This morning all our worldwide offices received a mail from one of our London colleague informing us about the terrible weather conditions currently running in the UK. This is how it goes:
“Just to let you know that snow has caused havoc here. Most people WFH so just wanted to give you a heads up if you were trying to get hold of anyone.”
As this “alert” left me a little puzzled, I went on the website of the 
BBC to know a little bit more about what was going one there. One breaking-news article explained that “thousands of people are unable to travel as London’s transport network has been disrupted due to snow”. To make it short, here is the situation in London on Monday February 2nd 2009:
- London buses suspended
- Circle, Hammersmith and City, Waterloo and City lines suspended
- Southeastern Trains and Gatwick Express cancelled
- Reduced service on Southern and First Great Western
- London City airport closed
- Both runways at Heathrow closed
- Treacherous driving conditions
- All schools closed in Westminster
Snow can be a real curse for all those big cities which are unprepared to face such extreme weather conditions.
So I think we shall also give the “increasing environmental pressure”, one of the dominant market accelerators which will influence the growth of teleworking worldwide we identified earlier, a double meaning: it shall not be narrowed to the “green issue” (aka to reduce congestion and pollution caused by mass commutes, coupled with the inability of transportation infrastructure to keep pace with the urban population) but it should also take into account the fact that mother nature can also be fierce, fight-back and be the one that put pressure on us (and this is a fair play)…
Also in the future we shall be prepared to face similar environmental extreme, burning hot or freezing cold, as they are unfortunately very much likely to be something we’ll have to deal with commonly.
Those of you who can do so, don’t forget to ask your boss today before leaving the office, if you can telework tomorrow…
the blog of a natural born mobile worker 
3 Comments
bravo!
While you were sitting comfortable at home (or should I say sleeping…), I was struggling through the chaos traffic of Manchester trying to get to work.
It seems like stud less tires are not in the trends around here (and so not is weather…) and it was a very entertaining but somewhat frustrating “Dancing on Ice” session (on air on Itv, you are into poor-day-time-TV-but-managed-to-get-prime-time-slot program)…
Anyway, I forgot how the sun looks like and how “dry” can smell.
WET is again in order today !
Greetings from Manchester.
Kai
@ Kai: well, I have to say that I really feel sorry for you! honestly! As for myself, I’m living in a place where snow is part of your everyday’s life (upper Austria, near Linz). But I’ve managed to deal with it :) There’s no way out my friend! But as you’ll have noticed, the point of my post was to highlight that should it be in response to the tough weather conditions (snow), social climate (strikes) or other such as a general boredom (I want to live in the country!), teleworking is a clever alternative to working all your week in an office. And I’ve never been so mentally relax since I’m experimenting this new working attitude (though I realized I’m actually working more than when @ the office: stay late at night, connect on the week-end and no real holidays without a laptop…)
Bonne chance à Manchester, and don’t forget that there are still some sunny places (like Punta Cana and Acapulco…)