Mark Goodge wrote:
On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 10:45:02 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:41:04 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 13:32:43 on
Sun, 30 Dec 2007, magwitch remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:55:47 on Sat, 29 Dec
2007, "dennis@home" remarked:
Both of those work when it's done properly. Like the tube in
London, or car pooling 9-5 office jobs when there's several of
you in a suburb and you all drive to the same office in the city.
Why do they go to the office every day?
What is at the office that is needed?
Facilities and other people, usually.
Are they all blind or deaf and couldn't be contacted by e-mail or phone?
You can't email me 50 colour photocopies of this document I need to send
out this afternoon;
Why ever not?
How do you email paper?
Scan and send em.

That still doesn't get paper from A to B.

If your answer is that every teleworker should have a colour collating
printer at their home, so that you never need to transfer physical
documents, then you've just raised the financial bar considerably.
That might be practical in some circumstances, but not all.

Most.

You reckon it's practical for most teleworkers to have a colour
collating printer at home? How many teleworkers do you know who
actually have one?


Two to date.

Jobs differ. Some can be successfully teleworked. Lots of others can't.
A lot more can than you seem to think.
A lot of stuff can be teleworked. However, for teleworking to work,
you have to be capable of doing *everything* remotely that you would
otherwise do in the office in the course of a normal day. If there's
even one thing that requires actual physical presence in the office,
then you might as well be there all day and save the effort and
expense of duplicating equipment at both the office and at home.

I seldom found anything that couldn't be done remotely.

I've even done remote computer installations.

No, you haven't. You've done remote software installations, maybe. But
to actually install a computer itself - or fix it when the hardware
goes wrong - you need to be there where the computer is.


No, the whole *computer* was installed remotely. We sent it by courier,
and asked the customer to plug int into the phone, the network, and the
mains.


Of course, installing a computer itself may well not be a skilled job
- you just take it out of the box and plug it in. The skilled part -
installing the software - can often be done remotely. But you still
have to have someone there on site to do the job.



Thats where customers come in.


Although most offices still require lots of PAPER, there is no reason
why they should by and large, a lot of that could be scanned onto server
and the paperwork filed by one person.

Only when you get away from paperwork, to real hands on work, do your
hands need to be there.

Which is most jobs. Office work is still a minority of employment in
the UK.

I think not actually.

It bears checking, but there are precuis few 'blue collar' workers anywhere.


But most office work could be done from almost anywhere..

Some office work could be done from almost anywhere.


Most.

All software, tech support, back office stuff.

Tech support often needs to physically handle the kit that's faulty.
How do you replace a disk drive remotely?

Send the whole machine back. Most computer problems are NOT hardware. Or
have a local person who is JUST skilled enough to replace a harrdware part.

Or have a second computer ready to switch over. Then you collect all te
bad computers once a week, fix, em and send em back.

There are a million ways NOT to jump in a car and rush down on site and
fiddle..


Laywers.

Have to be able to appear in court.

But do not have to commute. Most lawyers do NOT appear in court: they
are on the hone, discussing things, or drawing up legal documents.


Accountants.. (harder as they insist of pssyical paper)
Graphic design
CAD/CAM design.
Shopping by and large.
All sales studff

Most people who work in sales stay in one place and their customers
come to them.

I see. That's why the Ford Mondeo is the top selling car of whenever,
bought exclsuively by companies who ran fleets of them for their salesmen?

I see your grip on reality is more tenuous than I thought.



All marketing stuff.

Things that couldn't be are doctors - altho NHS direct is a pretty
useful service - dentists, plumbers and the building trade generally,
manufacturing (directly hands on stuff: The back office could till be
managed remotely)

Plus a few more...

Train drivers
Chemists

Not sure what sort odchemists tyouy men, but most copuld be online.
Don';t need to 'be there'


Nurses
Security guards

With no offfices to guard, they aren't needed.

Shop assistants

With no retail *shops*, they aren't needed

Bus drivers
Taxi drivers

With no need to commute or go shopping, they aren't needed either.

Cleaners

Since yoiu are now at home, try cleaning your own house.

Teachers

Well even if they are theeir, they don't succeed in teaching, so might
as well put the while education thing online.

Actors

Replaced by virtual relairty shortly. Oh you men PLAYS. A minoriry
interest only. Hardly affects traffic at all.

Receptionists

Since there are no vistors, there need be no receptionists.


Telephone sanitisers

Another DIY job.


Police
Firefighters
Farmers
Vets

The last are the only irreducible residues therer really are.



to name but a few.

The fact that perhaps 15% of all work can't be done remotely is no
argument for not doing the other 85% that way.

There are far more jobs that can't be done remotely than jobs which
can. Maybe 15% of work that's currently done on location could be
teleworked instead.


If you do teh analysis holistically, there is no reason why 85% of all
work could not be done more, or less, remotely, or be simply obsoleted
by the fact that no one is travelling that much anymore.


Mark

geoff wrote:
In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
Senility must be wonderful


Yeah and I remember reading in New Scientist 10 years ago that there
was a dental treatment that enabled new bone to be formed so tooth
loss could be halted and the effects of peridontal disease would be
a thing of the past... still waiting.
New Scientist is, in a peer-reviewed scientific sense, mostly a
comic for those who like to appear cleverer than they really are.

Yup. Sadly as science journals go, its the Sunday Sport of them..Still
it has its place.


ok

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...r.renewableene
rgy


Ah the guardian, that bastion of CND, beared trendy lefty, real ale
swilling chattering class hopefuls..


********************************

We haven't been able to serve the page you asked for.

If you typed in a URL, please make sure you have typed it correctly. In
particular, make sure that the URL you typed is all in lower case.

If you require further assistance, please contact our user help staff at
the following address
*****************************************
Right, so a URL that MIGHT have contained a refutation, or did you just
make it up?

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:12:25 -0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

geoff wrote:
In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
Senility must be wonderful


Yeah and I remember reading in New Scientist 10 years ago that there
was a dental treatment that enabled new bone to be formed so tooth
loss could be halted and the effects of peridontal disease would be
a thing of the past... still waiting.
New Scientist is, in a peer-reviewed scientific sense, mostly a
comic for those who like to appear cleverer than they really are.

