Situation: you are working from home and do what you're supposed to do (the NWOW paradigm). Work hard, but at flexible hours (i.e. not 9 till 5). At noon you pick your daughter from school and have lunch with her. An hour later you take her back to school, after which you can continue your work. At 3 PM, you leave your desk in order to go fetch some diner at your local store.

While in the store, your manager or customer calls and ask you what you about the status of a particular assignment.

Question: What do you say?

This is an interesting culture change that we have to go through. Cause in this new age, it wouldn't really matter where you are at that time. As long as both your manager and your customer trust you and are confident that you get the job done in the set time-frame (or sooner :-). Although all of the above are true (trust and confidence), I still feel that it's not done to go out or stop working for some time (between the 'regular' hours) and thus I find myself doing awkward things to avoid mentioning I'm not currently working.

Anyway, I guess that it requires some additional practice to say: "Well dear customer, I'm currently not online and do not have all data with me as I'm in a local store fetching tonight's diner. Can I call you back later?" It still feels as though this is 'not done'.

I'm going to start practicing on this a bit more.

Ronald 'Generation X' van Barneveld