I used to have that "discussion" with my current boss a lot, too. Mainly she just wanted me to be apologetic and all subordinate when she got pissy about it, which was usually when her boss got on *her* case about some stupid shit.

This is such a frequent phenomenon, isn't it?

Zen, what is it that you do? How nice about the telecommuting! (It's what I am doing today, too)

I have a co-worker, rather than a boss, who gets pissy when I'm 5-10 minutes late. She's snitted several times that I should call even if I'm going to be 3 minutes late. Finally I asked my boss in front of snitty!co-worker if he wanted me to call if I was less than 15 minutes late, and he said, "God, no! Just get here."

I work 9-5 and snitty!co-worker works 7:30-3:30, so she has no idea if I work late, and also doesn't seem to give a crap if I work through lunch or on the weekend. But god help you if you're 5 minutes late and don't call.

Conclusion: people is weird.

I was just angsting about this yesterday. I've always worked in a place where people could see me so I tend to stress about being 5 minutes late - or not accomplishing enough when I work from home. I'm hoping I will relax as I get settled into this new job.

Nobody here cares if I'm late. OTOH, it's rare that anyone notices either, because I get in an hour earlier than everyone else.

One of the reasons I want to stay with the team I'm currently contracting with is that they don't care when you get there, as long as work gets done. AND they have work-at-home Fridays, which is fantastic.

java, I'm Senior Editor for a couple professional engineering journals published by IEEE. They initiated the telecommuting program about 2 years ago, when they realized they'd save alotta money if all those heat-sucking air-breathing light-needing people weren't in the building. Now, my office is my laptop, and I can work anywhere I can get a fast Internet connection. It's awesome.

What do you do, with the 24/7 availability?

I'm usually the first person in my unit to arrive, because I'm something of a morning person. I also leave at 5 on the dot (barring special circumstances) because I've been here for a full work day and my productivity nose-dives after 3 or so. I've gotten a resentful look or two, but mostly from the woman who gets in around 10. She's not in my chain of command, so whatevs.

What do you do, with the 24/7 availability?

I run the regulatory operations (and publishing) group at an awesome little biotech. I also manage the information sharing between our company and our European partner (and some of our vendors).

Your job sounds ideal!

I need to add that the senior manager who reports to me (most of you know about how great he is) is someone for whom an 8-4ish schedule is very important. So it works perfectly because my group always has an onsite presence early in the day and I can be very flexible with my time. And if he's working on a project that needs to be done by close of business, I usually offer to take it over at 4:30 so that he can leave. It's so perfect that I almost can't believe it.

I'm not a morning person by nature, but Dylan woke up every day at 5:30 am until he was two years old so my sleep patterns shifted.

Holy crap. Within ten minutes of getting an email from the head of the new school that she would be "delighted" to consider me for the teaching position, I had a phone interview with the associate head and have been asked to come in for a full day of interviews on Monday the 26th. Meep!