Yup. Sadly as science journals go, its the Sunday Sport of them..Still
it has its place.


ok

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...r.renewableene
rgy

Ah the guardian, that bastion of CND, beared trendy lefty, real ale
swilling chattering class hopefuls..


********************************

We haven't been able to serve the page you asked for.

If you typed in a URL, please make sure you have typed it correctly. In
particular, make sure that the URL you typed is all in lower case.

If you require further assistance, please contact our user help staff at
the following address
*****************************************
Right, so a URL that MIGHT have contained a refutation, or did you just
make it up?


Methinks you put a line break in it. Although 99c/Watt peak is still
pretty hopeless.

geoff wrote:
In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
Senility must be wonderful


Yeah and I remember reading in New Scientist 10 years ago that there
was a dental treatment that enabled new bone to be formed so tooth
loss could be halted and the effects of peridontal disease would be
a thing of the past... still waiting.
New Scientist is, in a peer-reviewed scientific sense, mostly a
comic for those who like to appear cleverer than they really are.

Yup. Sadly as science journals go, its the Sunday Sport of them..Still
it has its place.


ok

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...r.renewableene
rgy


Oh, OK found it.

Lets see

"We aim to produce the panels for 99 cents [50p] a watt, which is
comparable to the price of electricity generated from coal."

A company that does bnot know that electricity is charged by te watt
hour, isn;t the sort to insiupuer confidence.

I can produce a watt for absolutely nothing.

There I just did it. I snapped my fingers, and produced a watt for
nothing, for a millisecond.


"However, the company, which claims to lead the "third wave" of solar
electricity, is notoriously secretive and has not answered questions
about its panels' efficiency or their durability. It is quite open about
wanting to restrict access to the technology to give it a market advantage."

Well they would say that. wouldn't they? Not.. 'Look our panels have a
yield of one in a thousand, an efficiency of 0.5% and last about ten
minutes'

I've seen 25% efficiencies on a organic rare earth 'paint' produced in a
lab.

It lasted almost a day before it got poisoned by the atmosphere.

But again. totally irrelevant in the UK where an area twice the size of
that under agriculture would be needed at even quite breathtaking
efficiencies to power the country.
It would cost even more and take even more space than bloody windmills.

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:10:18 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:

You reckon it's practical for most teleworkers to have a colour
collating printer at home? How many teleworkers do you know who
actually have one?


Two to date.

Out of how many people doing that kind of work?

I've even done remote computer installations.

No, you haven't. You've done remote software installations, maybe. But
to actually install a computer itself - or fix it when the hardware
goes wrong - you need to be there where the computer is.


No, the whole *computer* was installed remotely. We sent it by courier,
and asked the customer to plug int into the phone, the network, and the
mains.

You didn't install it then. The courier and the customer, between
them, did that. Once they'd installed it, you connected to it and did
a remote installation of the software. Without at least worker
visiting the premises (the courier) and another working on the
premises (the customer), there would have been nothing for you to do.
So, in that example, there was one teleworker and two on-site workers
involved in the process.

Which is most jobs. Office work is still a minority of employment in
the UK.

I think not actually.

It bears checking, but there are precuis few 'blue collar' workers anywhere.

That depends on what you mean by "blue collar". Manufacturing jobs are
around 20% of the UK workforce, but there are a lot of jobs in the
service sector that are essentially manual jobs.

Most people who work in sales stay in one place and their customers
come to them.

I see. That's why the Ford Mondeo is the top selling car of whenever,
bought exclsuively by companies who ran fleets of them for their salesmen?

Most people who work in sales work for organisations like estate
agents and the like - small companies where customers come to you, at
least partly. Don't make the mistake of thinking that all sales people
are like the ones you work with.

Chemists

Not sure what sort odchemists tyouy men, but most copuld be online.
Don';t need to 'be there'

I mean the sort of chemists who work in pharmacies, preparing and
dispensing drugs.

Nurses
Security guards

With no offfices to guard, they aren't needed.

And no-where else needs guarding?

Shop assistants

With no retail *shops*, they aren't needed

So your plan for teleworking also involves closing all retail
premises? And you think I'm losing my grip on reality!

Bus drivers
Taxi drivers

With no need to commute or go shopping, they aren't needed either.

Ditto

Cleaners

Since yoiu are now at home, try cleaning your own house.

If I'm going to work in it, I might want to employ someone else to
clean it for me.

Teachers

Well even if they are theeir, they don't succeed in teaching, so might
as well put the while education thing online.

Another departure from reality.

Police
Firefighters
Farmers
Vets

The last are the only irreducible residues therer really are.

And yet between them they alone take you over the 15% of jobs that you
think can't be teleworked.

Mark
--
http://www.MotorwayServices.info - read and share comments and opinons
"So rock and roll, so corporate suit"

On 2007-12-31 17:23:00 +0000, Mark Goodge
said:

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:10:18 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

I've even done remote computer installations.

No, you haven't. You've done remote software installations, maybe. But
to actually install a computer itself - or fix it when the hardware
goes wrong - you need to be there where the computer is.


No, the whole *computer* was installed remotely. We sent it by courier,
and asked the customer to plug int into the phone, the network, and the
mains.

You didn't install it then. The courier and the customer, between
them, did that. Once they'd installed it, you connected to it and did
a remote installation of the software. Without at least worker
visiting the premises (the courier) and another working on the
premises (the customer), there would have been nothing for you to do.
So, in that example, there was one teleworker and two on-site workers
involved in the process.



This really depends on your definition of "install".

I would take it to mean the work involved in getting a system to the
customer's site, plugged in and connected and brought to an operational
state with the functionality specified.

For one that I was involved in recently, and which is very typical of
carrier, ISP and enterprise work, this involved the following:

- Planning of the electrical and network connections at the data centre
where the equipment was to live.

- Loading of software on equipment

- Shipping of equipment to datacentre.

- The datacentre is a secure lights-out place with access only for a
very restricted number of individuals working for the customer. A
technician at the site unboxed the equipment, physically placed it in
the racks and connected the cables. Total time taken for this part -
one person for half a day.

