Humour saves

This week I finally ‘met’ someone who I will be working with over the next few weeks, maybe even months. I use quotes around met because I rarely get to meet my colleagues. I work from home (I live in Hull, Quebec—just across the river from Ottawa, Ontario) for a company based in New Brunswick. (I haven’t even ‘met’ my supervisor, even though I have been working with Lee for nearly 4 months.) I have met most of my Ottawa area colleagues, but very few others: employees of this company are scattered all over North America, from coast to coast, and as of early this year, overseas.

Working from home and conducting all of your business by phone and through email is not an easy thing. For all the fact that telecommuting has been touted as the way of the future since the early 80s, industry has been very slow in developing effective attitudes, strategies and policies for creating a environment where effective working relationships can be both built and maintained over long distances and across time zones (where some team members are going to bed just as others are getting up).

What invariably suffers from the fairly outdated management principles still in practice is the sense of community. There is no water cooler. No photocopier or coffee station. Developing and maintaining personal connections with the people you work ‘beside’ is not nearly as natural when you have never actually met as it is when you can meet face to face on an almost daily basis. The team building and moral boosting plans they come up with invariably require proximity: you must work at head office to participate in any of them, which leaves the remote workers (more than half of the company’s employees) feeling like second class citizens within the corporation. (I am still waiting for the company magnet, supposedly distributed to all employees, so that when the corporate ‘Secret Shopper’ visits my cubicle I will be eligible for the prize awarded for prominently displaying said magnet. I have totally given up on the ice cream gift certificate promised a year ago.)

Anyways, back to my ‘meeting’ a new colleague. Her name is Greshma, and she lives and works in Bangalore, India. And as best as I can tell, given that we have just 'met', she and I are going to get on like a house on fire.

We had our first ‘meeting’ this past Thursday morning; a conference call set up by Lee (who has just spent a few months over in India putting together the partnership project between my company and the India firm). The agenda was simply to introduce me and Greshma to each other and for the three of us to go over the work to be done over the next month while Lee is on vacation. The call lasted about 15 or 20 minutes and consisted of hellos, a review of some project highpoints, and Greshma and I saying how much we would miss Lee while he was gone. Not really much space for the kind of convivial conversation that would allow Greshma and me to become really acquainted. One of the final acts of this conversation was Greshma and I exchanging our Messenger ID’s.

The call ended, and the first thing I did was to check on the company’s virtual office site for any details about Greshma. I located her self description, and knew that I was totally in luck:

If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax; I'd limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

I was just reading this over when the Messenger window requesting authorization for Greshma appeared. I authorized, and within seconds we started chatting. About family, pets, food, philosophies of life, and a lot of stuff I no longer remember; about 20 minutes of very important trivialities. This is how you build a team: one relationship at a time.

The beginning of my day is the end of hers, and to open or close a day with a simple chat can go a long, long way towards building a personal relationship in the long-distance world of the telecommuter that no corporate exercise (like ‘Secret Shoppers’ visiting cubicles and handing out prizes, or ice cream socials) ever could ever accomplish. A Messenger (Yahoo, ICQ, whatever) chat can bridge the chasm of relationship building where face-to-face meetings are unlikely or even impossible. And, to mix my metaphors, humour is very often the grease on the skids.

“I would be sillier…” To read that Greshma felt silliness an important aspect of a good life instantly drew me to her: silliness is a specialty of mine. (I also do irreverence, but we can go into that another time.)

“I would take fewer things seriously.” That ties into a favorite quotation of mine. “Always take your work seriously. Never take yourself seriously.” (Dame Margot Fonteyn) I can take myself incredibly seriously at times, and I often have to make a concerted effort not to. The Fonteyn quote often helps me get back on track again.

I am very lucky. I have several colleagues (only two of whom I have met face-to-face) that have great senses of humour. Most don't get me, but at 50+ I cannot NOT be who I am.

Making a friend of a colleague over very long distances is ever-so-much easier if you joke together. (Good emoticons also help!)