Just Try THAT While Telecommuting!
It was a fairly standard request. We’d missed one of the people in our migration. If you break the steps down, it looked like this:
- Recognize user cannot get in
- Notify client
- Ask user for their ID number
- Inform client of ID
- Inform user when complete
Had it been a “normal” day. The request would have been completed in a couple hours. After all, the client was in Oklahoma, the user was in North Carolina and I am normally in Utah. We’d start an email chain and forward the request, the question about user ID in response. Then, I’d forward the response on to the client and pass the information back when it was complete.
If everyone was at their desks, a couple hours would be a reasonable expected turnaround. We could go quicker if needed, of course. But, this was not an emergency request. It was just a typical, one of dozens, request that comes up doing a big implementation.
But, it didn’t take hours to complete this request. It didn’t take a single hour. The entire process took less than 2 minutes. The difference? Proximity.
Telecommuting has really come into its own over the past few years. As high-speed internet costs have come down and availability has gone up, it’s become possible to not only work successfully from remote offices, but from home offices as well. Most of the time, my partners don’t know if I’m working from home or working from my office in Salt Lake City.
And that’s the point. I couldn’t do my job if we didn’t have the ability to work remotely. I have centers in four states. My client is located half a country away.
But, for all the advantages of remote work, it’s not always the most efficient. In fact, it’s often not every efficient at all.
We are doing a migration in North Carolina. Our users are here. The client IT department is here. And of course, I’m here. In fact, the request took place in a conference room. The user walked in, told me what the issue was, I passed the information to the client who was sitting in the same room, but focused on other tasks. The client immediately made the change and just like that the user was migrated.
Sometimes, there is no substitute for just being there.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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