Local Libraries

I work from home, and those of you who also do this know that there can be some awesome good points and frustrating bad points.

First off, you have to love the commute, which goes from my bedroom, to the bathroom, to the kitchen to pick up a cup of coffee, then to the study to log into my remote office. In truth, the traffic in the hallway can sometimes slow me down, making the trip 10 or fifteen seconds longer.

One of the downsides is that The Employer expects me to be online and productive by six in the morning, which necessitates waking up at – ugh – 05:30. This is my fault, though, as it was one of the many selling points I used to convince The Employer to let me work remotely.

And when I say remotely, I’m being serious. The Employer’s main office is in the SF Bay Area, and my study is in a wide spot on the 99W highway in the Willamette Valley. It’s not the worst remote set up, for sure. I have colleagues who work remotely from India, Mexico, and Europe.

What’s the advantage of working remotely? You mean, other than the fact that the current population of the San Francisco Bay Area (depending on how it’s defined) is about 7 million, and the entire state of Oregon has only about 4 million people? Really?! You have to ask?

I’ve never been a fan of crowds. In spite of the mega-cool music, I’d’ve gone insane at Woodstock, probably to be discovered by the cleanup crew, curled up in the fetal position under a rock. I lived in Los Angeles during the summer after my sophomore year in college. I didn’t like the town before I lived there, and spending three months there didn’t improve my attitude any. Though, I’ve been told that L.A. has matured since then.

Don’t get me wrong – Los Angeles is a fine city. But it’s not for me. Big cities are a fine place to visit but … you know the rest. Besides, I’ve been conditioned by a lifetime of weird decisions, and I can’t think of L.A. without thinking of the old Freddy Martin song, Pico and Sepulveda.

However, I sometimes get tired of sitting in my study all the time, and take full advantage of the remote technology to work from a local library.

We have some very fine libraries near-by. Though that depends on what you mean by near by. The Monmouth and Independence libraries are close enough to ride a bike to, but they’re closed on Sundays, so I sometimes use the Salem Public Library or the Corvallis-Benton County Library. The Salem Library is closer, bigger, and very comfortable, but because of the way the highways are routed, it takes just as long to drive there as to Corvallis.

All of these libraries have comfortable places to set up, and provide power strips for the electronics, and free Wi-Fi. Though I’m paranoid of open public Wi-Fi, so I alway bring my own. All of them have free parking within walking distance, except for Salem, but it has free parking on Sundays.

So, that’s it. That’s my favorite aspect of working remotely. The only downside I’ve encountered to working in a library is when I have Skype meetings. Then I pack everything up and go somewhere else.