Teleworking, the Comfort and Consequences

Rolling through the different teams in MSIS now is the overt acknowledgement and departmental cultural approval of telework. Certainly most are aware that telework has been part of the fabric of MSIS for many years, but perhaps it was quietly understood as an exception to the rule of order instead of a permissible alternative.

I would like to think that teleworking arrangements in the past have been equitable to the teams I am accountable for in that we have had good success with our three or four remote workers and how they operate with their partners back in Ann Arbor.  However, aside from the odd emergency incident coordination phone call on the side of US 2 on my way home just prior to me slipping into the heart of cellular darkness that is Iron County, I had not spent too much time considering if I could be effective in my role to the same extent as I am in the office. That is not to say that I am effective when I am in town rather I was looking for the equivalence of it all.  This week is an opportunistic chance for me to give it a whirl.

Starting yesterday I starting a tally of some of the benefits and consequences of the whole work from home option. Your milage may vary, but its food for thought and several other metaphors.

Day 1:
Things that are better when working from home:

Comfort: It is nearly remarkable how awkward office environments are for addressing our comforts. The problem is that comfort is an individual perception and preference. What is compelling for one is a barrier to another, and so office environments manage conventionally to the "least obtrusive for most" model. I would have to imagine you would not really want what I deem especially comfortable in the collaboration space because it involves quite a few more cats and fennoscandian death metal music in the background. That being said, it is wonderful to have the option to work in a tuned and personalized space. It does wonders for an increased focus level and a reduced stress level.

There is the qualified notion that the professional workplace should therefore strive to accommodate the individual comforts. I think the trick is that pretty much the entire organization would have to be accepting of those designs and in our context that is far beyond just B200 or even MSIS. While I think it would be great to have the spaces that Pixar enjoys, it is safe to say that we do not expect our patrons or even all of us would be comfortable squatting on a giant bean bag chair while hashing out a project timeline.  It does beg the question, how do we introduce more acceptable comfortable options into our spaces at NCRC and Med Campus... how do we nudge the comfort meter needle a touch closer to "Pixar" without causing a freakout in the population. So perhaps one enclave room with giant bean bag chairs will not result in an organization meltdown.

Things that are worse when working from home:

Access:  My work is very meeting-oriented and conversation oriented. I do not dig into VMs or repair devices (nor do you want me to).  I review paperwork, sign things, meet with people and prioritize efforts nearly hourly.  I can do this effectively from home using good tooling like Vidyo but what I already miss is the unpredictable opportunities to pull more than one person together for an ad hoc conversation. It is no problem for me to ping J Michael Warden and gin up a decision, but it is awkward to do this with more.

I also have a lot of fun working with people directly. Hehawing around with Susan Niepoth or Buzz Nau make the day go smoother and are a welcome distraction. I tend to lose that when remote.

I also do not have a printer and I now realize how much damn paper I use in the course of my everyday work. Thats annoying for a couple reasons and should look into that further.

More tomorrow on this... now back to the death metal and really good strong coffee.