- This includes backup hardware in case of failures, so maintenance
consists of a unit swap at leisure.

- The configuration and installation work involved people in teams in
five different countries because of the complexity and the distribution
of responsibilities. All of them work in virtual offices at home
and communicate by phone and email. Most of them have never
physically met each other because there is no need.

There were several man weeks of work in this plus the planning stages.

Overall, the proportion of work that involved somebody actually going
anywhere and physically touching anything was less than 0.5%

So, in proportion, TNP is quite right. Gone are the days when there
were armies of people milling around in data centres. Remote access
and the need for tighter security has been the main reason for that.

On Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:59:09 +0000, Francis Turton wrote:

Jules wrote:
On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:36:48 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
But once everybody realises that going shopping and going to work is a
total waste of time and money, and you can do more huddled over a DSL
modem at home, the question should largely become irrelevant.

Precisely. The problem shouldn't be one of "how do we get from A to B
efficiently", but "how do we avoid the need to get to B in the first
place"... and so far very few people seem to be worrying about that.

The whole concept of going to a central place to shop or work is one of
our own making, and in a lot of cases it's one that we could choose
to solve if we so wanted.

So how does transport-free shopping work then?

Walking or cycling work. Driving ten miles to a big superstore doesn't.

Also, though I suspect that cam.misc may not be representative in this
respect, research (and common sense) suggests that without regular human
contact, most people get depressed and go nuts.

That's half the problem; society has evolved such that there's very
little human contact *now* - people get in their cars and go places,
do what they need to do, and come home again, with very little
beneficial human interaction. There's little sense of community, of
people helping those immediately around them, purely because they
never even bother to interact with those people.

In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
geoff wrote:
In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
Senility must be wonderful


Yeah and I remember reading in New Scientist 10 years ago that
there was a dental treatment that enabled new bone to be formed so
tooth loss could be halted and the effects of peridontal disease
would be a thing of the past... still waiting.
New Scientist is, in a peer-reviewed scientific sense, mostly a
comic for those who like to appear cleverer than they really are.

Yup. Sadly as science journals go, its the Sunday Sport of
them..Still it has its place.


ok

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/29/solarpower.renewableene
rgy

Ah the guardian, that bastion of CND, beared trendy lefty, real ale
swilling chattering class hopefuls..


********************************

We haven't been able to serve the page you asked for.

If you typed in a URL, please make sure you have typed it correctly. In
particular, make sure that the URL you typed is all in lower case.

If you require further assistance, please contact our user help staff
at the following address
*****************************************
Right, so a URL that MIGHT have contained a refutation, or did you just
make it up?

Works for me, maybe you need someone to show you how to use a computer

--
geoff

"Jules" wrote in message
news

That's half the problem; society has evolved such that there's very
little human contact *now* - people get in their cars and go places,
do what they need to do, and come home again, with very little
beneficial human interaction. There's little sense of community, of
people helping those immediately around them, purely because they
never even bother to interact with those people.

Partly why our MP travels by bus (when he's not walking).

--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Limited - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Cambridge City Councillor

In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
geoff wrote:
In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
Senility must be wonderful


Yeah and I remember reading in New Scientist 10 years ago that
there was a dental treatment that enabled new bone to be formed so
tooth loss could be halted and the effects of peridontal disease
would be a thing of the past... still waiting.
New Scientist is, in a peer-reviewed scientific sense, mostly a
comic for those who like to appear cleverer than they really are.

Yup. Sadly as science journals go, its the Sunday Sport of
them..Still it has its place.


ok

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/29/solarpower.renewableene
rgy

Ah the guardian, that bastion of CND, beared trendy lefty, real ale
swilling chattering class hopefuls..


whatever,

still more viable than the bolocks you're proposing on home working


anyway - a guten rutsch ...


--
geoff

Duncan Wood wrote:

This would research on who? Yachtsmen & women aren't reknowned for going
mad or suicidal.


Yachtsmen? Where did that come from?

But without trying:

Donald Crowhurst.
And possibly also Mike McMullen, for thoroughly understandable reasons.

Andy

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I wish...

I ALMOST thought of getting a kit car, some Lithium batteries and a few
15KW motors and going for a Caterham 60KW...

Maybe I could get Top Gear to sponsor it.


That's about 80BHP, similar to a 1300 Fiesta. You might want a bit more
for a sports car.

Andy

Tim Ward wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Actually an aircraft is amongst the most fuel efficient per passenger mile
travelled of ANY transport.

Not the ones I fly! - ten gallons per hour, 120 miles per hour is 12 miles
per gallon, and that transports three people (four at a pinch, with limited
fuel and no luggage). Much better off driving.


Trains are far better than planes. But big, full planes are as good as
single person cars. I have a shiny new Concorde photo on my wall here -
xmas prezzie - and even Concorde works out at 30 passenger miles per gallon.

The killer with planes isn't the MPG, it's the sheer number of miles.

Andy

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:10:18 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:

You reckon it's practical for most teleworkers to have a colour
collating printer at home? How many teleworkers do you know who
actually have one?

Two to date.

Out of how many people doing that kind of work?


Er..two.

I've even done remote computer installations.
No, you haven't. You've done remote software installations, maybe. But
to actually install a computer itself - or fix it when the hardware
goes wrong - you need to be there where the computer is.

No, the whole *computer* was installed remotely. We sent it by courier,
and asked the customer to plug int into the phone, the network, and the
mains.

You didn't install it then. The courier and the customer, between
them, did that. Once they'd installed it, you connected to it and did
a remote installation of the software. Without at least worker
visiting the premises (the courier) and another working on the
premises (the customer), there would have been nothing for you to do.
So, in that example, there was one teleworker and two on-site workers
involved in the process.


Generally computers are not installed where there are no people art all.

The issue is not one of pedantry, its one of saving a thousand mile
round trip.

Which is most jobs. Office work is still a minority of employment in
the UK.
I think not actually.

It bears checking, but there are precuis few 'blue collar' workers anywhere.

That depends on what you mean by "blue collar". Manufacturing jobs are
around 20% of the UK workforce, but there are a lot of jobs in the
service sector that are essentially manual jobs.


Oh. like flipping burgers?
Right..

