Working at McDonalds

Well I never thought that after getting a college education and being hired by a top consulting firm I would end up working under the golden arches!....

No I wasn’t the fry-cook.

No I wasn’t the cashier.

No I wasn’t on drive-thru.

No I wasn’t even cleaning.

I was telecommuting.

After trying to work at my grandmother’s house with the company dial up I had to find someplace with high speed internet and hopefully wireless. Believe it or not the only such place in Bedford is the McDonalds. I suppose I could have gone to Roanoke or Lynchburg the closest cities and find a coffee shop but I didn’t think I would have much work to actually do. I was wrong! Instead I took a couple of conference calls, worked with several people on project related issues, worked on the Statement of Work for the current project (the one that should have been signed in October), and host of other activities. All-in-all I probably spent 4 hours hanging out in the McDonalds working.

I think it is really interesting thought that with a cell phone, my laptop, and a good connection to the internet I can work from anywhere. A lot of the work I don’t even need the internet. But when I do I can tell you for sure dial up is not even close to sufficient. The tools we use are simply just too bandwidth intensive. These tools, such as eRooms – a place on the internet everyone store project files—take more than five minutes per page to load. If you have to do 30 or 40 activities that is 1 ½ hours to 3 1/3 hours just waiting on pages loads. It’s just not going to happen! Well I guess I should be thankful for the development of wireless and the fact that equipment and services are so available; even if you do have to go to a McDonalds on Friday to telecommute. I personally like telecommuting much better in my own living room.