The one where I start to catch up…

Well, after months of contemplation about my first attempt at a WebLog entry, I have decided to simply start to catch up.  I will be focusing on purely personal topics related to my (further?) departure from “standard” living.  There are many things to cover: house renovations, living quarters shopping, jobbing, and the like.  Since I am so far behind, I am going to simply start by way of introduction, trying not to overlap Vanessa’s comments.  Since I am so far behind, this one may be longer than usual.The short: I am an IT professional.  I focus on enterprise technology and large-scale projects.  Given that focus, the typical is not:  Clients are geographically dispersed and”office hours” work is often too disruptive to business operations.  This leads to “late” (or “early”) work hours.  As a result of this experience, I have formed 2 opinions that are “non-standard”:

1. Work location is dependent only on “network” availability
2. Work times are not contiguous nor convenient

It is important to understand that these idioms apply to my experience.  Many (most?) people do not agree, either because of a higher social interactivity need, or different “work” engagement need (ie “Direct Sales” vs “Sales Support”).  Further, the “management” style must adapt to this concept.  Problem here is that the folks in middle/upper management have been groomed in the “traditional” business world, which did not have the ubiquitous Internet access, nor the near frictionless communications methodologies now at our disposal.  Between IM, EMail, SMS, Phone, VTC, and even (gasp) fax, there is no reason that work related information cannot be rapidly and effectively transferred.  Given a laptop and Internet access (CafeWiFi, GPRS/HSDPA, DSL, Cable, etc)  I can fully accomplish 95% of my tasks (add a phone and it goes to 99%); take away a laptop and replace with “thin client” and it drops to 60%, simply because diagrams and documents tend to require specific applications (ie Visio/CAD).  On the supervision side of things, the problem is now that “management” must now trust that their “underlings” are productivity-focused.  This is a tough issue, as “work for work’s sake” and “busy-ness” (or “workiness”) do not equate to job effectiveness, yet contemporary experience has “trained” us that simply being corporeally present = effectiveness.  Thus unclear management directives, micromanagement,  and the hugely distracting “cube farm”were born.  Since workers are now continuously available within meters of management, management no longer needs to define clear outcomes, time lines, or expectations since “mid-course” corrections are now “easy”.   Problem for an autonomous person like me is that the continual interruptions, conflicting and counter-directional guidance leads to continual frustration.  Needless to say, this lead to the ExRats concept.

As per Timothy Farris, author of “The Four Hour Workweek“, there are 4 aspects to freeing oneself from the traditional workplace.  Conveniently, they form the word DEAL:

D -Definition - The initial step of outlining what it is that you want, and what it will take to get there.

E - Elimination - The step that removes the fear and distractions that prevent attainment of the defined goals and wants

A - Automation - This step automates income generation by separating time from revenue. (This is the hardest)

L - Liberation - This is the ultimate goal.  Liberation from the norm, escape from the cube farm, freedom to do what it is that you want to do.

I am sure that this sounds unrealistic, unreasonable, and unattainable.  My contention is that it is not; and even if it is, is it not better to try and fail than not try at all?  Granted, the goal is not failure, so we are proceeding assuming success.

My next posts will be about the progress related to the short term goals: Prepare and sell the house (the D), establishment of Elimination & Automation, and procurement of the replacement living quarters (the L).

Thanks for reading!

/jp

This entry was posted on Sun, Oct 26 2008 at 15:20 and is filed under John's Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.