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Old 07-09-15, 05:48 PM
  #76  
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Originally Posted by cooker
"Special needs" eh? She "believed" it made her sleepy. Those people, including your wife, are working in the way that is most comfortable or productive for them. IT people need to support what works for users, not force them into preconceived notions of how automation is supposed to change their work habits.
+1
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Old 07-09-15, 09:51 PM
  #77  
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Originally Posted by Machka
This is how a lot of businesses already operate, .... Rather than having a large HR department, many businesses use employment agencies. Rather than having a large full-time permanent staff who are more difficult to let go if the economy isn't good, many businesses hire temporary or contract staff.
Yeah. Sometimes it seems like they no longer make swords with just one edge. Every advance brings benefits... and difficulties. I do understand and relate to the Luddites, the cyclists in the C&V forums, and the guys in car free... even though I do love the tech stuff too.

I believe that work at home... and even small(er) satellite manufacturing facilities may be the next evolution in workplaces. But that doesn't mean I think people will always love the changes. But to remain current and employable people might do best to alter their own perceptions of how to work. And NEVER stop increasing their technology and other work-useful skill levels.

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Old 07-10-15, 12:57 PM
  #78  
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Originally Posted by Dave Cutter
Yeah. Sometimes it seems like they no longer make swords with just one edge. Every advance brings benefits... and difficulties. I do understand and relate to the Luddites, the cyclists in the C&V forums, and the guys in car free... even though I do love the tech stuff too.

I believe that work at home... and even small(er) satellite manufacturing facilities may be the next evolution in workplaces. But that doesn't mean I think people will always love the changes. But to remain current and employable people might do best to alter their own perceptions of how to work. And NEVER stop increasing their technology and other work-useful skill levels.
I pretty much agree with this. My only point was that people like the lady printing out her emails because she found she worked better that way, is not someone to be mocked. She was adapting to the technology in a way, or at a pace, that did not overly disrupt her productivity, but allowed her to keep doing the job her employer expected as well as she could. It's quite likely that over time she adapted to reading more stuff on screen and relying less on printing, and an employer who patiently nurtured that transition, would benefit from retaining a skilled and dedicated staffer, and creating a positive, productive milieu that boosted morale for all.
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Old 07-10-15, 03:01 PM
  #79  
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Originally Posted by Dave Cutter
Well thank God for those union bosses... huh.
I wouldn't know, I'm not a member of said union, but the fact that I am of a certain demographic means that I would still benefit from this institutions collective bargaining agreements.

Originally Posted by Dave Cutter
Yeah... I set-up an FTP server in my basement office back in 2001 so family members in other states could transfer pictures. Pretty simple stuff. I guess not every workplace needs any stink'in modern technological advances. I really don't think your catching on to my posts.


Good for you, but your missing the context here entirely. This is not discussion about you setting up servers, nor am I advocating one way or the other...again your esotericism is interfering with the communication. All I am saying is this - the reasons you are giving against "old-fashioned" employment (your term) and for working from home via a cloud server, are erroneous. You have presented nothing which sufficiently replaces said "old-fashioned" employment like you are claiming.


Originally Posted by Dave Cutter
I guess not everyone is protected by a union rep.
Right...the ideology there based primarily upon membership.

Originally Posted by Dave Cutter
Some people really need those protections.... I would guess.
Many benefit from agreements reached through collective bargaining, not just union members.
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Old 07-10-15, 04:03 PM
  #80  
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Originally Posted by jfowler85
Many benefit from agreements reached through collective bargaining, not just union members.
+1. Huge profits are going into the pockets of rich people and corporations, as the disparity between rich and poor continues to grow. The common man needs all the help they can get. And our Supreme Court is not friendly either.
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Old 07-10-15, 07:10 PM
  #81  
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Originally Posted by jfowler85
...... You have presented nothing which sufficiently replaces said "old-fashioned" employment like you are claiming.....
Yeah. You mean like links to meaningless targeted searches? No thanks, I don't do that. And since you find my posts difficult to understand... suggest you stop reading them.
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Old 07-10-15, 07:25 PM
  #82  
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Originally Posted by cooker
......... My only point was that people like the lady printing out her emails because she found she worked better that way, is not someone to be mocked. She was adapting to the technology in a way, or at a pace, that did not overly disrupt her productivity, but allowed her to keep doing the job her employer expected as well as she could. It's quite likely that over time she adapted to reading more stuff on screen and relying less on printing, and an employer who patiently nurtured that transition, would benefit from retaining a skilled and dedicated staffer, and creating a positive, productive milieu that boosted morale for all.
Maybe so. Or maybe the solution was assigning her a printer located clear across the building.

