Will I Ever Need Sick Days

My cold has turned into an ear infection and I am doing my best to fight it without antibiotics. Yesterday I felt pretty good but today I am drained and tired. I must have had a rough night. The net is I don't really feel like going to work. The good news is I don't mind doing work at home. I have 5 online meetings today and I can attend all of them. There are a few other things I need to do and can also get that work done. Basically I can continue to work and don't feel the need to call in sick.

COVID-19 has paved the way for working from home for a lot more people. While I am a special case and am allowed to work from home every day, my colleagues that go to the office frequently are also allowed to work from home several days a week. This was not possible at Sony, where I work, before COVID.

Now I have a mild illness so I don't have a problem trying to work. If I felt worse like I did once with a nasty flu, then I would want to burn a sick day. However for colds or minor illnesses, working from home is sufficient to help me keep up on my work so I don't fall behind. It also saves my time off for those times when I really need it, like exciting adventure vacations.

Will Life Go Back to the Way it Was?

My wife and I just got back from our evening walk and the topic of conversation was how it will be impossible to go back to how things were before COVID-19. So why will it be impossible? I'm sure our reasons are just scratching the surface and there are many more but here is what we have come up with so far.

We Can Get by with Much Less Energy
I saw a news broadcast last night talking about how the amount of energy being used in the world is significantly less than before the virus. They mentioned that it is as if the entire country of India has disappeared from global energy usage. Think about that for a moment. It is as if 1.3 billion people suddenly disappeared. Some of that usage will pick back up once we emerge from the pandemic, but we have learned to save a significant amount of energy. Personally I am seeing a huge decrease in the money I am spend on energy costs. I want that to continue and will try to keep those costs down. I imagine others will do the same. Furthermore I think we will look for even more ways to reduce energy usage. I think we are all enjoying less pollution and cleaner air.

Not Everyone Needs to be in the Office All the Time
The company I work for has a culture of requiring everyone to be in the office all the time with very few exceptions. When we all started working from home, we had to quickly modify our infrastructure to allow so many people to work from home. This involved increasing the number of virtual private network (VPN) licenses and other networking enhancements. Now that we have the ability for everyone to work from home, I see more people doing so in the future.

Several weeks ago one of my coworkers remarked about how his wife works for a large software company and they discovered that productivity has gone up. I have not heard statistics for my own company but I feel like I have been significantly more productive. Part of it is that none of us want to lose our jobs with historically high unemployment and don't want to be seen as less productive.  So we are all putting in a bit more effort than we otherwise would.

We are Discovering We Need Different Hobbies
During this evening's walk, my wife mentioned a number of her friends have discovered they don't really have any hobbies other than shopping or eating out. When you can't do those things, life gets pretty bland rather quickly. Those friends are having to re-evaluate what they do with their spare time and are coming up with more fulfilling pursuits. Some of them are replacing shopping with service and are feeling a better sense of community even with social distancing.

Personally I am looking forward to visiting restaurants when they reopen. I probably won't visit them as often as I did before the pandemic though. I also know that a number of people are taking this opportunity to learn how to cook. Rumor has it that online cooking videos are receiving significant additional views. I see that trend continuing.

We are Discovering What Really Matters
With a severely limited social calendar we are discovering what really matters in our lives. Some people are missing being able to spend time with friends and family. Others are getting tired of watching movies and playing video games all the time. I have to confess that other than using a video game for guitar practice, I haven't played a regular video game in 2 months. Why? I find it more fulfilling to spend time with my wife, something I can't always do with my busy travel schedule.

I have never really been a huge fan of professional sports. I do enjoy going to a baseball game every once and while but don't actively watch sports on television. I'm sure certain people are really missing the lack of daily sports but I know a number of people are surprised that they are not missing sports more. I will be interested to find out if they permanently cut down on the amount of sports watched, return to pre-pandemic levels, or increase.

Face Masks are the New Normal
Whenever I travel to Japan, I am amazed at how people are responsible and will wear face masks while they are sick. This was a foreign concept in the United States that is now seen as being responsible. I am glad to see this custom practiced here and hope that it keeps me from contracting a number of illnesses. I hope that the number of colds I get each year is reduced because of more people wearing face masks.

