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spiderwebs
the remote worker, is by defintion, remote. in radio shack terms, that's a 5' wire and a control box. bluetooth, about 8' and a nice battery charge, (assuming line of sight).
historically speaking, remote might be just across the river, or 'just through those trees, o'er there.' --considered in emotional terms of a failed relationship, remote can be an unchartable, even on an infinite plane. (e.g. my mother does not remotely understand the motives of my father)...
professionally speaking, 'remote' can simultaneously be a godsend from micromanagement, or a sentencing in perceived value.
that said, it is the dark times, those days when clouds hang in cuba and people meet in small packs, murmuring, that the remote worker truly understands remote.
passive information channels like cubespeak, breakroom banter, and bathroom stall conversations expire as conduits, leaving the remote worker seperated both physically and emotionally.
evolving, as all life must, the modern remote worker learns to become an information spider. it spins its web, carefully constructing new channels via new mediums; embracing technology to facilitate information flow that is historically benign.
in absence of the author's face, emotions are lost in email; sarcasm misinterpreted, great wit condemned as sophomoric reverie.
channels must then be constructed in complex patterns... months of observing how news migrates through these different mediums, how each snippet follows different paths, and is in turn altered by them. multiple signals allow triangulation, and with triangulation, the information spider learns to judge distance, probability, and veracity.
it becomes clear that the more exposed web you lay, the more signals you catch; a larger dataset to interpret: quantify, qualify.
i am an information spider. my web: multinational, multimedia, multilingual. it is a triumph. ceasar would shudder with envy; napolean, powerless in his lust. it is this grand, yet, it's just a shadow of it's former self.
my web: tattered, torn, improbably patched, and i, sitting quietly in the center. it's dancing today, dancing on every line, and the informationspider wonders if this new wind is strong enough to blow it all away.
close your eyes. close the conference windows, the webcams, turn down the ringer, and ignore your email.
breathe in, breathe out.