Most people who work in sales stay in one place and their customers
come to them.
I see. That's why the Ford Mondeo is the top selling car of whenever,
bought exclsuively by companies who ran fleets of them for their salesmen?

Most people who work in sales work for organisations like estate
agents and the like - small companies where customers come to you, at
least partly. Don't make the mistake of thinking that all sales people
are like the ones you work with.


I don't work with any these days. You are perhaps confusing corporate
sales with retail sales. ~The burger flippers again.

Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.

And a website.



Chemists
Not sure what sort odchemists tyouy men, but most copuld be online.
Don';t need to 'be there'

I mean the sort of chemists who work in pharmacies, preparing and
dispensing drugs.


They don't actually prepare drugs at all. They pick bottles and pills,
put them in and write a label on them.

Better to order online.


Nurses
Security guards
With no offfices to guard, they aren't needed.

And no-where else needs guarding?


I don't actully have a battalion of the SS standing outside this office
here, no..I am here...24x7..


Shop assistants
With no retail *shops*, they aren't needed

So your plan for teleworking also involves closing all retail
premises? And you think I'm losing my grip on reality!


I don't *plan* on closing them: That's happening already. They ae by
and large a crap inefficient way of selling and Internet sales will
essentially take around 85% of the market of almost everything.

Simply because its cheaper all round.



Bus drivers
Taxi drivers
With no need to commute or go shopping, they aren't needed either.

Ditto

Cleaners
Since yoiu are now at home, try cleaning your own house.

If I'm going to work in it, I might want to employ someone else to
clean it for me.


Well get someone local. Its hardly a skill that requires someone to
commute from Scotland, is it?

Lazy sod.


Teachers
Well even if they are theeir, they don't succeed in teaching, so might
as well put the while education thing online.

Another departure from reality.

Police
Firefighters
Farmers
Vets
The last are the only irreducible residues therer really are.

And yet between them they alone take you over the 15% of jobs that you
think can't be teleworked.

You have to be completely off your trolley.

Farmers are less than 1% in total sector. Ditto firemen. Both do not
commute - they live VERY locally. Mnay DO work at home. Their farms!
Police? we have *one* to serve a community area of ten thousand or so.
And he might as well stay at home for all the use he is.


In Newmarket, an area with a lot of expensive livestock, there are at
most 500 vets and assistants in toto.

Thats a 40,000 population, before you even count the outlying stud farms
etc..

Your ideas of who does what and in what numbers, is so far removed from
reality it basically mens your opinions are totally worthless.





Mark

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-12-31 17:23:00 +0000, Mark Goodge
said:

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:10:18 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

I've even done remote computer installations.

No, you haven't. You've done remote software installations, maybe. But
to actually install a computer itself - or fix it when the hardware
goes wrong - you need to be there where the computer is.


No, the whole *computer* was installed remotely. We sent it by courier,
and asked the customer to plug int into the phone, the network, and the
mains.

You didn't install it then. The courier and the customer, between
them, did that. Once they'd installed it, you connected to it and did
a remote installation of the software. Without at least worker
visiting the premises (the courier) and another working on the
premises (the customer), there would have been nothing for you to do.
So, in that example, there was one teleworker and two on-site workers
involved in the process.



This really depends on your definition of "install".

I would take it to mean the work involved in getting a system to the
customer's site, plugged in and connected and brought to an operational
state with the functionality specified.

For one that I was involved in recently, and which is very typical of
carrier, ISP and enterprise work, this involved the following:

- Planning of the electrical and network connections at the data centre
where the equipment was to live.

- Loading of software on equipment

- Shipping of equipment to datacentre.

- The datacentre is a secure lights-out place with access only for a
very restricted number of individuals working for the customer. A
technician at the site unboxed the equipment, physically placed it in
the racks and connected the cables. Total time taken for this part -
one person for half a day.

- This includes backup hardware in case of failures, so maintenance
consists of a unit swap at leisure.

- The configuration and installation work involved people in teams in
five different countries because of the complexity and the distribution
of responsibilities. All of them work in virtual offices at home and
communicate by phone and email. Most of them have never physically
met each other because there is no need.

There were several man weeks of work in this plus the planning stages.

Overall, the proportion of work that involved somebody actually going
anywhere and physically touching anything was less than 0.5%

So, in proportion, TNP is quite right. Gone are the days when there
were armies of people milling around in data centres. Remote access
and the need for tighter security has been the main reason for that.


Well thats is exactly how it was, the only difference being it was an
internet gateway machine for an oil exploration company in Aberdeen.

Jules wrote:
On Sat, 29 Dec 2007 23:59:09 +0000, Francis Turton wrote:

Jules wrote:
On Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:36:48 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
But once everybody realises that going shopping and going to work is a
total waste of time and money, and you can do more huddled over a DSL
modem at home, the question should largely become irrelevant.
Precisely. The problem shouldn't be one of "how do we get from A to B
efficiently", but "how do we avoid the need to get to B in the first
place"... and so far very few people seem to be worrying about that.

The whole concept of going to a central place to shop or work is one of
our own making, and in a lot of cases it's one that we could choose
to solve if we so wanted.
So how does transport-free shopping work then?

Walking or cycling work. Driving ten miles to a big superstore doesn't.

Also, though I suspect that cam.misc may not be representative in this
respect, research (and common sense) suggests that without regular human
contact, most people get depressed and go nuts.

That's half the problem; society has evolved such that there's very
little human contact *now* - people get in their cars and go places,
do what they need to do, and come home again, with very little
beneficial human interaction. There's little sense of community, of
people helping those immediately around them, purely because they
never even bother to interact with those people.



Personally I feel more connected with an internet connection than
sitting at a desk in any office..and a hellofa sight more productive,

Andy Champ wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I wish...

I ALMOST thought of getting a kit car, some Lithium batteries and a
few 15KW motors and going for a Caterham 60KW...

Maybe I could get Top Gear to sponsor it.


That's about 80BHP, similar to a 1300 Fiesta. You might want a bit more
for a sports car.


Its morte than MY MG Micdegets had,and we uesd to think they were dead sexy.

With lower weight, one could do better,

I only picked that chassis cos its small and light, and a well known
example..

