**Update: Very shortly after I wrote this I found a very cool virtual company called Fire Engine RED. Cross your fingers for me. I applied for a job with them!
My summer has been hot, rainy, and slow. I spend a lot of time juggling everyone’s calendars so that they can be where they want to be when they need to be there, but as far as work goes? It’s a little slow.
I’ve read job postings for $1/500 words; jobs with impossible scopes for budgets of under $500; and jobs with no scope at all that are just baffling. I do find work on Elance, but I’d like to increase my private clients as well. This summer isn’t great for either one.
What am I doing with my “spare” time besides scheduling and driving and making a mess of my office? Looking at job postings. I still don’t know why “anywhere” or “telecommute” isn’t a choice under location for most job sites. And when I went to a Mashable event (online), I found that Internet based businesses don’t even hire telecommuters.
I have worked as a writer and a supervisor from a distance. Isn’t that what Skype, Mikogo, and other tools are for? Why are we still limited by physical space?
I have asked this time and again and still get answers like, “We need to collaborate” or “We need to have access to each other”. Right. Like on Skype, right? Or Go To Meeting? Or Mikogo? Or Google Drive? The biggest disappointment is to hear these answers from Internet businesses. Especially those who call themselves experts on technology and say they are on the cutting edge.
Guess what? I’m on the bleeding edge. I can write, supervise, conduct meetings, collaborate, and access team members ONLINE. And I’m damned good at it. I can only hope that companies wake up and realize that I am one step ahead of them, because I am not slowing down for them to catch up. I’ll find one willing to take the leap at some point, but for now I’m going to keep moving forward and adding to my expertise – taking classes and working.
So if anybody out there thinks they can take the challenge and break the mold… You know where to find me.
Could not agree more.
We were going along pretty well there for a few years with regard to telecommuting and then, well, I don’t know what. Some lame MBA came along and decided to pee in everyone’s Cheerios, maybe.
Now the trend is toward the “collaborative space,” which is a $10-word for “cubicles.” It’s hard to believe that anyone could suggest that returning to the cubicle farms of the 1980’s would be good for anyone, but they surely did.
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