13 employees
1991 – 1999 SVP Gateway Consumer
1981 – 1990 Marketing Manager Texas Instruments Latin America Division
There are many many advantages to working in a virtual company. I will try to be as comprehensive as possible. Perhaps the largest advantage is time. Although people don’t think about it, they spend between 8-9 hours a day working. But they also spend a minimum of 2-3 hours a day preparing for and traveling to and from work. All this time suddenly becomes yours. You gain anywhere from 10-15 hours a week to do whatever you want. You become vastly more productive. Personally, I like to get in a good run every other day. Hand in hand with the extra time is that you have a lot more time to spend with your family and children. My wife runs out of the house but I can wake up leisurely and enjoy part of the morning with the kids before they go to school. It is truly quality time. On a practical level, your expenses go down. Quite a bit of money in many company’s is spent on wardrobe. In a virtual company, people tend to wear very comfortable clothing just like they would in their homes. The vast majority of miles that you put on our car is to and from work. All those miles are now gone. Your car lasts a lot longer, and since the miles are down about 80% your car insurance also goes down. There are very few meetings in a virtual company unlike a physical company where meetings. In a physical company, there is a tendency to have more meetings which can be unproductive. There are also tax benefits for working at of your home if you have a dedicated area for your work area, the expenses with that area are tax deductible. As the CEO, another big advantage is that we can hire people regardless of location. It allows us to have the absolute best people for each position.
Perhaps the biggest downside of working in a virtual company is that it is much harder to get to know your co-workers. Some of the best friends you make in your life is through work and in a virtual company it is more difficult. We try to compensate for this with our company meetings, but a virtual company cannot compete with a physical company in this regard no matter how hard we try. Working at a virtual company is not for everyone. Some people need the office vibe to be productive. Some people feel lonely or not useful because they are just sitting alone in their house.
IBP – Financial Reporting ( 15 years)
Gateway – Marketing (13 years)
Isolation from other employees. Tendency to be home bound. Harder to develop professional relationships.
Knowing when to stop working. Other people’s perceptions of you that since you work from home, you don’t really do anything.
I have four kids and my hobbies involve being part of their lives. Taking them boating in the summer, teaching them to water ski, tubing, and swimming. I enjoy coaching my son’s wrestling team and my daughter soccer team. Winter is a special time where we snow ski, ice skate, and play in the snow.
I worked at Gateway for 11 year (1993-2004)
I worked at Gateway computers for 11 years before coming to PC Pitstop and I was amazed at how much more work you can get done in a day while working from home. With less water cooler discussions and eliminating the unneeded meetings you can really focus on the task at hand. The flexibility is also great, I can get up at 6 AM work for a few hours then get my kids to school and start back at 9 AM. After the kids go to bed at night I can work a couple hours. In the summers I will be able to have lunch with my kids every day. I do loads of laundry, mow the lawn, or take our the garbage between conference calls and projects.
The biggest challenge I see is coordinating efforts as a team. We do a pretty good job at this but it does take effort and cooperation. At time asking a coworker for help or bouncing a big idea off someone is not as easy when you work remotely. You do not have the body language to read your coworkers to understand if you are interrupting them or if they totally agree with what you are saying. I can take longer to build personal relationships with your coworkers because they are not around you as much. We have biannual team meetings where everyone gets together that really helps build these relationships.
Building custom computers Overclocking Bicycling Roller blading Scale modeling Bible study Woodworking Granddaughter
1967-1972 United States Post Office-Mail Handler
1972-1973 Mazda Motors of America-Computerized Warehouse Inventory, Warranty Failure Investigation
1973-1975 US Postal Service-Distribution
1975-1978 USPS Supervisor
1979-1982 USPS Distribution
1983-2006 USPS Electronic Technician
No commute, flexible schedule, controlled environment for working, fewer interruptions
Reading Sports (watching, coaching) Running Listening to Music Watching Movies Traveling with Family Politics
1995-1999 Gateway Direct Sales
1999-2005 Gateway Product Marketing
2005-2006 Midwest Alarm Director of Markeing
2006-Current PC Pitstop
Reduced stress & anxiety of the office environment Reduced stress & anxiety of office time constraints No commute time (gas & insurance savings). No need for massive ‘business casual’ wardrobe. More time with my family. More time to exercise and stay healthy. Home every night in time for dinner with family.
Little time to get to know co-workers better. Expectation that since you are home – you are free to adjust your schedule/drop what you are doing at any time. Noise – without a dedicated workspace – it is a challenge to find privacy for conference calls. Home distractions – pets, neighbors
Shooting, fishing, watches, computer hardware, skeet, sporting clays, trap.
Owner The Wave Custom Aquarium Hogan Marketing Borden Chemical Sales
Work in comfort at home. I can work at anytime day, night, early mornings, because it’s all right here. No wasted travel time.
Less human contact. Sometimes wonder how things are going in general. Harder to develop close relationships.
AmeriCorps VISTA, Habitat for Humanity AmeriCorps VISTA, Children and Family Urban Ministries
Eletronics, Games, Computers, Movies, Music, Politics, Economics
Support Analyst, Microsoft Windows Server 2000 Admin, Fix hardware, install / update fix Microsoft Windows Os family.
Dancing, art, reading, soap making, tea
Computer Sciences Corporation – Website Graphics Professional
Less distractions, get more work done, create your own office space, flexibility in work location if you need to leave the house
Don’t make friends the same way as a traditional company, have to make friends outside of work activities, less communication between coworkers
Racing motorcycles, skydiving, cooking, brewing beer, chess
1.5 years doing development and support for a healthcare company; various small development and tutoring jobs while in school at the University of Arizona where I got my B.S. in Computer Science
My background is in creating software for processing online payments, building online affiliate marketing systems and software consulting with a concentration in web software. I have mostly worked for smaller companies with a startup mentality with a couple of exceptions.
Save up to 2 hours in commute time per day. Much more flexible working schedule. Don’t get interrupted as much because there aren’t people constantly walking by your work station. Able to travel anywhere in the world to work, just need an internet connection and a phone. Also, relocating is not an issue in a virtual company.
Collaboration and brainstorming takes more planning to accomplish. Takes more time to get to know your co-workers. Family and friend’s perception is that you can just get up and go whenever you want.
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