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Working remotely from home and/or Client Office

6 replies [Last post]
Sun, 2005-12-04 09:01
Gwen Blair
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Joined: 2 Jul 2004
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Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Planners

In these days of hot desking, broad band and global working, has anyone had any opportunity to work from home and only come to the office or site for critical days/meetings?
I am not talking flexidays or 9 day fortnights.
When I did tanker scheduling I talked to one Oil Trader Stateside who I always imagined to look perfectly groomed. Turned out she worked in her dressing gown, curlers, fag hanging out her mouth whilst munching through her brekkie. Now this appeals. Working remotely from home not the fag and curlers!.
Has any one done this?
If so is it easy to discipline yourself?
Do you find freinds, family, DIY, the walking dog etc a distraction during your "working hours"?
I think I would miss the craic.
Any information welcome.

Slange

NB This query has been scutinised in order not to cause global offence
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Replies

Tue, 2006-01-31 10:44
#1
Sam Nichols
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Joined: 29 Jan 2004
Posts: 10
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Gwen,

From my experience there are some planning jobs where the planner to be of any value to the project must be at the site where the work is physically being performed. The last offshore project I worked on, the onshore planning team would produce schedules that required plenty of fixing on my part to get something that was even close to resembling what the site team was planning to do with the hook up and commissioning of the platforms. These guys were good planners but they were just simply out of touch with what was really going on because of their remoteness from the site and the difficulty that they had in communicating with the people who were actaully managing and performing the work.

I find that for the planner to be able to physically see the worksite and the progress being acheived is valuable and results in far better planning product being produced than what would otherwise be the case. However I do accept that there are some planning jobs like tanker scheduling where the planner can perform the services to a high standard from anywhere be that at home or more preferably a tax free location.

SAM
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Fri, 2006-01-27 11:13
#2
Gordon Blair
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I suppose it depends on a number of factors:

i) The nature of the Project

ii) The stage of the Project

iii) The IT infrastructure of the organisation.

My last job before this, was an IT roll out for Glaxo. We were part way through the implementation phase which was due to last about 18 months, and my better half and I had a baby ... well, she had it, I just watched and complained about her squeezing my hand too hard (she didn’t seem to appreciate how much that can hurt).. anyway, for about 4 months prior to the birth, I was working from Home in Warrington, 200 miles away from the Project Office in London.

Not a problem, half the guys were at various locations around the world anyway, so all our meetings had someone, if not everybody dialled in on TC. This was made possible by Glaxo’s gearing to remote working, I had freephone dial up numbers to get in to TCs on, full remote access at good speeds, and their net meeting system was spot on.

There was very little noticable difference from being in the office, most of the banter there was done by Instant Messaging anyway as the building is hyuge. I just didn’t have to worry so much when I farted as I could now blame the dog should anyone walk in the room.

However, if I tried to work remotely with this bunch (who shall remain nameless) I’d end up resorting to carrier pigeons and smoke signals.

If your organisation is geared towards it, it can be a great solution, as long as your self discipline is up to it... AND you’d be saving the planet... enjoy that warm glow.. :o)
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Wed, 2006-01-18 13:28
#3
David Waddle
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I work from home a reasonable amount of time and for me it is easy. I start early, when normally I would be getting into the car and commuting to the office for an hour, and if I have to work late I don’t mind because it doesn’t feel so much like work. If I work late in the office, then I have that 1 hour drive home, then dinner etc on top of whatever time I leave the office compared to switching off the computer and walking next door to the living room.

Laptops, broadband and Instant Messenger and a second screen all help.

The difficulty I can see for a lot of planners, being the volumes of drawings, programme prinouts and files that they may need to refer to. Then there is the discussion of ideas with others, progress on site and so on... so really it depends upon your individual circumstance.

David
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Sat, 2005-12-10 19:24
#4
Oscar Wilde
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I used to do it in Nigeria and actually I got much more work done and I was able to use the power when it was on and eat when it wasent which unfortunatly was most of the time so I bought a lap top and lost a stone
It works really well the downside is drawings still take ages to dump out and not everybody reads from a screen so well as they say their eyes get tired
Now where is my white stick
Actually they are usually the ones who cant read for that long as their lips get tired also

Oscar
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Sat, 2005-12-10 09:41
#5
Shahzad Munawar
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In globalization period, it is essential to work remotely from home or office not limited to himself to home or office for prcatical purposes.
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Sun, 2005-12-04 11:53
#6
Bernard Ertl
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Working by remote

Bernard Ertl
InterPlan Systems
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