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We talked about it for years: People will be able to live and work, almost anywhere, with internet capabilities.
For awhile, it didn't seem to happen, in my little town. There was still a wrinkling of noses about moving away from the 9-5 cubicle crowd and trading the sidewalk cafes for country visitas.
Well..in the last 5 years, my little town has acquired a brick interior coffee house with an arty crowd, the grocery store put in a deli and the new Subway catches all the Jeep traffic going thru this burg.
Just had a conversation with with another guy who's building a new home on the lake. He's from New Jersey, been living in Dallas. Can telecommute his job.
His new neighbor is from LA....works what's left of his securities job by flying his own plane..and, telecommuting.
3 others w/similar stories, came in last year.
We're still small and far away. Always will be because the Ogallala Aquifer can't sustain everybody. BUT, I think that I am finally seeing people around who are not tied to a geographically located office building.
Anyone else just now, starting to feel this wave??
I haven't met anyone in my town that telecommutes, but I am sure there are some. We were excited a few years ago when the new hosptial (Went from an 8 bed hospital to a 25 bed hospital!) put in a teleconference room. They are allowing doctors from our area to use it for consults wether the patient is in the hospital or not. Between that a new traffic light, that is about all the tech advances we have had, lol.
We don't have any artsy coffee shops. We do have a tiny cafe with HORRIBLE live music. We had a neat coffee shop with live poetry readings and other fun things, but they closed about 5 years ago. Cowboy poetry has an audience when we have it a few times a year.
We used to telecommute regularly when we lived in Seattle (to avoid traffic - ugh!); and my husband could still telecommute (from the middle of nowhere in Alaska) if he wanted to pick up any contract programming jobs. Not geographically tied with a job in any way other than having a stable platform for the satellite dish.
Doesn't mean we want a Starbucks with WiFi down in the village though!
We used to telecommute regularly when we lived in Seattle (to avoid traffic - ugh!); and my husband could still telecommute (from the middle of nowhere in Alaska) if he wanted to pick up any contract programming jobs. Not geographically tied with a job in any way other than having a stable platform for the satellite dish.
Doesn't mean we want a Starbucks with WiFi down in the village though!
that was the biggest problem i looked at in diff places to retire at was the ultra highspeed internet connection for doing part time work from my old job useing videoing confernceing system to watch what was going on at the time..
to me as long as i had a way to telecommute i could do my job ..so i still thinking about it ..
Satellite isn't ultra-highspeed, but it gets the job done most of the time. VoIP is slow and choppy for the most part, and Teleconferencing can be a hassle, but it does work. Yes, I love to have the same kind of speeds we had with FiOS, but not at the expense (money & peace) of the development that would be necessary to lay FiOS out here.
I think that more accessible highspeed internet via satellite, cable or FiOS is allowing many more people to "retire" early, move out to a rural setting like they want, while continuing to maintain some income remotely. Many folks support their homesteads and small farms with "off farm" work, either one or both partners... and that used to mean actually being off the farm. Telecommuting allows you to have an "off-farm" job without having to be off the farm. You might still be inside in your office working, but if your partner needs your help or some emergency happens (as is common on a farm or homestead) you're still there. It's the ultimte complementary cottage industry... and there is so many ways to make money online, you aren't just limited to programming.
There are a great many jobs nowadays that deal soley with information, without any real need to have a central office, conferences or a storefront for physical humans... I think any company running one of those types of businesses should seriously look into telecommuting options for their employees. It reduces traffic. It reduces relocation expenses when recruiting. It reduces time lost due to illness or childcare snags. It tends to increase productivity (especially if the hours are more flexible). And it drastically reduces operating overhead - even if they bought a computer & necessary equipment for each employee AND paid for each of them to high-speed internet & a dedicated phone line it's still cheaper than renting/buying, maintaining and insuring an office building. They may also find that they can get a higher caliber of employee...folks who excel in their field but don't want to relocate.
Telecommuting is letting me move out of the NY metro area (we close on our house in Virginia mid-December). I dont even have words to express how happy I am to get the hell out of here and not have to worry about the local labor market.
Sadly my Manhattan pay has decreased about 50%, but I am still going to be very well off by southwest VA standards, so I have to really thank telecommuting for allowing me to buy a home and live comfortably.
i have been working more from the house and telecomputeing with the owners of the company i work for with a lot more jobs poping up that i can work odd hours for and i love it ..like the person said the whole thing is the teleconferencing i need the speed to see the what the tables and be able to see how and what the person is doing at the table..
so i have to have the fastest internet connection that there is ..i have talked to the one sat internet company and they have been working on a set up for the teleconferencing but it going to run into the area of about $.200.oo dollars a month for that type of speed from the sat system for the data need to be streamed live as it happens ..
so far i got the company to pay for half the bill and i pay half the bill for the internet connection i have at the house right now ..
the reason why i love it for i was starting to have a lot of heath problems with the diff things and i was looking to retire out ..plus i could take two more years of the work without have some problems at the end ..plus when bought it up to my boss about takeing some of the older guys and gals in the company who retired out and put them back to work with the idea of running outside video feed from the diff bars and casinos he owns and lets us work the diff videos that we get from the control room to work on as need ..
now iam sitting at home with the basic desktop set up and it running the progrom that hooked up to a wall mounted 52.inch lcd tv the company bought and had installed in my place on the mount unit on a custom bult set desk unit to work off in the home office that does not take up a lot of space in the area with it desktop monitor area and tower and printer shelfs with a custom arm unit to hold the tv unit that can be adusted up or down to view it .. along with the internet service set up ..
i was complaining about the chair i have and he sent to the house a high end $.1800 dollar office chair that we use in the video control room .. the other day he sent me one as a gift from him for catching a guy who was stealing from the bar ..the note said quit.b--- and get back to work love S.C. plus the check in the mail..
plus i like the fact that i can work in t-shirt and scub pants from the comfort of my own home ..plus i get paid at the end of the week like clockwork ..
My family moved from "in town" to a rural location. The internet gap was a shock, and after a year there is still some animosity. The satellite provider costs twice as much as an in town cable feed, while offering about 1/4 the internet capability. It is disheartening to hear people in the grocery store discuss the reasons why they no longer use the internet.
Its because we have Broadband Internet that I can live and work here in rural Minnesota. In that regard - I'm Cyber happy.
On the other hand some of the younger locals have xbox'ed them selves into anti-social beings. Lets hope that trends downward.
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love S.C. plus the check in the mail..