There is no correct work-philosophy... that I am aware of. I know of no standard of productivity that is universal to all workplaces. Who knows, who is correct.
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Old 07-10-15, 08:24 PM
  #83  
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Originally Posted by Dave Cutter
Maybe so. Or maybe the solution was assigning her a printer located clear across the building.

There is no correct work-philosophy... that I am aware of. I know of no standard of productivity that is universal to all workplaces. Who knows, who is correct.
That's a good idea, I like employers who are concerned about their employees welfare and will do things to encourage them to get up from their desks and walk.
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Old 07-10-15, 08:26 PM
  #84  
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But back to work from home ...

Pros?
Cons?

Are there some jobs that are more conducive to working from home than others?


For example, at one point many, many years ago, I did entertain ideas of starting an at-home childcare centre.

Last edited by Machka; 07-11-15 at 03:01 AM.
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Old 07-10-15, 09:31 PM
  #85  
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Originally Posted by Walter S
+1. Huge profits are going into the pockets of rich people and corporations, as the disparity between rich and poor continues to grow. The common man needs all the help they can get. And our Supreme Court is not friendly either.
Ah, yes. The nebulous, nefarious, generic and so elusive corporation rears it's hypothetical head yet again. Thank goodness for those junkies and hippies who "occupied" Wall Street (despite that America's most prominent trading markets are actually located in NJ) with their b.o. and hand made signs (comprised of materials produced by major paper corporations). I mean, just look at what the data suggests about how much their taking away from the middle class, man!

Who's Still Poor? Who's Made It To Middle Income? Pew Has New Data : Goats and Soda : NPR

Wow, that's weird...I thought the middle class was shrinking?? I think we're on to something here...I mean, I love all the technological innovations and medical science which I benefit from every single day of my life - which was all brought into the public sector by said evil corporations - but damn, why can't we go back to that socioeconomical, socialist garden of eden wherein everyone had an equal share of the wealth? Like, during monarchies, tyrannies, communism, dictatorships, and caste systems? I mean, man, let's just all get along.

Get ****ing real.

Originally Posted by Dave Cutter
Yeah. You mean like links to meaningless targeted searches? No thanks, I don't do that. And since you find my posts difficult to understand... suggest you stop reading them.
Suggest away you nutball, but that's not what I said at all. That's you skewing the conversation and dragging the context into some obscure left field which you constructed, seemingly for the specific purpose of formulating a reply where one does not logically exist.

I mention "network," you go off on a home FTP server. I say "you've not presented [anything worthwhile]," you try to start talking about google searches. I ask you again, what in the **** are you talking about? The best I can gather, you are advocating that we should all quit our posts and go to work from home. Yeah, that sounds fantastic for economical development and a strong dollar.

Good lord, you're just not grasping anyone's logic here. Cooker makes a comment about individual preference for optimized personal productivity and you make, I think, a fat joke? What the hell goes on in that convoluted noggin of yours?

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Old 07-11-15, 03:01 AM
  #86  
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Originally Posted by Machka
But back to work from home ...

Pros?
Cons?

Are there some jobs that are more conducive to working from home than others?


