Tuesday May 31, 2005
I must admit that I often thought my old boss a touch crazy to compete
(and win his age group often) in triathlon competitions. But something
is drawing me in that direction.
I can certainly bike the distance after a ton of biking this past winter
and the running will be the easiest part for me, but I must say that the
swimming will be the end of it for me. I can't fathom swimming 1 mile or
more that some of competitions have scheduled. I swam 350 meters
yesterday at the pool while the kids were on break and almost died. If I
had to do it today, I'd look like my 4 year old and swim for a bit and
then float on my back and swim some more... If I could even do it then.
I'm certainly going to try to take some days off from running over the
summer and swim, so we will see. At the end of the summer, there is a
local competition, I'll see how I'm tracking as that gets closer.
To all of you triathletes out there, my hat is off to you.
Tuesday May 31, 2005
One of the key ascepts of working remotely is being reachable. Whether
it is email, Instant Mess, or phone, successfully working remotely means
be MORE available than your peers in offices.
I have blogged about internet connectivity, remember cable & DSL if you
must always be online.
Now comes a lesson/best practice for phones. Use a service like
Accessline.com. I have 1 phone number (it is tollfree to callers) that I
can route on a daily basis. Today, I'm working from home (like most
days) and when you call me, it will ring 3 times on home office and then
3 times on house line before going to voicemail. This way, if I'm making
lunch or coffee, I don't have to break my neck to hussle up the steps.
My wife doesn't answer if she doesn't recognize the caller-id and the
accessline service will say something like, "Press 1 to answer the
accessline call"...
If you the caller do go to voicemail, the service sends me an email
which I have directed to an alias that sends to my sun.com email account
and also to my cell phone. So even if I don't answer the call, a return
call within a few minutes is always appreciated.
Another cool feature is that I can add other (unlimited?) set of phone
numbers to my choice of numbers that can accept your call. I could add
my hotel room if traveling or my parents if taking a vacation day but
still sort of working. You can also establish time schedules so that
callers will get your cell phone from midnight to 8am, your home office
until noon, cell phone until 2pm and than back to home office if you
wish.
Disclaimer - I'm a user of Accessline, not an investor and couldn't be
more satified with their service.
More home office later.
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