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

Thu Nov 15 13:13:18 CST 2007

One of the reasons I was able to come up to the rural mountains to  
plant a church is because of remote work.  I worked for a couple  
different firms as a remote for the past few years.  In June when I  
got laid off, I could find only one remote QA job, and I wasn't  
really qualified.  So now I work in an office, at a bank, and have my  
schedule dictated by the corporate machine.

I'd love to see a resurgence in remote tech work of various kinds.

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 8:05 AM, Ed Dodds wrote:

> 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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>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Ed Dodds
> Strategist, Systems Architect
> <Conmergence />
> facilitating convergence
> dodds at conmergence.com
> http://blog.conmergence.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> ChristianSource FSLUG mailing list
> Christiansource at ofb.biz
> http://cs.uninetsolutions.com

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