Telecommuting, a big debate since 2020, but a habit for much longer for me

Hello over here 🙂,

Thank you for clicking on this article, I hope as always you enjoy it 😁.

This week, we're going to talk about a hot topic, well hot ... when I see the heated debates on LinkedIn that I never take part in, because I find it a debate that is a bit pointless.

And yes, I'm talking about telecommuting, I don't really understand all the fuss about this practice, but hey, why not, today I'm going to give a bit of my vision of the thing and above all: how I've been working all these years in fact...

Well, this blog has been around for four years, but of course, that's not all I do 😛.

Are you ready? Here we go 🙂.

World of Warcraft: the teleworker factory

You weren't expecting this one, were you?

Why am I telling you about WoW? Because I think it was this game (well, it's more of a social phenomenon than a game) that got me used to the codes of telecommuting and therefore: that explains why, for me, it's the norm.

A bit of history (in Azeroth).

During my teenage years, I tinkered a lot with my computer (no kidding? 😛 ), video games were part of what I did on my computer, but it wasn't what I did for the most part, I tinkered with servers, Linux, I programmed ... etc.

One day, the people I was playing Team Fortress 2 with were all on this game: World of Wacraft... we were at the end of "Burning Crusade", so I followed without much conviction... then ...

The forest of Strangleronce got the better of me, I was on a player-versus-player server. I'd had enough of being pummeled by high-level players, so I quit the game...

Come on, are we really going?

At one point, everyone's getting restless: the new expansion is coming, "Wrath Of The Lich King". I don't understand it, but given the excitement, I say to myself ... mom, will you please buy me the video game? 😁.

So I take my Tauren fighter up to level 80 (what a mistake ... a Tauren fighter 🤣).

Once level 80, I start to get interested in "PVE" for "Player Against Environment", for this, it's best to join a group (a guild) in order to build up a sufficient group of players to be able to advance in the content offered by Blizzard.

At first, I stick to small groups of 10 players...

At a high level, isn't a guild a bit like a company?

As the months went by, I had some bad experiences. I remember one evening I was verbally trashed because I hadn't understood a boss's strategy... so I decided to leave the guild in question.

But as time went by, I finally found a group of 25 players with whom I felt comfortable, and we moved on...

You've got to be on time for the raid, with your compositions...

And that's what I'm getting at.

When you were doing PVE HL in WoW, you had to get 25 people to do their share of the job, you had to :

• Arrive on time for raids: 8:30 p.m. isn't 9 p.m., let alone 10 p.m., because your colleagues are waiting for you...
• Arrive with an optimized character: you had to prepare this before the raid, know your class and the stats that boost it, and know which buttons to press. And above all, you had to keep all this information up to date.
• Arriving with your flasks, potions and food: again, things to prepare beforehand. These things are consumables, and you had to do what you needed to do beforehand to have everything on you when you entered the raid, otherwise, no raid.

People to manage from a distance

In addition to everything I've mentioned above, there's also the whole human dimension. Later, I was an officer (I had to manage our group of players with others)... and I saw what it was like to manage human beings...

Already, on a raid 25, you don't have 25 people in your group, but more 35, because it's far too dangerous to have the "pilpoil" number of people, you need replacements, people who are there in case of disconnection...

And the thing is, all these people have to be managed:

• Conflicts can arise, for example, over loot that has been distributed to one person rather than another.
• They're human beings, they have lives, and therefore, unforeseen events.
• People and their desires change, and someone who is highly motivated at one moment may not care two months later, because their motivations are elsewhere.

To sum up, I'm talking about WoW in this paragraph, because for me, it reminds me of running a small business.

And this small business is run exclusively from home: in fact, I still have friends all over France thanks to this game.

So, from a very early age, this game instilled in me the values of rigor, and all this while "telecommuting".

If you wanted to be competitive on this game (at the time, I don't know about today), you had to be very rigorous. If you were lax, you'd be out of the raid group in no time.

In the professional world, it's exactly the same: if you want to maintain good working relationships and be taken seriously, rigor is essential. Laxity, on the other hand, will get you excluded just as quickly as a bad raider.

(I'm well aware that this paragraph is "harsh").

Finally, I'd like to end this paragraph with : FOR THE HORDE (yeah, we yell a lot, but we're not mean).

How did I work on a permanent contract? Telecommuting, face-to-face or hybrid?

Before we get to today's part, which is 100% freelance, we're going to take a moment to go back a few years, when I did 3 years on a permanent contract (the only time in my life, in fact).

From 2017 to 2020, I was on a permanent contract and my approach to telecommuting was hybrid.

Why did you choose hybrid working?

There's a reality that many people refuse to hear, but which is very real, and that is that not everyone knows or wants to work from home.

In my company, this was the case, where talking by message, on Teams for example, meant that for many people, notifications were lost...

So, even though I was completely capable of working remotely, with my background in WoW, I still had to come into the office to talk about various subjects. It would have been complicated to deal with these subjects remotely, because not all the information passed through properly with remote communication tools.

After all, that was the case in this particular company, but in another company with people much more accustomed to working remotely, it might have been less necessary.

