Yet, outside Polgara or people who work from a home office primarily, I just never encounter folks even in IT who get to take advantage of the technology.

If it's any consolation, my current circumstance is unusual. My great-grandboss has something against telecommuting, and we wouldn't be doing it for the next two weeks if he could've pulled a spare office out of his ass while they renovate ours. As it is, he found an office for my grandboss and the intern, just not for the rest of us. We're hoping we can prove how productive we can be from home and therefore show that we can be trusted to do it more regularly. What's particularly annoying is that they're renovating our office so that it fits twice as many people because there are space issues, issues they wouldn't have if they'd just allow the WEB DEPARTMENT--people whose very livelihood it is to work online--to telecommute.

My PC is in a different room from my TV, which helps. I can watch TV on it, but there's no TV hookup. I can check and answer mail from in front of the TV, but that's about it.

My commute is an unevenly distributed couple of hours a day. Flex time isn't as appealing to me as just not being in my damned car.

Sleeping helps make my migraines more tolerable, so napping at the drop of a hat (instead of uncomfortably, after a trek to my car) can give me back bits of the day. Also, sometimes I have migraines without pain, but with dizziness, so driving is impossible, but working (slowly) may be.

Plus...conference calls. Who cares where I am?

Brrrr....cold shower. Glad your plumbing's fixed, Sheryl.

Yeah, it's very primitive of American business to be so stuffy about telecommuting and flex time. It's good for the environment and it's probably good for productivity and the employees' health. The happier people are, the more they're going to work for you.

I think the traffic outlook in many major metros would really change if more employers got on board with telecommuting and flex time.

I used to work at home in my old job, but mostly on migraine or bad back days when I wasn't sure I should drive.

I tried that here once or twice and was told to go away.

Based on snow and broken car days, I do have to admit that I'm nowhere near as productive at home even when feeling well as I am at the office. There's just something about being in my workspace that promotes more focus and speed.

Employers do not trust their workers to actually work when they are at home. That, I believe, is the primary reason that telecommuting is frowned upon.

Even the regional transportation planning agency, which encourages telecommuting for private employers, doesn't allow it for its own staff. ::rolls eyes::

Employers do not trust their workers to actually work when they are at home.

I think employers miss the point of salary. And underestimate how much work I can not do at the office.

You pay me to do a job. When, where, and sometimes even how are irrelevant. If I don't produce, penalise me. Otherwise, give us a break, eh?

If you can telecommute to your job, that means that someone else can also telecommute to your job. Like, from India or something.

My husband does, kinda, if the dream includes doing laundry, taking his mom to the hospital, and painting the kitchen between emails and remote logins.

The painting totally counts.

If you can telecommute to your job, that means that someone else can also telecommute to your job. Like, from India or something.

I'd like to see them telecommute one day a week.

Or, really, do the job as well as I do. I'd be pissed to lose my job to someone who does it as well as I do, but for less. But it makes sense.

The idea that doing a job a little less well for a lot less money is okay--that bothers me.

I hear people bitch about Indian outsourcing tech support for instance, and honestly if the person on the other end of the phone understands me easily, makes themselves easily understood AND SOLVES MY FUCKING PROBLEM, I'm good with that, and don't care from a consumer-pov where they're located (global and national economy is more complex, natch).

And the number of documents I have to redo from native English speakers, well, poor English is hardly just a foreign problem.

Which has nowt to do with nowt. It was just waiting to boil over.

If you send out your weekly status report at 3:00, isn't that tacit admission that nothing important's going to happen in the next two hours?