It would be perfect for occasional shopping trips


Andy

geoff wrote:
In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
But most office work could be done from almost anywhere..

All software, tech support, back office stuff.
Laywers.
Accountants.. (harder as they insist of pssyical paper)
Graphic design
CAD/CAM design.
Shopping by and large.
All sales studff
All marketing stuff.

Things that couldn't be are doctors - altho NHS direct is a pretty
useful service

You think so ?


Has been for us.

Faced with very sick elderly person, they talked us through a load of
stuff and then said, yes, get a doctor out NOW, its PROBABLY not life
threatening, but it could be.

Now that was a lot cheaper than getting a doctor out to find it was an
ingrowing toenail or similar.




- dentists, plumbers and the building trade generally, manufacturing

In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
geoff wrote:
In message , The Natural
Philosopher writes
But most office work could be done from almost anywhere..

All software, tech support, back office stuff.
Laywers.
Accountants.. (harder as they insist of pssyical paper)
Graphic design
CAD/CAM design.
Shopping by and large.
All sales studff
All marketing stuff.

Things that couldn't be are doctors - altho NHS direct is a pretty
useful service
You think so ?


Has been for us.

The two times I had occasion to phone them, their bottom line was "go
and see your doctor"

.... which my doctor said was a pretty standard response


--
geoff

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:03:46 -0000, Andy Champ wrote:

Duncan Wood wrote:
This would research on who? Yachtsmen & women aren't reknowned for
going mad or suicidal.


Yachtsmen? Where did that come from?

But without trying:

Donald Crowhurst.
And possibly also Mike McMullen, for thoroughly understandable reasons.

Andy


Neither of whom was it associated with being isolated on a yacht for a
long time.

In message , at 19:13:09 on Mon, 31
Dec 2007, Tim Ward remarked:
That's half the problem; society has evolved such that there's very
little human contact *now* - people get in their cars and go places,
do what they need to do, and come home again, with very little
beneficial human interaction. There's little sense of community, of
people helping those immediately around them, purely because they
never even bother to interact with those people.

Partly why our MP travels by bus (when he's not walking).

cam.misc and a Happy New Year

That must take him a long time to get to Parliament. Can't he be allowed
to use a train sometimes?

/cam.misc and a Happy New Year

--
Roland Perry

In message , at 16:21:40 on
Mon, 31 Dec 2007, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
"We aim to produce the panels for 99 cents [50p] a watt, which is
comparable to the price of electricity generated from coal."

So that's £500 for a kilowatt panel, a kilowatt hour is about 10p from
coal, so they are expecting a life of 5,000 hours?
--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:25:58 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:10:18 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:

You reckon it's practical for most teleworkers to have a colour
collating printer at home? How many teleworkers do you know who
actually have one?

Two to date.

Out of how many people doing that kind of work?


Er..two.

Then your experience is a little unusual.

You didn't install it then. The courier and the customer, between
them, did that. Once they'd installed it, you connected to it and did
a remote installation of the software. Without at least worker
visiting the premises (the courier) and another working on the
premises (the customer), there would have been nothing for you to do.
So, in that example, there was one teleworker and two on-site workers
involved in the process.


Generally computers are not installed where there are no people art all.

The issue is not one of pedantry, its one of saving a thousand mile
round trip.

It may have saved a trip for you, but it din't save one for the
courier driver. It simply replaced one form of on-site visit with
another.

Which is most jobs. Office work is still a minority of employment in
the UK.
I think not actually.

It bears checking, but there are precuis few 'blue collar' workers anywhere.

That depends on what you mean by "blue collar". Manufacturing jobs are
around 20% of the UK workforce, but there are a lot of jobs in the
service sector that are essentially manual jobs.


Oh. like flipping burgers?
Right..

Well, right. The fact that a job is low-status doesn't mean it doesn't
need to be done.

Most people who work in sales stay in one place and their customers
come to them.
I see. That's why the Ford Mondeo is the top selling car of whenever,
bought exclsuively by companies who ran fleets of them for their salesmen?

Most people who work in sales work for organisations like estate
agents and the like - small companies where customers come to you, at
least partly. Don't make the mistake of thinking that all sales people
are like the ones you work with.


I don't work with any these days. You are perhaps confusing corporate
sales with retail sales. ~The burger flippers again.

Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.

They still need to visit the properties.

Chemists
Not sure what sort odchemists tyouy men, but most copuld be online.
Don';t need to 'be there'

I mean the sort of chemists who work in pharmacies, preparing and
dispensing drugs.


They don't actually prepare drugs at all. They pick bottles and pills,
put them in and write a label on them.

Better to order online.


Nurses
Security guards
With no offfices to guard, they aren't needed.

And no-where else needs guarding?


I don't actully have a battalion of the SS standing outside this office
here, no..I am here...24x7..

So? You are not the only person in the universe. There will still be
plenty of premises that need guarding even if there are no offices.

Shop assistants
With no retail *shops*, they aren't needed

So your plan for teleworking also involves closing all retail
premises? And you think I'm losing my grip on reality!


I don't *plan* on closing them: That's happening already. They ae by
and large a crap inefficient way of selling and Internet sales will
essentially take around 85% of the market of almost everything.

But closing retail premises doesn't mean that all the jobs disappear
too. It does mean that shop assistant roles disappear, but there will
be more need for warehouse staff, delivey staff, etc. So you're still
not getting rid of all the on-site jobs and replacing them with
telecommuting. How do you think that a CD you order from Amazon gets
to you?

Well get someone local. Its hardly a skill that requires someone to
commute from Scotland, is it?

No, but if they're working anywhere other than their own home then
they're not telecommuting. Distance isn't relevant, in this context.

Police
Firefighters
Farmers
Vets
The last are the only irreducible residues therer really are.

And yet between them they alone take you over the 15% of jobs that you
think can't be teleworked.

You have to be completely off your trolley.

Farmers are less than 1% in total sector. Ditto firemen. Both do not
commute - they live VERY locally. Mnay DO work at home. Their farms!
Police? we have *one* to serve a community area of ten thousand or so.
And he might as well stay at home for all the use he is.

