The fact is a lot of us are really doing what all those paranoid managers think we are doing. We are dropping off and picking up the kids from school; running errands that are close to home and thus inconvenient when we do 8-5; starring out the window (which I can open – sorry, I’m pretty sure that topic is a reply to someone else’s post); chatting to Mum on the phone; and wearing our underwear!

The bit that the paranoid managers don’t get is that I’m still getting more work done than when I am in the office! As my wife points out, no meetings; no getting caught into the 7-hour-a-day-relay-chat ‘over the partitions’; no slipping downstairs for a smoke/latte/snog with my girlfriend who I work with; no wandering into the lunchroom to fill my cup and getting caught up in the 7-hour-a-day-relay-chat ‘in the kitchenette’; and, I’ll repeat it, no meetings.

A lot of this is about trust. And I believe that just as much is about ‘setting clear expectations about work volume and work quality’ and ‘managing performance/non-performance’.

…Geoff