The Cole Digest, October 18, 1995

For the next couple of sessions, we'll be discussing the notion of telecommuting. In the Bad Old Days, before personal computers were ubiquitous, editors were known to let talented writers go elsewhere rather than permit them to work from home on a computer.

Today, we find folks from all walks of newspaper life telecommuting. Here, Bill Woodruff, in editorial systems at the Phoenix Newspapers Inc. recounts his experiences getting a home-bound copy editor on-line:

Jay Watrous is a copy editor and backup slot man for the Phoenix Gazette. He has muscular dystrophy and has used a wheelchair since 1976.

Almost two years ago, he had to give up driving his specially equipped van and began asking his supervisor if it would be possible for him to work from home at least part-time. The answer: yes.

The Gazette is a System Integrators Inc. System/55 site. We installed one of SII's Coyote cards in Watrous's '386 PC. He connects to the office via a 9600-bps modem and a second telephone line, leaving one line free for chats with other editors when necessary.

At times, the task of setting Watrous up for telecommuting to the Gazette resembled a farce choreographed by Mephistopheles.

Showing at least rudimentary intelligence, I picked up Jay's PC, monitor and keyboard from his home and took them downtown, where we installed the Coyote card and attached the external 9600-bps modem.

Everything worked fine. I documented the procedures Jay would have to follow to dial in, download the Coyote memory and log on.

That Saturday, I took the equipment back to Jay's house and set it up. Everything went fine until we reached the point in the boot procedure where the mouse drivers were supposed to load.

No good. Jay's trackball pointing device was configured differently than the mouse we had used downtown.

Back downtown I turned the whole mess over to Tech Services which finally found a combination of addresses that let Jay's trackball work and didn't break anything else.

Out to Jay's I went the next weekend and set up the equipment again. Everything worked perfectly. Jay dialed in a few times and practiced working the modem.

On Monday -- Jay's first day of telecommuting -- I received a phone call from him about the time he was scheduled to log on. When he was activating the modem setup, his hand had slipped and come into contact with the case. He felt a slight shock and now nothing seemed to be working.

I hauled the equipment downtown again and the techs confirmed that a static electric discharge had fried the motherboard of Jay's '386.

The company replaced the motherboard and we decided to switch to an older-style modem -- the kind with phone numbers programmed into it and LED readouts and push-buttons for issuing commands. That required us to reinstall Jay's internal modem so he could continue dialing up his favorite bulletin boards.

You got it: A whole new batch of conflicts appeared, requiring more than a week to resolve.

Finally, a full month after we began to set Jay up, the final conflicts were resolved.

We brought Watrous on-line in mid-May. Now he works three days a week from his home and takes the bus to work the other two days.

"Going down twice a week seemed to be a good idea so as not to lose contact with everyone else who was working on the desk," Watrous explained. He had spent the previous two years working primarily from The Gazette's zone office closest to his home, so he had experience with being what he calls "a remote copy editor."

Working from a remote location has limitations.

"I can't write cutlines, because I can't see the photos," he said. Similarly, when he's in the slot at home, he can't review cutlines written by others. And when there's a shortage of text to edit, he can't help out with proofreading chores.

While he doesn't have access to all the reference materials available to other copy editors, he makes do with little difficulty. He keeps his dictionary and AP Stylebook handy; he consults the paper's stylebook on-line. For most other reference needs, he turns to the Microsoft Bookshelf, which he has on CD-ROM.

Onward.

\dmc

[THE COLE DIGEST is written by consultant David M. Cole, editor and publisher of the industry newsletter THE COLE PAPERS. The DIGEST is made available to PressLink subscribers every Wednesday at no extra charge. Send comments by e-mail to cole@plink.geis.com. The COLE DIGEST is the property of The Cole Group, a California sole proprietorship. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of The Cole Group is prohibited. Copyright (C) 1995, The Cole Group. Opinions expressed are those of The Cole Group, unless otherwise noted.

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