Scene around Victoria Railway Station in Laandan. Have these people not heard of Google Hangout or Lync or Skype or any number of other collaboration & voip services?
It can’t be that necessary for them to be in the office. Wtf? Lol! This isn’t a one off scene. It’s like this every time I go there for ITSPA council meetings.
Ok London has a great after work social scene but you can’t do that every day. It’s too expensive & takes its toll on the body. Would be easier to work from home and pop in occasionally to catch up with colleagues and go for that lemonade.
On the train on the way home the commuters all look tired and miserable. Most of them are heading for Peterborough. None of them take a drink off the trolley. Let’s say a coffee is £2. That would be £10 a week or knocking on £500 a year you would have to add to the cost of your rail season ticket. A lot more if a gin and tonic is what you need. That’s why they don’t do it. I imagine.
Unified Communications or whatever it’s called these days is the answer. You probably already use it. Just use it a bit more.
Other posts relating to commuting:
Ideas at the weekend – wear odd socks
Train wifi congested but 4G fine
11 replies on “Why would you want to commute to work?”
These are today’s wage slaves, they are required to sit in their cubicle or at their desk where their overseers can observe and control them. See http://patrickbaty.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/typing-pool.jpg or dilbert.com
The other day my wife attended a meeting, which was about a meeting she’s going to next week. A meta-meeting ?
zombies mate, zombies 🙂
They can’t use hangouts for meetings because most people have rubbish connections at home that are only fit for email and web browsing, that’s why they have to commute. This is because of many reasons, long lines, faulty lines, faulty indoor wiring, crap routers, crap computers etc. We still have a long way to go before people can teleconference. We have to start by making sure everyone everywhere has a fit for purpose connection. Digital Britain is a joke. We need more fibre. Moral and Optic. Just the money they save on coffee on the train would pay to dig a duct through their garden. The train fares would pay for the rest. It could be done.
Chris, As in the category you refer to can I ask how I persuade the powers-that-be to put a duct through my garden this side of 2020. SfBB is a pipe dream for us in our halfwayhome ….
Hi Paul, the powers that be won’t do it, they think you can get ‘superfast’ through a phone line. What you need to do is motivate your community and either do it yourselves or get a company like gigaclear to help you. Its either JFDI or wait for infinity. For infinity.
I did btw consider sticking the words “Loser, your mother works in McDonalds” in relation to commuting but decided not to as it might not be totally particularly correct although my kids weren’t to know about politics when they brought it home from their primary school playground.
Also I knew someone who worked in McDonalds. She was a lovely girl and was forced to do it because her husband only gave her a pittance for housekeeping. He worked with us as an analog chip design engineer and during the time I knew him had been given a couple of substantial pay rises to stop him from leaving. When he eventually did leave to go and work in San Diego (good ole US of A) we had a leaving do which is when I found out about his wife working in MaccyDs. I didn’t have the heart to tell her – she might not have gone with him with their substantial family.
Chris, spot on. The infrastructure is really old and we need to jump ahead. Infinity is great but it needs to be everywhere. Then after that replace with fibre properly.
Fibre everywhere would give the capacity and the reliability people need to make best use of services available.
It is amazing though how many small businesses do not invest properly in their office connectivity. The bosses spend more on their iPhones than their infrastructure!
Investing in good connectivity and equipment is as important as investing in good people. After all, your good people cannot do their best with flaky communications.
Agree Dan, but they can’t get infinity everywhere without fibre. That is the crux of the problem and the growing digital divide. You can’t get a fit for purpose connection if you are on a long copper phone line. Or one that lays on the surface of a field, or through trees and keeps breaking. Or if you live at the wrong side of a street or housing estate. There are millions of people like that. It is all glossed over in the stats and our toothless regulator OFCOM chooses not to investigate, nor do any of the ‘meeja’. Our ASA is a waste of space too. They don’t seem to realise that dial up is fed from ‘fibre’ cabs that can’t deliver ‘superfast’ on long lines either.
Chris, (sort of appropriate question at Easter-tide) Who is my (paying) community ? All the cash in my street currently is going on boxes with wheels at the corner. I may get moral support and stories about Homehub not working unless its a wet Tuesday but without a street party of somesort with teenagers present (the prime bandwidth hogs) I cannot see me rustling up a movement to persuade BT/Gigaclear/.. to rush in. I guess we are talking tens of thousands to get a ball rolling.
I just feel that especially now its summer and Aberdeen FC are playing so well that people will find better things to do with their time & money.
Tref,
I couldn’t disagree more. I love working in the office and working with people.
The evidence also supports that people who work in close proximity perform significantly better, when I was at Sloan I studied this, if I showed you the data I doubt you can come to any other viewpoint. Have a read at this http://www.amazon.com/Organization-Architecture-Innovation-Thomas-Allen/dp/0750682361 Professor Allen took the class. No more is this appropriate than in the technology space.
Neil.
Yes Neil its nice to meet up with people and work together, but instead of a small group in one area many others can be brought into the group digitally and share knowledge and best practice and good ideas. The world is shrinking and no longer works in little clusters. We need fit for purpose connectivity so that all can work together and stop wasting time and carbon travelling for a big part of our working day.