FROM HIS basement office up here, Dave Cake is able to communicate with his employer in

Victoria. He's one of a new breed of northwest employee and the numbers are growing.

Space age commuter

LIVING IN A small community like Terrace,
while holding down a job in a larger city sounds
impossible but that’s what a growing number of
people are doing in lhe northwest.

Dave Cake is one of this new breed of ollice
worker. ‘‘The commute’s pretly good,’” he says
from his small office in the basement of bis Jack-
pine home. ‘‘The dress code, too,” says the
casually dressed Cake as he rests his feet on bis
desk.

Cake moved to Terrace Last August when his
wife, Karen MacDowell accepted a job here with
B.C. Parks. Cake had been working for a Victoria
firm called Axys Environmental Consulting for
abouta year at that point.

Axys does work wilh geographic information
systems (GIS). Cake’s job included digital map-
ping, developing data bases and writing personial-
ized software programs for companies.

When Cake told his boss he was moving to Ter-
race, they told him they wanted to keep him on.

“They're pretty open to new stuff,” he says of
the finn.

Axys even supplied him with a computer and
modem. But Cake had to pay the $30 a month bill
for a private phone line in Jackpine —- party lines
are staudard there.

“They e-mail me the specs and I e-mail the
results back.’’

A lot of the firm’s work is outside of Victoria,
meaning Cake wouldn't have bad face-to-face
dealings: wilh clients even if he retnained on the
southern end of Vancouver Island.

There are some disadvantages lo working out of

.the home. ‘The isolalion gets to me, particularly

living out in Jackpine. And there's no social con-
tacl as in an office setling,” says Cake.

Cake also found he had to create a separate work
area, away from the kitchen or the TV. That meant
setting up in the basement which is unfinished and
a bit drafty al limes.

“At jeast Pm not working with a louque on
anymore,” he says, referring to the cold spcil in
January, But the wood stove helps keep him warm.

The lunch hour walk wilh the dogs — two
energelic golden retrievers — to get the mail keeps
him from feeling trapped in the basement.

Cake also tries to keep office hours, making sure
that he doesn’t work foo many late nights. On the
other hand, he’s also got the flexibility to wark a
rainy weekend, then go out and play during a
sunny weekday.

And he loves being able to get up an hour after
his wife, aid still get to work before she does,

Cake isn’t sure how long he'll keep on being an
electronic commuter. He’s already working more
than full time now, because he’s started a part time
job teaching a GIS course at Northwest Com-
munity College.

Axys let him reduce his hours in order to teach
the course, because il allows him to develap con-
tacts in the local GIS communily.

“71 couldn't have asked for a more patient or
obliging, company.’” But he adds that electronic
commuting is uew to Axys as well, aud there’s no
set rules on how itall should work.

‘*As long as they’re getling the results they want,
they don’t care if I’m watching Oprah,’ he jokes.
He can’t though, because ke doesn’t have cable,
something he acknowledges may be a good thing.

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Terrace Progress Edition 1997, February 26, 1997 —- Page 3

Looking For Surveyors?
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Call Dediluke Land Surveying
for all yor survey needs.

Please call for
appointment

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Continuing to
serve the city
of Terrace
now and into
the future!

Specializing In:

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