People are estranged / alienated from their own work products. Commuting and remote work both add to that. When workers have more control over what they produce, with less reference to what others (e.g., in the marketplace) want, they can be more connected to their own work products.
I hear this. I commuted for two years before the pandemic between Guelph and downtown Toronto. It was a 4-hour round trip between the bike ride to the train station, the train, the bike share on the TO side and then back again. Guelph felt like a bedroom city and my heart stayed in Toronto. How I loved getting my lunch Ritualed! How I often stayed late (really late) after work to eat and/or drink at my favourite watering holes, both downtown and in my old residential neighbourhoods.
Then the Pandemic. And full remote. And complete isolation.
And now, well, I'm sick of my home office, as well-appointed as it is. I would gladly welcome a commute - in fact one of my clients / contracts is in Concord, and just getting to an office - even one that's over 100km away - is a genuine delight. I have another contract in Hamilton. And yet another for a BC-based head office. And another in Georgetown.
Nothing here in Guelph where I live.
I'm not yet at Brydon's enlightened stage of wanting to invest back in our city in terms of the brain trust. I can get there for sure, but I'm selfishly just trying to solve the problem of getting the heck out of my closed-loop home office and back into a world full of different ideas, energy, excitement and potential.
There are days where I say f*ck it. I'm just going to get an engineering middle management role at some local Insurance company and phone it in for the next decade. Then I swallow what I just threw up in my mouth and chase it with a shot of tequila. That would also be death.
One antidote has been to join as a Director of GORBA, our local mountain bike association (Guelph Off-Road Biking Association). It's a tight community, we gather multiple times a week for group rides, and there is lots of work to be done where I can bring my decades of tech leadership experience. But that really feels like a guilty pleasure, which I must squeeze into the cracks between paying work. And the nature of a fractional CTO (it should be called "fragmented") is that there's always more work than there is time in the day (especially when you take the cost of task-switching into account).
The Shared working space over by Fixed Gear in the Junction looked perfect. Beer! Fixed Gear bicycles! Progressive shared working environment! A minimum investment of nearly $1,000 a month and a super unfriendly administrator who seems to answer emails in terse, single sentence replies. What about hot-desking? I just need to come in a day or two a week, when I feel restless, when I need to get out into the world. When the ADHD brain is distracted by cats, homeschooled kids, the wife's ADHD brain, not to mention the ever constant pull (in warmer months at least) to get the hell outside and RIDE.
I need a home away from home to plug in the laptop, grab a (non homebrewed) coffee, smile at a barrista, get a compliment on my sick ride, overhear a tech problem and maybe offer an unsolicited solution, meet some creative like-minded folks, grab a beer after work.
People are estranged / alienated from their own work products. Commuting and remote work both add to that. When workers have more control over what they produce, with less reference to what others (e.g., in the marketplace) want, they can be more connected to their own work products.
Guelph to KW for about 5 years, then Hamilton to TO for 2.
Never again, if I have any control or ability to make a local or remote-first role work.
So happy to have a fully remote role now, and I get to be involved in my neighbourhood - and family! - so much more.
It was definitely work the ~$50k/yr haircut.
I hear this. I commuted for two years before the pandemic between Guelph and downtown Toronto. It was a 4-hour round trip between the bike ride to the train station, the train, the bike share on the TO side and then back again. Guelph felt like a bedroom city and my heart stayed in Toronto. How I loved getting my lunch Ritualed! How I often stayed late (really late) after work to eat and/or drink at my favourite watering holes, both downtown and in my old residential neighbourhoods.
Then the Pandemic. And full remote. And complete isolation.
And now, well, I'm sick of my home office, as well-appointed as it is. I would gladly welcome a commute - in fact one of my clients / contracts is in Concord, and just getting to an office - even one that's over 100km away - is a genuine delight. I have another contract in Hamilton. And yet another for a BC-based head office. And another in Georgetown.
Nothing here in Guelph where I live.
I'm not yet at Brydon's enlightened stage of wanting to invest back in our city in terms of the brain trust. I can get there for sure, but I'm selfishly just trying to solve the problem of getting the heck out of my closed-loop home office and back into a world full of different ideas, energy, excitement and potential.
There are days where I say f*ck it. I'm just going to get an engineering middle management role at some local Insurance company and phone it in for the next decade. Then I swallow what I just threw up in my mouth and chase it with a shot of tequila. That would also be death.
One antidote has been to join as a Director of GORBA, our local mountain bike association (Guelph Off-Road Biking Association). It's a tight community, we gather multiple times a week for group rides, and there is lots of work to be done where I can bring my decades of tech leadership experience. But that really feels like a guilty pleasure, which I must squeeze into the cracks between paying work. And the nature of a fractional CTO (it should be called "fragmented") is that there's always more work than there is time in the day (especially when you take the cost of task-switching into account).
The Shared working space over by Fixed Gear in the Junction looked perfect. Beer! Fixed Gear bicycles! Progressive shared working environment! A minimum investment of nearly $1,000 a month and a super unfriendly administrator who seems to answer emails in terse, single sentence replies. What about hot-desking? I just need to come in a day or two a week, when I feel restless, when I need to get out into the world. When the ADHD brain is distracted by cats, homeschooled kids, the wife's ADHD brain, not to mention the ever constant pull (in warmer months at least) to get the hell outside and RIDE.
I need a home away from home to plug in the laptop, grab a (non homebrewed) coffee, smile at a barrista, get a compliment on my sick ride, overhear a tech problem and maybe offer an unsolicited solution, meet some creative like-minded folks, grab a beer after work.
Where could such a haven exist?
Hmmm...well stayed tuned here. I share most of these needs and I'm hoping to help us find some improvements.