Not just the people in the frontline jobs, but also those who provide
necessary backup and support for them. And you've snipped medical
staff from the list, which I included in the 15%.

Your ideas of who does what and in what numbers, is so far removed from
reality it basically mens your opinions are totally worthless.

If you really think that 85% of all jobs could be done without the
person needing to leave their home, then you have absolutely no clue
whatsover.

Mark
--
Blog: http://Mark.Goodge.co.uk Photos: http://www.goodge.co.uk
"L'amore giunger, l'amore"

In message 47781df2@qaanaaq, at 22:38:42 on Sun, 30 Dec 2007, Andy
Hall remarked:

The office copier I would need to use is the one at the
destination. That's the place I'm teleworking with. But the
original is in my home office in Nottingham and the copier is 500

So scanner at home and print to the copier over a VPN
connection......
Alternatively just send the file to a service bureau like Fedex
Kinko's and get them to produce the treeware.
I don't see the problem.....
You probably don't.

With that particular issue there isn't a problem.

There is, because it assumes that various relationships have been set
up, which they haven't, and doesn't work in semi real time (eg if the
copies are to put in front of a dozen people having a meeting, and that
meeting is converted to a teleconference rather than round a table in a
room with a copier in it). But let's put this rathole to one side for a
moment for reasons set out below.

And lots of people don't see the problems of teleworking jobs that
aren't fundamentally teleworkable.

I do understand your point about the need for face to face meetings for
certain purposes and use it myself on occasions. I also take your
point that it can be important when beginning new business
relationships and especially when the other party does not speak
English as their first language.

However... I do have to optimise my time, and to that end need to be
able to operate my "office" from almost anywhere on the planet at
virtually any time. To achieve that, I make sure that I have high
speed internet access as much of the time as possible when traveling,
and can initiate sending of materials electronically, by fax or by hard
copy (colour glossy if really needed). It really doesn't matter if
I am sitting at home, in an airport lounge, a customer or a hotel lobby
several time zones away. For the pieces of time in taxis or other
instances where high speed access is not available, the Blackberry
saves me at least an hour a day on average.

Travel is also carefully planned, in order to optimise productive time.
A byproduct of that is that unnecessary journies are not made.

So basically the "office" moves around, but not back and forth from
home each day. During some weeks it remains at home most of the week,
while during others it might be in three or four different cities.

I think we are both conflating two different ideas. Clearly (as I am
myself) you are well resourced and mobile "Road Warrior". Others have
made remarks about field sales and installation, and avoiding the
necessity to have external face-to-face meetings. These activities
aren't teleworking as most people understand the word.

Teleworking is about working from home and collaborating with a fairly
static group of colleagues (albeit perhaps also with a rapidly changing
customer base) using telecoms, rather than everyone using a central
office facility.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 10:45:02 on
Mon, 31 Dec 2007, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
But most office work could be done from almost anywhere..

[...]

Laywers.

Very specifically, this often works very badly when not done face to
face. I've been helping someone prepare a Small Claim, and our side of
it would have been hopelessly ineffective if I couldn't have direct
access to the people and papers in order to prepare a coherent statement
of claim and witness statements.

And the case generated perhaps a hundred pages of letters between us and
the other side and their solicitors, which largely consisted of them
ignoring all the questions they didn't want to answer and throwing red
herrings in at every opportunity.

We just weren't getting anywhere at all (which is why it got as far as a
court). Once we had everyone face to face the Judge sorted it in
literally five minutes.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 16:10:18 on
Mon, 31 Dec 2007, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
No, the whole *computer* was installed remotely. We sent it by courier,
and asked the customer to plug int into the phone, the network, and the
mains.

The last time I did that, it took half an hour on the phone to work out
the customer had plugged the phone line into the Ether net socket
instead

After a while you get used to lateral fault finding:

"My computer won't type"

"Follow the power cord and pull the plug on the end out from the wall".

"But the plug on the end isn't in the wall"

"Ah-ha..."
--
Roland Perry

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.

They still need to visit the properties.

And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".
--
Roland Perry

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:25:58 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:10:18 +0000, The Natural Philosopher put finger
to keyboard and typed:

Mark Goodge wrote:
You reckon it's practical for most teleworkers to have a colour
collating printer at home? How many teleworkers do you know who
actually have one?

Two to date.
Out of how many people doing that kind of work?

Er..two.

Then your experience is a little unusual.

You didn't install it then. The courier and the customer, between
them, did that. Once they'd installed it, you connected to it and did
a remote installation of the software. Without at least worker
visiting the premises (the courier) and another working on the
premises (the customer), there would have been nothing for you to do.
So, in that example, there was one teleworker and two on-site workers
involved in the process.

Generally computers are not installed where there are no people art all.

The issue is not one of pedantry, its one of saving a thousand mile
round trip.

It may have saved a trip for you, but it din't save one for the
courier driver. It simply replaced one form of on-site visit with
another.


But that was not the ONLY thing that van carried was it..or that series
of vans. Ther was a net reduction on vehicle miles as a result.


Which is most jobs. Office work is still a minority of employment in
the UK.
I think not actually.

It bears checking, but there are precuis few 'blue collar' workers anywhere.
That depends on what you mean by "blue collar". Manufacturing jobs are
around 20% of the UK workforce, but there are a lot of jobs in the
service sector that are essentially manual jobs.

Oh. like flipping burgers?
Right..

Well, right. The fact that a job is low-status doesn't mean it doesn't
need to be done.


Actually it probably means it doesn't have to be done.

Most people who work in sales stay in one place and their customers
come to them.
I see. That's why the Ford Mondeo is the top selling car of whenever,
bought exclsuively by companies who ran fleets of them for their salesmen?
Most people who work in sales work for organisations like estate
agents and the like - small companies where customers come to you, at
least partly. Don't make the mistake of thinking that all sales people
are like the ones you work with.

I don't work with any these days. You are perhaps confusing corporate
sales with retail sales. ~The burger flippers again.

Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.

They still need to visit the properties.

Why?

Chemists
Not sure what sort odchemists tyouy men, but most copuld be online.
Don';t need to 'be there'
I mean the sort of chemists who work in pharmacies, preparing and
dispensing drugs.

