they did "No Pants" day in Boston this year, and I missed it!  That's the day that people in 10 major cities ride the subway without their pants.  Led by Improv Everywhere, they keep a straight face and stick to the story that they just forgot their pants.

I knew it to be a California / New York thing, but today at dinner my father-in-law mentioned "What was up with the no pants people on the T?" and then I saw mention on the net as well.

Road To A Better Driving Commute

Andrew over at Jobacle is treading on my turf with this post about changing up the driving commute :).  Personally I commute about 25 minutes just to get to the train station :), so I tend to talk more about the latter.  But many people do drive, so anything that keeps the road rage down is a good idea with me.  Here's a few more from my experience: 

Change when you leave.  What happens if you leave the house 10 minutes earlier?  You might get to work 10 minutes earlier....or you might hit even worse traffic because the sun comes up over the trees just right at the onramp and gets right into everybody's eyes.  What if you leave 10 minutes later?  You might find you get to work even faster, especially if you couple a time change with a route change, as Andrew recommends.

Clean your car. If you have a tendency like I do to eat breakfast during your commute, you're probably making a mess of your car with crumbs and trash. Don't let it pile up, and dear god don't just throw it in the back seat. When you park your car and get out, take a minute and take the trash with you. You'll feel better.   Pick up one of those cigarette-lighter vacuums if you want to get the crumbs.  They may not be powerful, but they do a fair enough job.

Find where all the service stations are. If you need your car to get you to work every day, and your car needs service, what do you do? Take it to a local place and miss work? Maybe there's a place close to work you could drop it off. The same applies for gas stations. If you need gas before hitting the road home, know where the good stations are and don't just jump on the one that's between you and the highway, that's going to be the most expensive one.

Pay attention to you.  The most stressful part of the commute is always the other guy.  Why does he get to drive in the breakdown lane?  How come he gets to weave in and out of lanes like that?  How come he never gets caught?  If I did that, I'd get caught!  You know what?  Who cares.  Never mind him.  Worry about yourself.  He's not doing anything to you except stressing you out.  Drive carefully. 

If you've got no problems with your commute, then don't change it.  What all these tips on both posts really come down to is, "If you don't like it, do something about it."  If you hate your commute, find ways to improve it.  We all know that the best commute is no commute, we'd all love to own our own businesses that are a 2 minute walk from the house where we can come and go as we please, setting our own hours.  For most of us, that's not happening.  We have day jobs.  So whether your commute is 10 minutes or 90, you can decide the attitude you go into it with.  If you hate it, then Andrew and I just gave you 11 things to do.  Get started.

Drivers on Cell Phones Clog Traffic - Hands free doesn't help

But we knew this, right? If you're talking on the phone, you're not paying full attention to the road. Thus, whether you know it or not, you're driving slower. The people behind you can vouch for this. I'll admit, I talk on the phone as well - briefly, to tell my wife when I'll be home for dinner, or to find out what I need to pick up at the store. The drive home is not the time to glue the phone to my ear and keep myself occupied by chatting the entire time.

read more | digg story

Skip The Commute, Call In Sick

Now, here's a creative idea.  Andrew over at Jobacle.com has created the Sick Day Calendar, plotting the optimal days for calling in sick based on when a holiday can get you a mini vacation.  The download is a nice quality PDF (I like the black one, personally) - but this is something you keep in your desk drawer, not something you tack up on the office wall!

I also like that my birthday, April 28, is tagged as a good sick day opportunity :).

And so is today, January 2.  Did you go in to work today?