[CS-FSLUG] Jobs at Rackspace, tech "telework" in general

[Ed Dodds]

Spot on. Specifically, challenging corporate leadership to consider
"home shoring" of folks with disabilities. Not a panacea but I find
most C-suites/HR folks don't give a first thought, let alone a second.
Nifty open ( or proprietary ) tools don't mean much if the context in
which they have to be used are economically improbable.

Thanks all for your patience re: this meme. I'll stick to topic from now on.

Ed

On Nov 15, 2007 9:02 AM, Jason Franklin <jpfagapeu at mac.com> wrote:
> Sorry Ed, but I didn't follow where you were going.  I'm kind of obtuse.
> Are you talking about remote work in general (e.g. disabled people could
> work from home)?  Or something else?
>
>
> Jason Franklin
> Christian/Husband/Father/Missionary
> Westwood Bible Fellowship
> pastor.jason at westwoodbf.com
> web: www.westwoodbf.com
> blog: www.westwoodbf.com/tboc
>
>
>
> On Nov 15, 2007, at 6:32 AM, Ed Dodds wrote:
>
>
> I realize this is off list topic but I saw a recent article where at
> least some Indian support centers are experimenting with underwriting
> MBA tuition expenses to deal with the employee churn rate due to the
> inflation of wages. There either is or isn't a global tech worker
> crunch going ( hard to figure given the US CS grad rate decrease ) and
> it seems like C-Suites are throwing money down the HR whole to put up
> hoops for folks to jump thru in order to take a gig in the US but
> don't mind off shoring completely. I just don't get the dichotomy of
> thought...
>
> My real concern re: this list is related to my wife's work in
> disabilities services ( UCP in NAshville ). In the US 70% of folks
> with disabilities are unemployed -- the number one and two reasons
> being the cost of accessible transportation to the work site and the
> cost of health insurance. The catch 22 is that if you don't have a job
> you can't afford insurance or the accessible van. If you don't have
> your health, you can't get a job. Since a lot of these folks live in
> rural areas with poorer healthcare systems to begin with ( and don't
> even get me started on how many petro dollars we could save for better
> use elsewhere if we cut out unnecessary commuting ) it seems weird to
> me that more "church" techies don't take up the banner to promote this
> theme given its self-enablement possibilities.
>
> I step off my rant box...
>
> On Nov 15, 2007 6:46 AM, Micah Yoder <yoderm at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just curious -- has your management ever considered sturcturing the work so
> that at least some of these positions could be done remotely a la
> culturerx.com ? I monitor the tech press re: the C-Suite complaints
> regarding hiring tech workers and they all ( gross exaggeration ) seem  to
> miss the point that the "relocate your family to another local -- often {
> not in your case apparently } to a real estate market which isn't
> supportable with typical tech salaries only to by outsourced when you
> arrive" fear is a relevant factor in these decisions.
>
> I can't speak for management, but I don't think so.  Being on the
> phone with customers is a big part of it.  There's no inherent reason
> why it couldn't be done, in fact there is a VPN where you can work
> remotely if you need to (though I think the phone integration requires
> Windows).  But there's also the teamwork aspect.
>
> There's not too much to worry about in this case -- the company is
> growing like mad.  If you haven't heard, they bought an abandoned mall
> in San Antonio to relocate to, and have a bunch of new tax breaks
> contingent on hiring about 3000 more people in the next 5 years. :)
>
> Of course you may have heard about our datacenter outages this week.
> That was kind of nuts. :)  By far the biggest interruption in service
> the company has ever experienced.  There was a bit of fear as to how
> it would financially damage the company, and it obviously will to some
> extent.  But I think we came through it strong, showing customers what
> real service is all about.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Ed Dodds
> Strategist, Systems Architect
> <Conmergence />
> facilitating convergence
> dodds at conmergence.com
> http://blog.conmergence.com
>
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-- 
Ed Dodds
Strategist, Systems Architect
<Conmergence />
facilitating convergence
dodds at conmergence.com
http://blog.conmergence.com