Full Circle Associates

I have been working for the past 4 weeks on a project with a colleague who lives about an hour away. We both value our time at home, with family and quiet time, so we have a strong commitment to work in a distributed manner even though we could drive to each other's place.

We have a rhythm of cycles of asynchronous work punctuated by longish phone calls where we do the "negotiation" part of the work (we are revising a curriculum and implementing it with a new toolset - one which we don't really like either!)

We have been working closely on this and related projects for about six months and really enjoy what the other brings to the table in terms of expertise and style. Over time our phone calls have generated a culture that includes getting food mid call, mixing in personal tidbits, family interruptions, and one person walking around while the other types/note-takes. In other words, we have brought diverse physical acts into a distributed interaction.

Today she was in the car with her partner driving to Bend while I was in my home office. She had sheafs of print outs and was armed with a pen. I did the keyboard related tasks. During the call, we hushed for a moment while her partner called 911 from his cell to report a road problem, I made tea, and they stopped for a bio break during which I rang off and kept working, then called her back. At one point I continued to listen and participate (on mute!) while I slipped off to take a pee.

Now the intent here is not to get graphic. But the image of her sitting in a car and me sitting on the can while we were productively working... well, it cracked me up. This is when I wish I were a good cartoonist.

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