For example, at one point many, many years ago, I did entertain ideas of starting an at-home childcare centre.
And back to the topic at hand ...
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Old 07-11-15, 04:42 AM
  #87  
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I'm going to make the rather bold claim that some jobs are better than others for working at home. Is that worth anymore electrons?
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Old 07-11-15, 06:42 AM
  #88  
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Originally Posted by Walter S
I'm going to make the rather bold claim that some jobs are better than others for working at home. Is that worth anymore electrons?
If I'm not mistaken, the service sector has long been the fastest growing employment sector. A lot of those jobs are unsuitable for home employment. In fact, quite the opposite. More and More services are being delivered in the client's home rather than the traditional location. This varies from home health care to physician house calls to home delivery of restaurant meals, hair cuts, and other personal services.

The client or patient gets to stay at home, saving time, fuel and money. The service provider must travel to many homes, at greater expenditure of time, fuel and money. (Often, the provider's real office is their car.) Does anybody know if these home services provide a net savings in gas, time, and money--or a net increase?
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Old 07-11-15, 07:44 AM
  #89  
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Originally Posted by Roody
If I'm not mistaken, the service sector has long been the fastest growing employment sector. A lot of those jobs are unsuitable for home employment. In fact, quite the opposite. More and More services are being delivered in the client's home rather than the traditional location. This varies from home health care to physician house calls to home delivery of restaurant meals, hair cuts, and other personal services.

The client or patient gets to stay at home, saving time, fuel and money. The service provider must travel to many homes, at greater expenditure of time, fuel and money. (Often, the provider's real office is their car.) Does anybody know if these home services provide a net savings in gas, time, and money--or a net increase?
It's going to be highly variable depending on the service types and volumes. If a lot of people use the same grocery service, and the delivery guy can drop off several household's loads on the same loop, it's less driving than each family driving on their own to the supermarket and back. On the other hand, if some clients accomplished several errands on one trip to the mall or mainstreet: see the manicurist, get a haircut and pick up pizza, that's less driving than having that all come to their home separately. So we may not even be able to answer the question until we study it after it happens.

My guess is that if the service providers can schedule it optimally, like one of my those old child's puzzles where you draw a line from the number 1 to 2 to 3 and so on and it turns out to be the outline of a dinosaur, that would be less driving than all those people making a round trip to see them.

Last edited by cooker; 07-11-15 at 08:03 AM.
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Old 07-11-15, 08:22 AM
  #90  
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Originally Posted by cooker
It's going to be highly variable depending on the service types and volumes. If a lot of people use the same grocery service, and the delivery guy can drop off several household's loads on the same loop, it's less driving than each family driving on their own to the supermarket and back. On the other hand, if some clients accomplished several errands on one trip to the mall or mainstreet: see the manicurist, get a haircut and pick up pizza, that's less driving than having that all come to their home separately. So we may not even be able to answer the question until we study it after it happens.

My guess is that if the service providers can schedule it optimally, like one of my those old child's puzzles where you draw a line from the number 1 to 2 to 3 and so on and it turns out to be the outline of a dinosaur, that would be less driving than all those people making a round trip to see them.
OK, makes sense, thanks.

Originally Posted by cooker
My guess is that if the service providers can schedule it optimally, like one of my those old child's puzzles where you draw a line from the number 1 to 2 to 3 and so on and it turns out to be the outline of a dinosaur, that would be less driving than all those people making a round trip to see them.
BTW, I guess that route planning is a VERY high level cognitive task. Last I heard, it was practically impossible for either a computer or a human mind to optimize a route that consists of more than a few legs and turns. Maybe that has changed recently?
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Old 07-11-15, 10:51 AM
  #91  
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Originally Posted by Machka
But back to work from home ...

Pros?
Cons?

Are there some jobs that are more conducive to working from home than others?


For example, at one point many, many years ago, I did entertain ideas of starting an at-home childcare centre.
Not an option for me. I've always worked in the service / manual labor industry. Construction, automotive, manufacturing...these jobs are just a handful that is simply not feasible to work from home.*

*well except, possibly starting my own auto shop out of my personal garage. But the financial risk is too high to even consider doing in today's economy.
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Old 07-29-15, 06:14 PM
  #92  
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This thread has been quite an interesting read.

