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A phone line too far
By adamg on Wed, 05/28/2008 - 10:07am
Interesting: The Boston Department of Public Works is under investigation because of workers allegedly falsifying time cards, but the DPW director gets suspended because he did something to encourage an employee to do her work.
Oh, sure, that something was letting her telecommute from Venezuela for awhile, but there's no indication she did anything wrong or didn't do her work (even the city mouthpiece acknowledges she faces no punishment because she asked for permission).
As somebody who telecommutes, I'm thinking Hizzoner doesn't really get this whole computer-networky thing. If this woman's job consisted entirely of working on servers - and she was a systems analyst, not somebody whom the public would ever contact - it doesn't really matter where she is physically as long as the phone lines stay up. A server doesn't care if you're accessing it from down the hall or the other side of the hemisphere. VPNs truly are wondrous things, as are reliable phone links.
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Comments
Interesting
It really wouldn't surprise me if it simply isn't a rule violation when a supervisor simply doesn't bother to supervise his employees. After all, your "best friend's" indolent nephew needs that "job" for his parole and you really don't want somebody to actually, you know, make him work? Do you really want any laws getting in the way when such could be used against you by your rivals (never actually about service, you know)?
The telecommuting issue was probably the only transgression they could legally go after because of the historically high tolerance of widespread nepotism and featherbedding.
Agree and Dissagree
When I read the article my first thought was also that this employee may actually have been able to do her job from overseas, as she appears to have been a computer programmer. However, its noteworthy that the employee wasn't punished. The director of DPW was punished because this sort of arrangement is apparently against regulations and - oh by the way - his department is a den of sloth and corruption. I agree that it may be worth while for the City to revise its regulations to allow these kind of employees to telecomute (although this is more accurately called working remotely) but if the regulations are currently being violated I have no problem with this guy getting punished. Also, all City employees currently have to reside in Boston so querry how this wouldn't be bending the rules in the extreme even if telecomuting were allowed.
Telecommuting versus Outsourcing
I read the article and thought it was interesting that she was allowed to work so far away. My first thought was that she willingly took a job in Boston when her family (hubbie and kiddos) were in a different country. The city of Boston requires (maybe required?) employees to be residents of the city and then paid more to offset the cost of living in the city. I looked at a job but as a non-Boston proper resident, wasn't granted an interview.
My next thought was that telecommuting isn't a bad thing. Working from home is a great opportunity. Unfortunately, this employee is working from a different time zone on a different continent. How available is she? How available is she if there is an emergency requiring a physical presence?
How is the electric and broadband capabilities in Venezuela? From a friend who travelled last year, I know there are parts of Central and South America that periodically suffer from rolling blackouts. Wouldn't be too helpful to have an employee in IT stuck without access to the system, would it?
The decision to fire the boss that granted a four month plus plan to work from a remote location was a good one. Maybe I'm a mean person, but if the city requires everyone else to live in the city proper (not Quincy, not Somerville, not Cambridge) that would include Venezuela.
Everyone misses the real point
If she can do her job from thousands of miles away then why not just contract it to someone in Bangalore who could do it for say, $5000/year. There is no reason why the city needs to waste taxpayer money for this job.
Mayor for life Tommy should not be surprised by the no show nature of the DPW employees. Its time for these kind of services to be privatized!
At least firefighters and cops actually do some work.