More That I Missed
I am sure there are many more things that I have missed. During the walk with my wife I talked about how character-building experiences like this have changed me simply because I have survived them. Living through experiences like this changes the participants forever. Seeing as we are all living through this, we can all be expected to changed. Hopefully we all emerge better from the experience and not worse.

A Case for Telecommuting

Today is my last one in Japan and I will head back to Salt Lake this evening. This morning I walked from my hotel to my office and noticed the large crowds on the path from the train station to the office buildings in the area. I thought about how much foot traffic could be reduced by simply allowing all of these office workers to work from home one day per week. Unfortunately that is a near impossibility here in Japan.

Japan has a very strong work culture that will take a lot to break down. Employees are expected to arrive at the office before their boss and remain there until after he has left. When people do leave, the literal translation of their goodbye includes an apology for leaving before those still at the office. Interestingly if you look at what all of those workers are doing while waiting around for the boss to go home, there is a lot of social media and non-work being done.

The same is true in the United States. There are a lot of people who could work from home but are not trusted to do so. It is not because of anything they have done, it is just a general mistrust by those in management. Therefore they come into the office each day so someone can supervise their work even though they might not actually be working.

With all of the advances in virtual and augmented reality, I don't see why we can't create effective remote work environments. I would love the option of putting on a virtual reality headset and save myself a commute. If it could be accomplished for 20% of the workforce, think of how much traffic that would remove from our crowded roads, trains, and buses. We could also reduce the amount of office space and replace it with larger living spaces, especially in places like Japan where there is not a lot of space to begin with. Furthermore we could probably reduce the crowded cities as it would give some the option of moving out to less populated areas.

While telecommuting is something that could help solve a lot of problems, there are a lot of fears associated with it. That is too bad as I think it would result in an overall improvement in quality of life. Isn't that something we are all looking for?

WiFi at Alta Ski Resort

Yesterday I decided I would spend my day working from Alta Ski resort instead of at home. Normally I would have gone up in the morning, done a bit of skiing, and then come home to work. Instead I drove up with my daughter who teaches skiing there. Upon arrival, I immediately headed to the Albion Grill where I set up camp for the day. I sat at the window and looked out at the spectacular mountains. I found a place where I could watch my daughter teach her little groms. I enjoyed watching her instruct cute little kids.

When the lifts opened up, I went out and took a few runs. The high temperature of the morning registered around 5 degrees Fahrenheit. So after 4 runs, I headed back to the lodge to warm up and do some more work. I found the WiFi in the lodge to be superb. I had to download a 500 MB file and the free service didn't get too slow for everyone else. Furthermore the file seemed to be ready to use in a matter of seconds. Out of respect to everyone else, I didn't try to download any more large files.

At lunch I noticed the lift lines became non-existent. I headed out for a few runs until everyone finished lunch and the lines returned. Then I headed back to the lodge for more software testing and e-mail reading. My wife arrived around 3pm to take a few runs with our son and daughter-in-law. I headed out with her for an hour or so and then we drove home.

If you find yourself looking for a change of scenery and have the option of working from home, I highly suggest heading to a ski lodge. If the WiFi is as good as Alta's, you can get a lot done. Furthermore the scenery and atmosphere is awesome. I highly recommend it.

Famous in Japan

I had a visitor from Japan at my office this week as we continue to wind down a project I have been working on for the past 5 years. We went to dinner the other night and started talking about all of the people we have worked with on the project. One of my good friends in Tokyo has made quite a name for himself. He moved his family to Nagano, Japan a little over a year ago. He commutes to Tokyo every Monday and then heads home on weekends. While in Tokyo, he stays with his parents. This allows his family to have a very comfortable lifestyle in the mountains.

The business press in Japan has found out about his commuting lifestyle and has written articles about him. All the press has made him a bit of a business celebrity. One of the questions he is constantly asked is how he came up with such a unique lifestyle. His response is that there is a manager in the United States that lives in Utah near a ski resort and commutes to San Francisco every week.

I had to laugh when my associate told me this story. My friend from Nagano has always thanked me for showing that technology allows us to live where we want even though it may be far from our place of work. He seems to be doing a good job capitalizing on my example as now there are a lot of companies that admire him and want him to work for them. So if he is famous and credits me for the idea that made him a celebrity, does that mean I am famous too?

