Aesop Fables or fables in general are typically stories, in Aesop’s case they are mostly about personified animals, that have a meaning or moral that is taught / revealed from the story in the end.

                History class or lessons can be taught in many ways, typically from my experience they are taught in some chronological or “period” (like the industrial age. . .) sequence, sometimes rarely it is taught in a “connections – a “need” leads to an invention to fulfill that “need” which leads to a. . .” sequence and some modern history is learned / taught from personal experiences (that’s typically us older folks / parents / grandparents – via “IN MY DAY. . . stories”!).

So what do fables and history classes have in common, typically, not much that’s important. Let face it, how much do we really remember from the history classes we took. OK, the Civil War, the dates escape me, was a war between the Northern states (Yankees - blue) and Southern states (Confederates - gray) over slavery.

We learned about it but what did we learn from it? Anything about how human beings should be treating one another? The sacrifices and hardships endured? Any field trips to the site of battles at the season (time of year) when they were fought, maybe if fought in the winter, dress in historical style clothes and stay out in the elements for a lengthy detailed history lesson? Or be an actual slave for a day?

                Let’s take one more example, that of the financial depression of 1920s, what I remember from my history classes were people were out of work, people borrowed money, lost everything some even their lives and there was an overall economic collapse. OK, that was “about the depression” but what did we learn from it? Let’s look at recent times, people borrowed money to buy things beyond their needs / means, some lost their jobs / income when the economy turned sour and they lost it all! So what did we really learn, the current newspapers would indicate “not much”!

                My late parent’s, born 1910 and 1914, remembered the depression and were passing on the stories / lessons learned to me based on their personal experiences. This is the closest I came to any really useful learning about and from (modern) history. Otherwise, why study history, there is no future in it!

The old familiar sayings of “what goes around, comes around” or “history repeats itself” tend to ring true and yet we haven’t learned to teach / pass on history fables. There are morals and lessons to be learned “from” history and it just not “about” dates, numbers, names, places and facts!

In business today we see a decline in customer service / satisfaction, a forgetting to say hello how are you today, how can I help you (and catering to the request), saying please and thank you, even speaking clearly / understandably. Will we not learn that this poor customer treatment / attention to current and upcoming needs will lead these customers to go elsewhere and possibly mean the failure of the business, even those businesses that have been around since granddad’s day?

Think back to your history classes and dwell on whether there are lessons / morals that should have / need to be learned from these past events. Why study history fables? There is your future in it!

    Most everyone dreams of working in jamies from home. Most times management starts having nightmares when their employees request to telecommute.

    Telecommuting may not be in reality a perfect dream but it doesn’t necessarily mean it is a nightmare either, although what it turns out to be may require a new mindset on both sides.

    From the employee’s side, true they may have the opportunity to work in jamies! They may also benefit from fuel / time saving from the traditional drive into work (could mean getting extra sleep too), having a more flexible work / home life schedule and being able to work without the typical workplace interruptions.

    NOW, with those dreams described comes some harsh realities! Discipline and time management become very important! With freedom comes the opportunity to perform anywhere between a slacker to a workaholic. Studies have shown that many telecommuters have the tendency to actually put in more hours “on the job” than if they went to a workplace, ie: checking and answering e-mails after dinner. On the other side, home life may have many more interruptions, aka distractions of children and at-home spouses can be big ones. You see, in most cases you don’t really change the fact that you will be interrupted, you just change the type and this is what you will have to deal with. One must consider that it is easier for most people to tell a co-worker they have a hot project and can’t be disturbed than it is to explain the same thing to your sad-faced 5-year old.

    Other possible negative risks may be employee support for hardware / software failures, health issues evolving from a more sedentary work style, poorer diet and/or improperly designed working environment and even loneliness of no longer being able to associate with colleagues around the coffee machine ect.

    From the management view it can be a night-mare-ish break from the tradition of being able to see the worker at their desk and making the assumption that they are working “for the company”! Let’s face it, you can’t watch every employee every minute of the workday and even if you could, it would be counter-productive on their part! There must be a definite strong degree of trust, a well established documented work plan and list of expectations between the employer and the employee. This last point is actually true for whether the employee is working from home or at a common workplace. Having the proper communications tools and remote secure access for the employees can significantly minimized the chances of this being a negative risk.

    Another management mindset that may be a break from tradition is expecting the employee to be “on-the-job” from “9 to 5” or whatever is considered normal working hours. Working during normal business hours at a workplace is efficient because it is designed for the purpose of working! It is not however efficient for many personal family / life issues that need to be address by the employee, therefore the employee needs to make arrangements (time off work) to address these. Many times these issues are located closer to the employee’s home than to their job meaning more travel time needs to be allocated. So since an employee is already rearranging their work load schedule to fit family / life issues does it really matter what time of day certain work gets done as long it is done within the expectations between the employer and employee? The key take-away here is a telecommuter may be able to manage their overall time better and still get their job done.

    Management benefits to having trusted telecommuters could be happier employees that won’t be as demanding for pay raises as they are accepting the ability to telecommute as compensation, more and/or improved work output, possible elimination of real estate and the related expenses or the ability to increase your workforce without relocating to a larger building and possibly tax / investment advantages related directly to supporting (green) telecommuting.

• Trust / self discipline
• Secure, reliable web / network infrastructure,
• Real-time conferencing / collaboration tools,
• Shared resources (calendars, databases, virtual workspaces. . .),
• S/W tools, hardware / software support,
• Ergonomic / healthy home "private" office environment,
• On-line resources / training.

    Since November 2008 I have been a full time teleworker and the previous 10+ years I did teleworking on a part-time "as needed" basis.