At my former place of employment, there was no official telecommuting, but most of us worked from home one or two days a week as we saw fit. Meetings were the primary reason why we needed to be in the office - lots and lots of meetings, both scheduled and impromptu; with colleagues from other organizations, vendors, and the general public; during regular business hours and after (or before) hours. In my case, I also produced events, so even though the planning could have been done from home, I needed to physically be there during the event itself. Most people's day-to-day, behind-the-scenes work could be done from anywhere, and most of us took advantage of that fact. Even if we did not work at home, we did not always work in the office - nearby coffee shops and parks were regular "remote locations". Internet-based programs, remote email access, and cell/smart phones all enabled this way of working. We had a couple of floater laptops that had basic office software installed on them, but most people just used their own equipment. We experimented with cloud-based computing, but it was an absolute disaster, so we ditched it. Most people used flash drives or Dropbox for copying files to work on at home or wherever. Overall, it was an ideal work environment and a culture that allowed each person to work in the way that suited them best. As long as the work got done, each person could modify their schedule or location as needed in order to accommodate things like doctor's appointments, sick children, etc. - the next best thing to full on telecommuting.

I left there earlier this year to freelance from home, which is what I have wanted to do since I was 13 years old. I love it. It is the absolute best way for me to work. I still do some things for my previous employer, and, for those, I use the same web-based programs and remote email access that I had when I was an employee. The only difference is that I now have my own Creative Cloud subscription installed on my own laptop. Work for other clients can be shared with Dropbox or just plain old email, and most correspondence is by email, although I also occasionally use my cell phone. I have one client for whom I have to be physically present at a monthly meeting, but otherwise, I am not bound to any location or schedule.

Reading through this thread, it seems that the very aspects that most people don't like about working from home are the ones that make me rejoice in it. Work/life balance is no longer a concern for me because work is completely integrated into the rest of my life. I can work on a newsletter and do laundry at the same time, create graphics while waiting for bread dough to rise, write cover letters (for other people) in between moving my lawn sprinklers around, and stop in to buy paper samples for a wedding project as I go about my other errands. Yes, I might work long hours on any given day(s), but there are also days when I decide that I'm not going to do any paid work at all. Each day is different, and each is spent entirely in my own way, on my own terms, and on my own schedule.

As for loneliness, that's just not an issue for me. I'm an introvert and a loner, so finally being able to arrange my life so that I can work from home has been the best thing that I have ever done for myself. I get along very well with other people, and my previous office environment was probably the best that anyone could ever hope for, but I still had to give myself pep talks to get out of bed in the morning, and every evening when I got home and closed the door behind me, I breathed a deep sigh of relief. Because my days were so filled with other people, I never did much with my not-at-work time; I needed every spare minute to recuperate and gather enough energy to make it through the next day. For me to be able to work in solitude without having to see, hear, talk to, interact with, or be looked at by anyone else is absolute bliss. Depending on what I've got going on, I probably only leave my house once or twice a week; I cram everything I need to do into those outings and generally get my fill of other people then. Not ideal for most people, but it works like a dream for me, and I greatly appreciate the technology and culture shifts that make it possible.
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Old 07-31-15, 06:47 PM
  #93  
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Originally Posted by Machka
Are there some jobs that are more conducive to working from home than others?
Well, my current spot as a janitor at a movie theater requires that I be at their location. I'm not sure I'd want all the scattered floor popcorn and empty soda cups at home anyway.
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Old 08-01-15, 08:40 AM
  #94  
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Originally Posted by Artkansas
Well, my current spot as a janitor at a movie theater requires that I be at their location. I'm not sure I'd want all the scattered floor popcorn and empty soda cups at home anyway.
Us service people will never be able to work at home. I guess I could take in a couple psychiatric patients to sleep my spare room, but my grandson would be very ticked off if one of them ate his breakfast taco.
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Old 08-04-15, 07:02 PM
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Originally Posted by Roody
Us service people will never be able to work at home. I guess I could take in a couple psychiatric patients to sleep my spare room, but my grandson would be very ticked off if one of them ate his breakfast taco.
This has been an economic issue since IT first surfaced as a potentially work-changing technology. MS Office caused havoc in the white collar sector when it came out. People were saying that technology had been replacing blue collar jobs for years but office workers never imagined people could do their own typing and file-managing.