Working from Home

This morning I sat at a cafe in Tokyo eating breakfast and looking out the window at all of the people coming from trains and heading to work. On Monday evening I got to visit one of my work colleagues that lives here in Tokyo for dinner. This morning I realized that most everyone here lives in a tall building, takes a train to another tall building, works in the tall building, takes a train home at the end of the day, only to repeat the process the next day.

Think of the infrastructure required to move everyone around and how much smaller it could be if we didn't require so many people to work in an office every day. Furthermore, think of how much cost savings there would be if you didn't require office space for everyone.

I work from home on Friday's. I chose that day of the week as it allows me to spend more consecutive time at home. Remember that I fly to work on Monday mornings and don't return home until Thursday evenings. Let's assume I have 5 people on my team and we all decide that each of us will work from home one day per week. Someone works from home on Monday, someone else on Tuesday, etc. My team no longer needs 5 work spaces at the office, we now only need 4. Of course this does have the problem that we never have the entire team in the office at any given time. However that is a problem that can be easily solved. A number of companies don't assign permanent work spaces and just provide the technology so people can move around at will.

As I sat at breakfast this morning, I wondered how many of these people really need to go to an office anyways. There are a number of jobs where people only go to an office because of tradition. There are some forward thinking companies that allow people to do their jobs from home. I have a neighbor that used to work in JetBlue's call center. She woke up every morning, logged into the system to say she was working, and took phone calls all day long from the comfort of her home. At the end of the day, she logged out of the system and stopped receiving phone calls. If a manager felt the need to monitor her work, a number of key indicators exist: number of calls answered, average length of calls, average time between calls, etc. Even then if the manager felt my neighbor wasn't doing a good job, the manager could listen in on the calls.

Call centers should be small and everyone should follow the telecommuting principle. My daughter used to work for one and she was required to go in every day. She hated it. Eventually she quit and took a different job. Now the company needs to retrain someone else and while it probably doesn't cost very much, it isn't free.

There are a number of other jobs that could offer telecommuting as an option. Technology is advancing to the point where simulated face-to-face meetings are getting better and less expensive. WebEx and GotoMeeting are a step in the right direction but they could be greatly improved simply by improving their interface for allowing multiple cameras and screens to be used. That would allow for people's faces to be viewed along with whiteboards and presentation materials.

I am a manager and feel like I need to be in the office to monitor what is happening with my team. Perhaps I am the one that needs to take a step back and figure out how my job responsibilities can be streamlined through telecommuting. I have figured out how to make 1 day per week work. My next step may be as simple as figuring out how to make it 2.

The Green Office

I just got back from making a deposit in the bank. This gave me the opportunity to look at the mileage on my car. My car turns 9 in a couple of days but only has 39,000 miles on it. That is still a relatively brand-new car. At the time I opted for something practical that could comfortably seat 5. Now I wish I had gotten the Ferrari. With a Ferrari I could probably sell it for about the same price I paid for it.

The reason my car has so few miles is because I don't go anywhere. Most people drive to and from work every day and that has a tendency to rack up the miles. Instead I work from home. I am a third-generation telecommuter. My Grandfather who still practices law works from home. My Dad who runs and advertising agency also works from home. This has me wondering why more people don't work from home.

Right now it is stylish to be "green." What is more green: a guy who owns a Toyota Prius but drives to work 20 miles round trip every day, or a guy who works out of his basement? Even a 5th grader would answer that someone working from home is "greener."

I don't believe offices will ever disappear completely but I do think they need to be updated. When I used to work at Oracle, they would send out surveys to their employees asking how they were being "green." This was an attempt to get people to carpool or utilize mass transit. It also had the effect of getting managers to allow employees to work from home several days a week. If you are not in the office every day, then you don't need a permanent office or a cubicle. Fewer offices save the company a huge amount of money.

With the Internet it is easy to have all your calls forwarded to your home office. With services like Skype, you can even do inexpensive home video conferencing. Technology really has the potential to help makes our lives easier.

One valid criticism of working from home is that there are the potential for more distractions while working from home. This is especially true if you have a family with small children. I used to work in an office and so when I started working at home, I discovered the importance of a door. You know that big flat thing found near the entrance to your study or office. When the door is closed, Daddy is at work. When it is open, Daddy is at home. It takes about 5 minutes to train even the most stubborn child. Amazingly I found that I get more work done at home than I ever did in the office thanks to the use of a door.

Every year I wonder when corporations will figure out that they can save huge amounts of money by not having large offices. Unfortunately I keep waiting.