I agree with Tom but for different reasons. I would almost never accept a
telecommuter I didn't know and that may even be if he or she came recommended.
Everyone has different personalities and cultures and it takes time to
really get to know how to effectively communicate with someone because
everyone has different "vocabulary" even coming from the same country. And
vice versa. Every person is an individual and it's really tough to find out
the individual way someone needs to be managed over long distances.
Face to face communication is the quickest most efficient way to learn how
best to communicate (and hence manage) with most people and vice versa.
eg You need to learn to read between the lines of how someone writes. One
person's friendly sarcasm may be another person's insult. Without figuring
these things out in person first, frictions can result at worst and usually
at best, there will be inefficiency in communication ("ohhhh, THAT'S what
you meant...").
We have accepted some of our employees telecommuting from the other side of
the world but our best success has come from people who have been in our
office physically for 3 months at minimum and then go back to where they
came from to work. But people who we don't know their work habits... that
is much more difficult to manage.
For someone who wants to telecommute from the other side of the world,
bringing them here for 3 months and housing them and then topping it up
with long distance bills... makes it a lot less financially attractive than
simply hiring someone straight out who is a local where you just pay them a
salary that covers how they live rather than having to pay the same salary
plus all the other expenses and the additional effort for communicating
with the telecommuter from dealing with timezone differences to not being
able to "whiteboard" in real time without either learning a new tool or
paying for an electronic whiteboard (yet another expense) on both sides of
the telecommute boundary.
In any case, if telecommuting was easy to manage, then a lot more
programming jobs would be outsourced successfully to places like India,
Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Russia etc.
There is a place for telecommuting. We do accept it -- but it's never
"easy" even for us even if we get good results.
But I think it is a bit insulting when someone presumes that all businesses
and management teams are equiped to deal with telecommuting and should just
be able to have an empty office and if they aren't that they are "bad" or
somehow incompetent at communication or that they are "close minded" and
not considering the possibilities.
Many times, management teams think a great deal about how to make their
employees happy given the resource constraints of an organization.
Maintaining that balance can be very hard.
In most cases, the informal form of management is best for small teams
(most efficient use of money) instead of having to deal with excessive
documentation and communication and coordination issues over long distances.
At 05:38 AM 6/22/2002, Tom Mornini wrote:
>Thanks for your response, Zac.
>
>Our tech team is very small. I'm the manager of the group, and my
>management style would best be described as lackadaisical. :-)
>
>So, you're right, this requirement is based upon management weakness. I
>knew that when I posted the job offer. In fact, I even told that to the
>employee who was leaving for Washington D.C. as the reason why I couldn't
>keep him on. He understood completely, having worked with me. :-)
>
>While I agree that it would be ideal to simply pick the best person for
>the job, this obviously isn't completely realistic. For instance, we have
>a certain pay range that we can afford, and that will artificially limit
>who we can consider. Other people won't even know we have an opening.
>Others still might have a language or communications barrier that makes it
>impossible for us to work with them. Notice that this is not actually his
>deficiency, but ours. If we could just speak (insert language here).
>
>I just don't see adding one additional limitation to that by wanting
>someone to come to the office as all that big a deal. Many people prefer
>it, and in this economy, help is not scarce and people are willing to go
>the extra mile. After all, it's not about getting the best person, it's
>about getting the best work done. If I know that I can't effectively
>remote manage somebody so it would be silly for me to attempt this in vain.
>
>On Friday, June 21, 2002, at 08:30 AM, Zac Morris wrote:
>
>>Old fashioned is right, and disregarding "telecommuters" is also
>>extreemly short sighted and ultimaty limits your ability to provide the
>>most quality solution...
>>
>>I work for Cisco Systems in our RTP (NC) office. I work with two
>>different groups, one based in San Jose and the other based in Ontario,
>>as a "virtual team member" (what we call our telecommuter positions). I
>>only bring all this up because I'm in exactly the role you've outlined
>>here, and to be honest I don't think I would BE as successful as I am if
>>I were located directly with either of these teams.
>>
>>The need to have everyone "all together" is usually indicative of a
>>larger problem in team dynamics, and communications. It usually
>>represents a team in which "charasmatic" leadership is more important
>>than technical know how or ability to get a job done. Now don't get me
>>wrong, for a person to BE a successful "virtual team member" they have to
>>have great communication skills, and be open to working with others in
>>multiple formats to enable the best level of teamwork and participation.
>>
>>With all this said, and based on my own personal experience in this role,
>>I can tell you that what you're asking for here is a person to walk a
>>VERY shape edge between the need to bring the best and brightest from
>>people, without making it seem "personal". Actually having this role as
>>an "outsider" to the day to day politics and interpersonal sabatoge of
>>most bay area offices (yeah I lived there five years during the "boom") ,
>>gives a layer of abstraction that makes the job easier to perform. When
>>someone is questioning things like style, or code effeciency it comes
>>across MUCH easier (more acadimic) when that person is a "talking head",
>>an IM box, or a voice on the telephone. It becomes less "personalized"
>>and easier to "pick and choose" the best componants into a greater
>>whole. It also isolates the individual who may end up doing a lot of
>>refactoring to present the final solution.
>>
>>Just something to consider. Open youself to the best people in the world
>>and don't accept just the best you can find in your area, and you'll find
>>that you solutions aren't also as limited...
>>
>>-Zac Morris
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: Tom Mornini
>>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 11:30 PM
>>Subject: [JOB] Crack OOP Perl whitebox tester wanted
>>
>>We're 1 year into development of a system that is OO Perl, mod_perl,
>>DBI and DBD::Oracle on Linux.
>>
>>We've spent a lot of energy doing it right and writing tests as we go.
>>This has given us huge benefits in the life of the project, but our current
>>whitebox tester has decided to move to Washington, D.C. so we need
>>somebody to fill his large shoes.
>>
>>If you're a good Perl programmer who has a strong sense of "the way it
>>should be" and can be simultaneously mean, nasty, angry, distrustful and
>>unforgiving to Perl code and the opposite to people then we'd like to
>>talk to you.
>>
>>This person doesn't do new development, per se, but he is responsible
>>for making things better via testing, fixing, documentation and refactoring.
>>
>>This is a full time job at an office in the South Park area of San
>>Francisco,
>>California, USA. Telecommuters are NOT what we have in mind. Call us
>>old fashioned that way. :-)
>>
>>Pay and benefits are good, though it's no longer 1998. :-) Best benefit
>>is working with a small group of people that are highly motivated by
>>doing it right.
>>
>>--
>>-- Tom Mornini
>>-- eWingz Systems, Inc.
>>--
>>-- ICQ: 113526784, AOL, Yahoo, MSN and Jabber: tmornini
></blockquote></x-html>
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