Woke up to a sunny day, looked almost like summer. Kid got up uncharacteristically early (before 9. He’s on spring break) and headed out to rock climb, and I had designs on strapping the kayak on the car and heading for the Sound. Work moved in like a storm front, though, as a client’s software upgrade I did on Friday began exhibiting unsociable traits, and some others started demanding attention.
I’m ‘Me, Inc.’, so when I’m not at a client’s site I’m working from home. Broadband is just about the coolest thing to happen for people like me, saving me and my clients travel time and sparing the atmosphere the attendant car exhaust. My morning commute on many days consists of the 18 stairsteps from my bedroom down to my desk, with a stop in the kitchen to rev up the Vapore espresso maker. I use Microsoft Terminal Server for most of my clients, PCAnywhere for a couple of others.
I remember the first time, in 1985, that I used a remote program called CloseUp. It was a real squeak getting the client to pop for a 2400-baud modem, but, running character-based programs (this was pre-Windows), I thought I was SO swell. Once people started using Windows, though, remote consulting was effectively killed until the advent of broadband.
One downside to the work-at-home thing is, well, grooming. I sleep until the last minute, pull my coffee and hit the chair just as clients call or need attention. Along about noon, I’m still in my jammies (sweatpants and fleece top, usually. The times I’ve computed in my underwear, or even less formally, are mercifully rare), unshaven and beginning to feel a certain psychological impairment.
The other downside is that, although I still do my scheduled running and Nautilus workouts every other day, I have not been getting the ambient exercise I used to get walking from the parking garage or bus stop to the office, walking out at noon to graze, etc. So, though I don’t feel like I overeat, I’ve still added 10 pounds, and that’s relatively sizeable compared to the 142 I used to peg as acceptable. I’m starting to feel like I should contrive to spend more time working at clients’, even though my connectivity to some clients is arguably better from here than in their own buildings.
I’ve considered packing up and walking to Tully’s, Zoka’s, Starbucks or the other cafes within a few minutes’ walking distance, but I’m sure I wouldn’t get much done, and I’d be self-conscious about being the pain-in-the-ass loudmouth with the cellphone earbud at the next table. But if you see such a person while trying to luxuriate over a steaming latte, cut him some slack, try not to notice his incipient paunch just starting to pooch over his belt - and reboot his laptop if he so much as glances at the pastry case.