They don't actually prepare drugs at all. They pick bottles and pills,
put them in and write a label on them.

Better to order online.


Nurses
Security guards
With no offfices to guard, they aren't needed.
And no-where else needs guarding?

I don't actully have a battalion of the SS standing outside this office
here, no..I am here...24x7..

So? You are not the only person in the universe. There will still be
plenty of premises that need guarding even if there are no offices.


Name a few.

Shop assistants
With no retail *shops*, they aren't needed
So your plan for teleworking also involves closing all retail
premises? And you think I'm losing my grip on reality!

I don't *plan* on closing them: That's happening already. They ae by
and large a crap inefficient way of selling and Internet sales will
essentially take around 85% of the market of almost everything.

But closing retail premises doesn't mean that all the jobs disappear
too. It does mean that shop assistant roles disappear, but there will
be more need for warehouse staff, delivey staff, etc. So you're still
not getting rid of all the on-site jobs and replacing them with
telecommuting. How do you think that a CD you order from Amazon gets
to you?

I think you misunderstand how the world works. Low grade jobs like
warehousing, recruit staff locally. Staff who don't commute (far) and
who will work for lower wages. Thats WHY you locate your warehouse where
you do.

You need the warehouse whether you are shifting to retail outlets or
direct to customers.

Shifting direct means you simply 'disintermediate' - the retail outlet,
the staff in it, the need to drive to it - all these disappear.

A net reduction in vehicle miles


Well get someone local. Its hardly a skill that requires someone to
commute from Scotland, is it?

No, but if they're working anywhere other than their own home then
they're not telecommuting. Distance isn't relevant, in this context.


It is, in the context of overall vehicle miles.

Police
Firefighters
Farmers
Vets
The last are the only irreducible residues therer really are.
And yet between them they alone take you over the 15% of jobs that you
think can't be teleworked.
You have to be completely off your trolley.

Farmers are less than 1% in total sector. Ditto firemen. Both do not
commute - they live VERY locally. Mnay DO work at home. Their farms!
Police? we have *one* to serve a community area of ten thousand or so.
And he might as well stay at home for all the use he is.

Not just the people in the frontline jobs, but also those who provide
necessary backup and support for them. And you've snipped medical
staff from the list, which I included in the 15%.

I had included them, bit not the medical general staff, most of whom
would be better off not employed in the first place, let alone working
from home..


Your ideas of who does what and in what numbers, is so far removed from
reality it basically mens your opinions are totally worthless.

If you really think that 85% of all jobs could be done without the
person needing to leave their home, then you have absolutely no clue
whatsover.

I don;'t think so.

Mark

Roland Perry wrote:
In message 47781df2@qaanaaq, at 22:38:42 on Sun, 30 Dec 2007, Andy
Hall remarked:

The office copier I would need to use is the one at the
destination. That's the place I'm teleworking with. But the
original is in my home office in Nottingham and the copier is 500
So scanner at home and print to the copier over a VPN connection......
Alternatively just send the file to a service bureau like Fedex
Kinko's and get them to produce the treeware.
I don't see the problem.....
You probably don't.

With that particular issue there isn't a problem.

There is, because it assumes that various relationships have been set
up, which they haven't, and doesn't work in semi real time (eg if the
copies are to put in front of a dozen people having a meeting, and that
meeting is converted to a teleconference rather than round a table in a
room with a copier in it). But let's put this rathole to one side for a
moment for reasons set out below.

And lots of people don't see the problems of teleworking jobs that
aren't fundamentally teleworkable.

I do understand your point about the need for face to face meetings
for certain purposes and use it myself on occasions. I also take
your point that it can be important when beginning new business
relationships and especially when the other party does not speak
English as their first language.

However... I do have to optimise my time, and to that end need to be
able to operate my "office" from almost anywhere on the planet at
virtually any time. To achieve that, I make sure that I have high
speed internet access as much of the time as possible when traveling,
and can initiate sending of materials electronically, by fax or by
hard copy (colour glossy if really needed). It really doesn't
matter if I am sitting at home, in an airport lounge, a customer or a
hotel lobby several time zones away. For the pieces of time in
taxis or other instances where high speed access is not available, the
Blackberry saves me at least an hour a day on average.

Travel is also carefully planned, in order to optimise productive
time. A byproduct of that is that unnecessary journies are not made.

So basically the "office" moves around, but not back and forth from
home each day. During some weeks it remains at home most of the
week, while during others it might be in three or four different cities.

I think we are both conflating two different ideas. Clearly (as I am
myself) you are well resourced and mobile "Road Warrior". Others have
made remarks about field sales and installation, and avoiding the
necessity to have external face-to-face meetings. These activities
aren't teleworking as most people understand the word.

Teleworking is about working from home and collaborating with a fairly
static group of colleagues (albeit perhaps also with a rapidly changing
customer base) using telecoms, rather than everyone using a central
office facility.

Teleworking is simply working using long distance communications.

It has no more implications than that.

In message , at 17:00:28 on Mon,
31 Dec 2007, Owain remarked:
Mark Goodge wrote:
Plus a few more...
Train drivers

Isn't DLR driverless?

Only up to a point. Just like the "driverless" Victoria Line it has
someone on board whose job it is to make sure it's safe to start the
train, and who presses the "go" button.

Teachers

Distance teaching over videoconferencing already used for Latin in the
Highlands of Scotland

A niche. And probably with quite motivated students. Try teaching
remedial English to a class of 30 chavs by videoconference.

Telephone sanitisers

Who? ;-)

Who-osh

Police

Large numbers of them seem to have been replaced by remote CCTV
operators too

Add to, not replaced. But the police these days seem to spend most of
their time in the office doing paperwork. recurse
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 10:21:10 on Tue, 1
Jan 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
I think we are both conflating two different ideas. Clearly (as I am
myself) you are well resourced and mobile "Road Warrior". Others have
made remarks about field sales and installation, and avoiding the
necessity to have external face-to-face meetings. These activities
aren't teleworking as most people understand the word.
Teleworking is about working from home and collaborating with a
fairly static group of colleagues (albeit perhaps also with a rapidly
changing customer base) using telecoms, rather than everyone using a
central office facility.

Teleworking is simply working using long distance communications.

