Working From Home

Well, it is snowing again today--this makes an accumulated total of snow that is almost twice what is normal for this area. Being that I live about 15 miles from where I work--and very slippery, nasty miles in this weather--I telecommute on days like today. I work in a small museum that does not have the technical capability that a bigger institution might have, but I have figured out a few work-arounds.

Google is my life line now. I set up a Gmail account just for work and configured the POP mail setting to download all my mail from our server at work. I have moved my appointment calendar, task lists, email and everything out of Outlook and into Google so I can access it from anywhere. I set up a custom signature with my work contact info and configured my settings so that my work email address is all that shows rather than the Gmail address.

I use Google Notifier on my Mac laptop. It lets me know if I have mail and lets me preview what has come in without opening my email. I can click on "go to inbox" in Notifier and it logs me right in. On my computer at work, which is Windows, I have the Google Desktop with a Gmail notifier, calendar, time zone clocks, etc. This way, I don't have to keep a browser window open to see if I have email coming in.

I customized the iGoogle interface by adding a project management tab and adding a widget for to do lists that lets me set up more than one list. I have just started using Evernote for projects and Alltop to scan for news topics. Google Alerts is set to scan for specific key words for any given project that I am working on and the results emailed to me once a day. I also have a reader gadget that lets me preview content of my Google Reader, a YouTube gadget that lets me search for interesting videos from other museums, a Twitter gadget that lets me post from inside iGoogle, and a gadget that lets me see any new books on Project Gutenberg (because I am a glutton for information) and so on.

I have three Google calendars set up (so far)--one for museum programming, one for meetings and such that are work related, and one for personal appointments. They all show on one calendar, but in different colors and I can turn off a calendar simply by clicking on it in the left hand menu. I added a widget that shows all my upcoming appointments on the left side of the screen and a chat widget on the right side, but I stay invisible so I don't have interruptions. I can set email or pop-up reminders for any of my calendar items. I also added a Gmail notifications feature that emails an agenda to me each day with my appointments listed. Google calendars can also be embedded in a web page, a feature I intend to play with when I get the programming calendar finalized. I can also allow others so see or edit my calendars with customized settings for each calendar. Skype video chat allows me to connect to others if they feel the need for a face to face meeting and I can upload documents into Google Docs so others can preview them or work on them.

I am still exploring options for telecommuting, but so far I am quite happy with what I have, and it is all free!

Meet my son, the watchmaker

My son, Adam, has taken on a new adventure--starting his own business. I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of how hard he has worked at it. He went to school to become a WOSTEP certified watch repair technician and then branched out to clocks by working with a mentor who is a retired master clockmaker. He just launched his new web site for his business--Keeper of Time. So please help an honest, hardworking young person if you know anyone who needs repair work done on a clock or watch.

This has almost become a lost art. There are only a few WOSTEP certified schools in the US and they only turn out about 6-12 students each per year. Most of the people in my son's guild are nearing retirement age. Yet they all stay busy with clocks and watches, many with weeks of work stacked up. For tech-savvy professionals like my son, the Internet opens up even more opportunities for business.

Right after high school, Adam went to community college for one year, taking general core classes that would transfer to a bigger university. Then he decided to take a break and work for a while. I have to admit I was worried that he might end up staying in a low paying retail type of job, but after one year of living on just above minimum wage as a store clerk, he had figured out what he wanted to do. Earlier that year, he had accompanied me to the house of a woman who was the godmother of one of his friends. Mrs. Bell had picked up a piece of furniture for me in another city when visiting her godson, to save me a trip, and Adam went along to help me load it in my truck. It just happened that Mrs. Bell is a retired master clockmaker. Adam was always a tinkerer and was immediately fascinated by her workshop. She took him under her wing, taught him some simple skills, gave him a few tools and took him to a few guild meetings and that was it--he had found his niche. Completely serendipitous. They have remained close friends and she continues to be his mentor.

As a career adviser at a major university, I saw many students who were majoring in fields that just did not fit them because that was what their parents thought they should do. I saw students getting a business or other professional degree for the money they thought they could make, but with little thought to what the job would actually entail or how good a fit it was for them. As a teacher in a small high school, I saw many resources and much encouragement for those students who were "college material", but little for those students who weren't considered to be college bound. I don't know about the rest of you, but my experience has been that good plumbers and mechanics are every bit as hard to find as good doctors.

If you have college-bound students, encourage them to do some career exploration--job shadowing, internships, volunteer work, informational interviews--there are many ways to gain experience in a field to see if it is a good fit. A high school or college advising office can help your students find the right resources. Career fulfillment is different for everyone and everyone should have the opportunity to find their niche in the world, IMHO. I think my son has definitely found his.

Career Options

One of the hard decisions we are often faced with is whether or not to stay on the career path we started oh so many years ago. We often have to make major decisions about our professional lives while we are too young to have the experience to make those decisions. Many baby-boomers in particular are now asking themselves if they are in the right place or not.

After years of working in a variety of professional staff positions in higher education, I am now taking a different tack in education as the curator of education at the Hubbard Museum of the American West. I am excited, but apprehensive, having become somewhat jaded over the years. I will hold my thoughts for now.