They predicted 1-2" of rain tonight, and I swear there have been 3" fallen already. The office roof has a rather transparent insulation and while it is not exactly rain on a flat tin roof, it is not far off of that. I find that it is a sort of comforting sound as long as there aren't any drips falling exactly you, I guess.
When I visit in Atlanta my days in the office are typically 12 hours long, from 7 to 7. It reminds me of graduate school days, honestly. I have nothing to do when I am here but work, and then to take myself out for a good dinner if I can. Skimp on lunch and am still hungry. Tonight I'm hungry. I'm sitting at a Longhorn's steak house waiting for a prime rib dinner, enjoying a Sam Adams lager. What could be better?
The other thing that happens when I visit here is that I get reintegrated into the company. My biggest problem with working remotely is that I miss the daily interactions with people. Phone conversations are different than face to face conversations. That, and I can have multiple contacts over the course of a day. I am of the opinion that remote working can be productive, and I feel that I am productive when I work from my home office, but I am more productive when I am here, no question.
I had lunch today with a customer. Their office is in Kennesaw, which is 45 minutes away driving at 70 miles an hour. As a crow flies it is actually fairly close, but there is no road here as the crow flies! You have to take the super slab, and that takes longer. Anyway, I had not met this customer before and we seemed to hit it off very well. I have 2 large packages bid to his company and he gave me good feedback about both projects. Nice.
We are actually facing the enviable problem of having too much work shortly. The pent up demand seems to breaking out into Go Projects as 2011 opens up, and there are indications that this will accelerate. Good news for us, but also a problem. Deliveries are slipping out, cost are creeping up, and engineering is getting hard to get applied to projects. With so many "window shoppers" of the past couple of years now converting to the beloved category of Buyers, things could be looking up. And lots of them are in my western territory. Yum!
So, you can see that the On The Road nature of my blog can mean At Work. Sorry if this isn't what you are interested in, but this is what is on my mind today. Tomorrow I shift locations and begin to attend the MOTAG meeting at the Atlanta Airport Hilton, with a fair amount of drinking with old friends, lying to competitors, and sniffing out new projects. Perhaps my blog will take on a different tone...
About what do you lie to your competitors? I just have to say, Will and I have been watching The Office lately and are highly amused by their company's idiosyncrasies. Perhaps this is like some of your "water cooler chat" that you're missing by working remotely.
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't get overwhelmed. At least you'll be getting commission!
I think the "lying to competitors" is not a very good way to say that. It sullies your integrity. Maybe something like "avoidance tactics" or something that is truthful, but not not the divulging of info that could hamper your company's efforts.
ReplyDeleteWhen a competitor asks you how things are going, the standard response is, "Things are great, but I'm not worried, they will improve soon!" That is what I mean by that statement. Actually, competitors are the ones you have the most in common with at meetings like this, and are also the ones you see the most at meetings. You better be able to get along with them!
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