At the time, I was even more idealistic than I am now and I thought people would just divide up the work that still existed after the progress of smart-consolidation was complete. Then, I assumed, average work weeks would just be shorter and everyone would work less to create more jobs, all with less hours. That has happened to a large extent, but there's still the popular culture of complaining about shorter work-weeks as being 'insufficient hours.' It's as if the point of work hours is to provide people with more income and business is doing something wrong by consolidating processes and creating more free time.

When I used to teach, the first time online courses were offered, they were a privilege taken by my department head. When he ended up leaving, he gave them to me to take over but corporate ended up taking them away even before I started teaching them. If there is a privilege to be had, there are ways of getting that privilege away from someone else. For this reason, online work will not be available to everyone, at least as long as there is a will to stick some people with the less desirable jobs and tasks so that others can have the more desirable ones and avoid the rest.

Online k-12 schooling seemed like a good way to spend more time biking and practicing real world activities with my son but his mother disagreed and saw homeschooling as socially alienating. I wanted him to have social experiences as well, but it bothered me (and still bothers me) that the schools and other parents aren't open to changing school rules to allow home-schooled kids to participate in some ways and not in others. Schools want uniformity in structuring students' educational lives. They don't want some kids showing up sometimes for some classes and activities and others for others, etc.

In an ideal world, people would cooperate to figure out ways to best facilitate everyone's goals, as long as they were responsible and within reason. Instead we have a culture of authoritarian culture where people constantly assert norms and other unreasoned expectations over each other saying, "that's just the way it is so get used to it." I think a lot of progress has been made toward accommodating diverse interests and personal choices, but there are still many instances where people simply resist attempts to solve problems by changing rules and institutions. People just don't understand everything so they defend the status quo in hopes of preventing unforeseen problems from occurring.
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Old 08-05-15, 11:06 AM
  #96  
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Originally Posted by tandempower
Online k-12 schooling seemed like a good way to spend more time biking and practicing real world activities with my son but his mother disagreed and saw homeschooling as socially alienating. I wanted him to have social experiences as well, but it bothered me (and still bothers me) that the schools and other parents aren't open to changing school rules to allow home-schooled kids to participate in some ways and not in others. Schools want uniformity in structuring students' educational lives. They don't want some kids showing up sometimes for some classes and activities and others for others, etc.
I'm not trying to encourage anybody to move to Oregon, but here home schooled kids can participate in school programs to varying degrees. So it can be done and is in some places.
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Old 08-05-15, 11:33 AM
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Originally Posted by enigmaT120
I'm not trying to encourage anybody to move to Oregon, but here home schooled kids can participate in school programs to varying degrees. So it can be done and is in some places.
I also noticed that my son's school website allows virtual schooling, but it is limited in a way that would prevent him from, say, taking extra days off for bike-camping and making the work up online another day. Attendance is still mandatory, which I assume it also is in the schools you're referring to. If they are using virtual schooling programs to optionalize attendance, that would be a very interesting trend worthy of broader attention and policy adoption in other school districts. I doubt this is the case, though, because once kids find out attendance is optional, they begin looking for every loophole possible to skip school whenever they want. This is not true of all kids but standardized rule systems constrain the freedom of responsible people for the sake of controlling those that are irresponsible.
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Old 10-15-15, 01:08 AM
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Old 10-15-15, 02:36 AM
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Originally Posted by Roody
Us service people will never be able to work at home. I guess I could take in a couple psychiatric patients to sleep my spare room, but my grandson would be very ticked off if one of them ate his breakfast taco.
As would I.
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Old 10-15-15, 09:53 AM
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I taught an online class once. It was nice to get paid to do what I basically do in forums for free but the exchanges weren't as robust. The good part was people don't bicker, troll, and flame the way they do when they're not paying or getting graded.
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