Telecommute – NY Transit Strike
On Tuesday, December 20th a key component of New York City’s infrastructure gave out in the way of a massive transit worker strike and left most of ICMediaDirect.com’s staff stranded along with millions of others in Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and elsewhere. I was watching interviews with anxious commuters and panned shots of mobbed railway stations on the morning news when I received the call. Our office in the Empire State Building would be closed. Though it was a clear inconvenience, ICMediaDirect.com was prepared for this breakdown in transportation. An inoperative transit costing the city $400 million per day in business hardly dents the course of a normal business in the life at online ad companies like ICMediaDirect.com.
Union issues aside, the idea behind this strike (or “work action”) is to wreak havoc in the workplace of the Big Apple in order to force results. So, through events wholly not of our own making we were faced with a real challenge. Though our offices are physically off limits, our day is still on. The tools of our trade – the Internet, instant messaging, email, and cell phones are up and running from our homes even as our customary buses and trains are not. A telecommute has been imposed upon us, and in turn, we’ve built an office without walls, water cooler or waiting room. Seeing a reporter interviewing a frigid bicyclist, I think “fagetaboutit.” We have the luxury of working online.
After we bid co-workers good morning and good luck through a variety of mediums, we return to the familiar client interaction, reading memos, forwarding material, and sharing data. Granted, we’ve had to tweak our routine, but making do with the hand we’ve been dealt has been a rather smooth process. Our lines of communication are open and clear as our normally defined roles continue undiminished. By no means is ICMediaDirect.com the only company in New York City doing business unimpeded in the face of this strike. The modern workplace miracles of dependable, flexible, and instantaneous communication are shared by any business that relies on skilled workers to process information and relay messages – this technological redundancy is the signature of the modern workplace.
One could even consider the mitigating effect that telecommuting may have on the effectiveness of this transit strike itself. Although the wind chill factor adds to the inconvenience of the forty-thousand chilled souls lining Seventh and 34th, they are not howling as loud as they did at the last strike in 1980.
Back in 1980, I was just a kid who liked watching cartoons, like the Jetsons. Remember that one? Think of the vision that the future held for its creators: robots, personal spaceships, moving sidewalks. The 80’s also brought us the Back To The Future movies with the time traveling car. The dream technology has always been mobility and communication. Faster. Easier. Advances in communications have surpassed speedy transit. We still ride subways and wait for buses, but I don’t need to teleport to the UK to read the Daily Mirror – it’s in the living room on my computer monitor if I want it.
The Information Age is not typified by jetcraft in our garages, but instead by an exponential upgrade in communication. With relative ease we send data, messages, voice, video – anywhere in the world. And the world comes to us. This spread of information does make the world smaller. We don’t have to make long trips to attend conferences in person. We see the tragedies and triumphs of the planet in real time. We get the news, business, entertainment we want in depth undreamt of. These are the advances that were never predicted in any popular books or movies. It was always space ships and robots for Hollywood. Still is.
This strike is allowing me to marvel at what I’ve been taking for granted every single day. In the face of such an inconvenience (this is no catastrophe, we’ve seen worse in NYC – ‘nuff said) we are uplifted by the technology that’s crept into our lives, being able to transcend the constraints of physical separation in order to keep a business running seamlessly. In basketball terms, at ICMediaDirect.com we’re comfortable playing above the rim. It’s a comforting feeling amidst a sea of municipal anxiety.
Seeing the success of a workday in what could have been a big imbroglio, I can take stock of the everyday tools I use. The other day a friend from childhood was back stateside from England and I emailed his blackberry while he was at a hockey game to tell him to call me, and he did; it was easier for him than getting the attention of the hotdog vendor. I bid my father a good morning almost every day via instant message. I remember when that man thought cable tv an extravagance and it seems like just yesterday he sent me his first email – and now he’s IMing me? Wow. Makes me feel like Elroy Jetson.
