Life Meets Work Blog

From Seth Godin’s blog:  “I think in ten years the TV show ‘the Office’ will be seen as a quaint antique.”

His point–the office as we know it is dying.  We don’t always need to convene in one place to get our work done anymore. 

He says: “When you need to have a meeting, have a meeting. When you need to collaborate, collaborate. The rest of the time, do the work, wherever you like.”

Because yes, sometimes face-to-face is better.  Like today.  Two members of the Life Meets Work team are convening in Green Bay, Wis. prior to a speaking engagement. 

We’re going to spend a lot of time working and a lot of time chatting.  And our working relationship will be the stronger for it.

But…our working relationship wouldn’t exist at all if we didn’t spend most of our time working remotely. 

And that would be a loss.

Are you a ‘count your chickens’ or a ‘head in the sand’ kind of person?

Is the great resume tsunami finally about to start, or are we going to linger in years of high unemployment?

It’s hard to know what to think.

After all, more people are quitting than getting fired these days. And job openings just rose to the highest level in 16 months.  And some scholars even suggest the U.S. could be out of workers by 2018.

Still the pessimist in me can’t ignore the more dire reports.  The ones reminding us that there were 5 unemployed people, on average, for each job opening in April.  That private sector growth is slow and goverment jobs will soon decline below pre-census levels. 

To quote Julia Roberts’ character in Pretty Woman, “The bad stuff is easier to believe.”  (And if you didn’t know there was a gal behind this blog, you do know.)

Still, even the cynic in me believes in being prepared…proactive…ahead of the game.  I won’t be putting my head in the sand and hoping for the best (or worst, depending on which side of the hiring coin you’re on.) 

But I’m not exactly counting my chickens either.  The turnaround will come.  Be it slow or fast, we’d all best be ready.

On May 24, the Senate passed legislation that would make it easier for federal employees to work from home. A companion bill did not fair as well in the House.
 
Passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, the Telework Enhancement Act (S. 707), sponsored by Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) would require that all federal agencies establish telework policies, designate a telework manager, and build telework into continuity planning.
 
A similar bill (H.R. 1722) received a set down in the House earlier in the month, after a near party-line vote failed to earn the two-thirds majority needed under suspended rules. At 268-147, all but one vote against the bill came from Republicans; twenty-four voted in favor. 

Behind the Bills

Supporters of expanded telework programs got a boost this winter when snowstorms shut down federal offices for more than four days in February. The government lost a calculated $71,074,495 worth of productivity for each snow day, according to the Office of Personnel Management. 
 
It could have been worse—the government staved off the loss of an additional $29 million per day because roughly 30 percent of federal workers in the Washington area teleworked during the storm.
 
“This winter’s snowstorms highlighted the need to develop flexible work arrangements to make sure the government can function during disruptive events,” said Senator Akaka in a press statement.
 
Indeed, continunity of operations is a one of the primary benefits cited by telework advocates. Before ‘Snowmaggedon’ served as their case-in-point, proponents pointed to the H1N1 flu pandemic that closed public transit, shut down schools or otherwise kept workers at home in cities throughout the country.
 
Before that, they pointed to Hurrican Katrina and the Minnesota bridge collapse. The point is, stuff happens.
 
A Future Workforce

Also at issue in telework bills are matters of employee productivity, recruitment and retention—all of which are repeatedly shown to improve when a workplace permits flexible schedules and/or telecommuting.
 
“The federal government must acknowledge that the next generation of employees will have different expectations of what it means to go to work,” said Voinovich, co-sponsor of the Senate bill. “Advancements in technology mean employees will expect to be able to work at any time from any place.”

Still Hope Yet

As for federal workers, supporters are hopeful that the House legislation, sponsored by Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), will come to the floor in June for a simple majority vote.

Senators Akaka and Voinovich are Chairman and Ranking Member, respectively, of the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia.

So Mother’s Day has come and gone without any official recognition from LMW.  Team members celebrated with their own mothers, wives and children to be sure.  But we didn’t wax poetic here on the blog about how hard our mothers worked, and how much we love them.

Which they did.  And we do.

What I’ll share instead is a story from my childhood. A tiny incident, really, but one of those moments that for some unexplained reason sticks with you.

It happened during phy-ed when we were probably all of 7 or 8 years old.  We were inside the church social hall, our gym, with Mr. Jensen–our phy-ed teacher/librarian/all-around-go-to guy.

He had us in a circle playing a little running game.  Run around the circle if you had cereal for breakfast…if you have brown hair…if you’re left-handed…if your mother works.

We all of us ran on that one.  All but one.  My best friend Wendy stood alone, watching while we circled.

I felt bad, for reasons I couldn’t articulate then and still can’t now.  Did I feel bad that she was singled out?  Did I think being a stay-at-home mom was something negative? Was I embarassed for her because the rest of us had work-world moms? 

I don’t know.  But I do remember a moment of awkwardness.  Mr. Jensen felt uncomfortable.  You could tell.  And as we all arrived back at our spots in the circle, he looked over at Wendy and told her, “Don’t ever say your mom doesn’t work.”

The odd thing is, Wendy’s mom DID work.  I don’t know if Mr. Jensen knew it, but Wendy’s mom was my babysitter.  There were at least three of us she took care of, in addition to her own four. 

She baked cakes from scratch, kept us engaged with puzzles and drawing paper, read us stories, and changed diapers (cloth diapers, I remember).  And she cleaned.  My goodness, she cleaned.  That house was spotless.

I wonder what Wendy was thinking.  Did she think we’d call her a liar if she ran?  Did work only count if it was outside the home?  By the same token, what was going through my mind?  Did I think she should have run, or not?

I don’t know. 

What I do know now is that Wendy’s mom worked hard, so mine could too.  So to ALL the moms in our lives…thanks.