However, even if it's not really my case, people need to maintain a social, physical link, something I learned even more about later... we'll come back to that later.

How do I work as a freelancer?

Since 2020, I've been 100% independent...

Telecommuting depends on geographical location

In my case, I live in Nancy, a charming medium-sized city in the Grand Est region of France. If I only had customers in this area... it would be complicated.

In IT in Nancy, there's nothing, really...

And the thing is, it's out of the question for me to leave the region; you don't abandon people who have always been there. We never do.

So to make up for that, for the last 4 years, I've mostly been working from home.

Telecommuting, the default solution

Today, as a freelancer, I have clients all over France, and here's a short, non-exhaustive list:

• Paris: Well yes, of course, when I have to go and say hello, the TGV comes in handy.
• Caen: Very nice, but a bit far to go every day, isn't it?
• Lille: I love the atmosphere in the north, but I can't get there every day either.
• Toulouse: The south is there too 😁.
• Mulhouse: I'm fine with Alsace, go to our beer capital (Strasbourg), but getting to Mulhouse every day complicated.

With this little non-exhaustive list, you'll have understood why I can't necessarily always do face-to-face.

So, how does it work?

Well, given that the trust is there, the problem doesn't really arise, after I've come to say hello the first time (people like to see you in person! it's factual) or drop in from time to time, no problem 🙂.

On the whole, I work with people who know how to telecommute, which is why things go so well. If customers had no idea how to work remotely, it would be complicated.

Everyday tools

To be effective when telecommuting, you need several things:

• My e-mail inbox is clean: no unnecessary spam, if you send me an e-mail with THE SUBJECT IN CAPITAL LETTERS, then you'll be filtered out immediately, I absolutely mustn't miss any crucial information, and to do that I have to remove all unnecessary distractions.
• Not in contacts? No ringing: My phone doesn't ring when calls come in from people who aren't in my contacts. In telecommuting, the phone is one of the communication tools that keeps you connected to the people you're working with, so there's no need to be interrupted unnecessarily, but someone has a question? You need to see them.
• The videoconferencing platform: As far as I'm concerned, Teams is THE STAR, because it's so widely used in the corporate world.
• A reliable Internet connection: I used to be with SFR on an unstable, catastrophic connection for private individuals, which meant I wasted a lot of time. I also had a few scares, with the connection dropping 10 minutes before an important videoconference... Since July 2024, I've been with Free Pro, and so far, so good.

Rigor: the key word

No, just because you work from home doesn't mean you can go shopping in the afternoon, or take the dog out ... and so on.

I think that one of the reasons why companies are cautious about telecommuting is all the abuses that have taken place... But that's not the only reason, real estate investments are another, for example.

In short, I've been telecommuting for 4 years now (but not all the time), and it works, if you respect the other human beings who work with you...

Then, I must say, what a pleasure to see people you work with at the restaurant when they pass by your corner 🙂. (plus, in Nancy, I know my way around a restaurant).

So you're against face-to-face meetings?

Absolutely not.

I'm only against the toxicity: working with a company and having people on my back is a no-no for me, in fact I could lie and say "oh it's fine, we'll deal with it" but in fact... no.

My body lets me know violently when I'm in an unholy environment, it knows how to make me understand, and I can't go against it.

We're not the center of the world

Never forget that other human beings around you have their own needs and perceptions of the world... things that to you seem incidental are essential to them.

Here's an example: on one of the projects I'm involved in (so we're not talking about classic customer relations), the fact that we don't see each other very often didn't really shock me (World Of Warcraft ... all that).

Except that, as one of the other members of this small team, she needed to see me from time to time, to see that I was doing well, that I hadn't changed... and just to chat from time to time.

And as I said above: I'M NOT THE CENTER OF THE WORLD, so I move my royal butt once a month to visit her, we chat, we take news whether it's projects or more personal.

And everyone's happy.

There's no such thing as easy money

I realize that in this article, I'm putting a lot of emphasis on the rigor that World Of Warcraft has instilled in me, and its importance in the professional world.

I'll be frank and direct: when people pay you, it's because they need what you do...

No right to crash (bonus)

In my "sides projects", there's ViteUneTable, the online reservation application... I coded it almost entirely from home.

Over time, this application has grown in size, and the Frères Marchand restaurant uses it as its default reservation method, and people now book through it.

What if I crash? I'm having too much of a negative impact on the smooth running of the restaurant.

So I'm not allowed to crash.

That's the kind of rigor I'm talking about 🙂.

Projects like that, I have at least three today.

In the end, whether telecommuting or face-to-face, there's always a requirement for rigor and reliability that's imposed on every professional.

Conclusion

And so, this article comes to an end... and I've tried not to break anyone by writing it.

I think this subject, like many others, can be settled by taking the time to "listen" to others 😁.

There are real arguments for telecommuting (and I know what I'm talking about, since Nancy ...), just as there are real reasons for face-to-face.

On that note, take care... I've got a raid! (I'm just kidding, I'm going to do PHP).

See you soon. 😁