I'm writing this on my laptop at home. This summer I've been taking
Fridays at home, saving the 70-mile roundtrip commute that I do the
other four days of the week.
Working at home has been in the travel industry news quite a bit
of late. An increasing number of travel agents are working out of
their homes these days, in part of a reflection of our changing
society and in part a professional necessity as some portion of the
brick-and-mortar agency business disappears.
I don't work at home enough to have a full sense of what it
would be like to do it all the time. My "home office" is really
just a spare room in which my family and I share two computers, one
phone line and a printer.
If I worked here more often, I suppose I'd have to add a fax
machine and a second phone line or some other form of Web access.
As it is, my daughter, home from school for the summer, is on line
quite a lot so we have to negotiate use of the modem.
I think I'd also have to separate myself more from the main
living area of the house, maybe set up the office in our basement
where I'd be less tempted to stop and enjoy the creature comforts
of the living quarters.
I'm able to stay in close touch with my colleagues from home.
Most of the contact is via e-mail so we avoid "telephone tag." I
have a dial-up program that connects me to the company e-mail so I
can write and then e-mail my copy to the office. It also would be
possible for me to look at other writers' work on our network but I
don't need to do that on the few days I'm home. If someone needs to
show me a piece of copy, they can e-mail it.
What I miss most on home days is the opportunity to walk around
and stop at various desks to chat with reporters and editors. I try
to make up for it when I'm at the office. In my business, meetings
also are important and fairly frequent and I need to be on hand for
those.
I guess one day more of us who still commute on the nation's
clogged highways will spend more of our working lives at home. I
don't mind it on occasion but I still like the sense of community
that comes with being under the same roof with my fellow
workers.
Smiley faces on line are nice but they're no substitute for the
real thing.