It has no more implications than that.

So what word do you prefer for people who aren't Road Warriors and are
therefore the stay-at-home telecoms users that this discussion kicked
off discussing? Tele-commuters perhaps?

Under your definition of teleworker, a policeman on the beat is a
teleworker, as he calls in much of his work, and gets most of his
orders, on the phone; rather than having to return to the police station
to do it in person.
--
Roland Perry

On 2008-01-01 09:33:49 +0000, Roland Perry said:

In message , at 10:45:02 on
Mon, 31 Dec 2007, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
But most office work could be done from almost anywhere..

[...]

Laywers.

Very specifically, this often works very badly when not done face to
face. I've been helping someone prepare a Small Claim, and our side of
it would have been hopelessly ineffective if I couldn't have direct
access to the people and papers in order to prepare a coherent
statement of claim and witness statements.

And the case generated perhaps a hundred pages of letters between us
and the other side and their solicitors, which largely consisted of
them ignoring all the questions they didn't want to answer and throwing
red herrings in at every opportunity.

We just weren't getting anywhere at all (which is why it got as far as
a court). Once we had everyone face to face the Judge sorted it in
literally five minutes.

Part of this is a cost game.

The lawyers are making money from writing letters and the cost for
doing so, so it's in their interest to prolong the story as much as
they can.

It can be played to advantage by the consumer in a small claims case as
long as they don't employ a lawyer and the other side does. Faced
with mounting costs and a stream of letters, they are more likely to
settle without a court appearance.

In message , at 10:19:50 on Tue, 1
Jan 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.

Why?

Because they need to describe them to buyers, which you can't do
adequately if you haven't visited them, and documented them.
--
Roland Perry

On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:05:57 +0000, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard
and typed:

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.

They still need to visit the properties.

And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".

That's a very good point.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how
they're most productive when working. It seems to me that a lot of the
very strong advocates for increased teleworking are those who
themselves fall into the minority of people who don't like spending
much time with others. It's almost a cliche that the IT community is
populated by people with poor interpersonal and social networking
skills and who prefer the company of a computer screen to other
humans. So it's not surprising to find a significant number of Usenet
users (who also tend to fall in that demographic) having
over-optimistic opinions of how easy it would be to convert many jobs
to teleworking.

Mark
--
http://www.MotorwayServices.info - read and share comments and opinons
"And when you play you feel all right"

In message 477a195c@qaanaaq, at 10:43:40 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Andy Hall
remarked:
On 2008-01-01 09:33:49 +0000, Roland Perry said:

In message , at 10:45:02 on
Mon, 31 Dec 2007, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
But most office work could be done from almost anywhere..
[...]

Laywers.
Very specifically, this often works very badly when not done face to
face. I've been helping someone prepare a Small Claim, and our side of
it would have been hopelessly ineffective if I couldn't have direct
access to the people and papers in order to prepare a coherent
statement of claim and witness statements.
And the case generated perhaps a hundred pages of letters between us
and the other side and their solicitors, which largely consisted of
them ignoring all the questions they didn't want to answer and
throwing red herrings in at every opportunity.
We just weren't getting anywhere at all (which is why it got as far
as a court). Once we had everyone face to face the Judge sorted it
in literally five minutes.

Part of this is a cost game.

The lawyers are making money from writing letters and the cost for
doing so, so it's in their interest to prolong the story as much as
they can.

Which just means it's even more useful to get people face to face sooner
rather than later.

--
Roland Perry

In message , at 23:49:24 on
Sun, 30 Dec 2007, Steve Firth remarked:
I travel with a scanner, so if I meet a luddite I can scan the documents
they give me to PDF.

I've scanned a few things, but travelling with a scanner isn't practical
for me.

Just throw it in the back of your giant 4x4 with all the other essential
survival gear.

4x4 is a bit big to get on a plane, though. I don't think EasyJet take
them as hand luggage.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 10:57:18 on Mon,
31 Dec 2007, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
Well, commuting used to cost me about 0 a collating photocopier. And a color laser for that matter..and
quite a lot of bandwidth.
One of the points about telecommuting is to *save* the commuting
costs, not replace them with loads of different costs.

I thought in this context we were talking about not burning fuel?

Can you manufacture and distribute color lasers without burning fuel?
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 10:19:50 on Tue, 1
Jan 2008, The Natural Philosopher remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.

Why?

Because they need to describe them to buyers, which you can't do
adequately if you haven't visited them, and documented them.

Surely they just make it all up anyway?


;-)
Very few of the property decsriptions I have had from estate agents bear
any relationship to reality..

Mark Goodge wrote:
On Tue, 1 Jan 2008 10:05:57 +0000, Roland Perry put finger to keyboard
and typed:

In message e.net, at
09:20:43 on Tue, 1 Jan 2008, Mark Goodge
remarked:
Even estate agents coudlk work better from home.
They still need to visit the properties.
And are a typical example of what I might call "overhearing-ware", which
makes most offices I've worked in (none in a sales capacity, that's just
an example) hugely more productive.

You overhear your colleague on the phone (or in person) to a buyer, and
deduce quite a lot about what they are talking about. And it rings a
bell with you, so you wander over and say - "why not suggest this
property, it's sounds like it's just what they want".

That's a very good point.

Also, one thing that seems to be missed by many advocates of
telecommuting is that most people actually prefer to work in social
groups. And, because that's how they prefer to work, that's how
they're most productive when working.

Er, no.

Thats how they can spend their time chatting and 'having meetings'
instead of actually working.

Of COURSE they prefer it!

Work is mostly essentially boring: Thats why you pay to have it done.


It seems to me that a lot of the
very strong advocates for increased teleworking are those who
themselves fall into the minority of people who don't like spending
much time with others.

They actually prefer to spend it WORKING.


It's almost a cliche that the IT community is
populated by people with poor interpersonal and social networking
skills and who prefer the company of a computer screen to other
humans. So it's not surprising to find a significant number of Usenet
users (who also tend to fall in that demographic) having
over-optimistic opinions of how easy it would be to convert many jobs
to teleworking.


Possibly.

Mark

http://www.apame.eu/AA%20Projects.html

For some light entertainment.