Engineer Is Now ‘Parked’ at Home
According to anthropologists, we humans use two kinds of technology. In the first category are tools we use to shape our world. In the second are the social systems we create in order to use those tools effectively.
Riding the leading edge of both is Carl “Butch” Barbata, Lanier Worldwide’s regional systems support engineer for Los Angeles. For tools, he has the latest developments in computer hardware and software. For a system within which to use those tools effectively, he has his company’s team-oriented management. And for an unusual, but very efficient, workplace, he has an office in the garage next to his house in Ontario.
“I’ve always had a knack with computers,” Barbata says. “It doesn’t run in my family; I just picked it up.” This interest led him, at age 17, to enroll in the Devry Institute of Technology in Los Angeles. When he graduated from Devry, Barbata was hired as a phone and dictation equipment repairman by Lanier, an Atlanta-based communications systems provider, where his computer expertise and management skills helped him advance quickly over the next 10 years. In early 1996, he was promoted to systems support engineer and put in charge of customer service for the L.A. region.
Today, Barbata supports the activities of a full sales staff and 14 master technicians. “It’s a real team effort,” he says. “The sales rep presents the product, the sales engineer makes sure that the product is going to work in that environment, the master technician installs and implements the product, and I coordinate communications among all the parties involved, including the customer.”
The work flow has been smooth enough that when Barbata suggested moving his base of operations to a home office, the company agreed willingly.
Clients benefit from the arrangement too. “Instead of having to drive to an office first and then begin working to resolve a customer’s problem,” Barbata says, “I can hop on my laptop and begin running a diagnostic via modem within minutes of the customer’s call, dispatch a technician if required and have a preliminary report ready when the technician arrives.”
Barbata admits that the line between home and job can become blurred when house and office are right next to one another. The key to keeping them separate, he says, is mental discipline, a professional attitude and a well-fitting office door. “When I close that door, I’m not at home anymore, I’m in a corporate office. Even my little girl knows what a closed door means. ‘Stay away,’ she says. ‘Daddy’s working.’ ”
