Home Work

J. Kevin Tumlinson

I do a lot of work out of my nifty home office. In fact, I don't know what I'd do without my little fortress of solitude, the nexus of my universe. When I clock out from my campus, I clock in at the home office and a whole new workday begins.

I have all the essentials there. I have high-speed Internet access. I have multiple phone lines. I have a quality printer and a computer that would make NASA proud. So I'm all set. I have all the resources of a major corporation in about 900 square feet of apartment space.

With today's Internet and computer technology, telecommuting has graduated to the next level. As such, there are fewer and fewer jobs that should require an actual physical presence. So why are there still so many cars on the roads at 7a.m.? Why are there still high-rise office buildings crowding city skylines? Why are major corporations wasting money and resources just to maintain the status quo?

There's a stigma surrounding people who work at home. I've dealt with it from a few employers over the years. Some people, no matter how far they may have come technologically, just aren't comfortable with employees who aren't right there in the office with them. They can't get past the notion of an employee sitting at home in his bathrobe, watching CNN (or cartoons, in my case) and sipping coffee.

But what, exactly, is wrong with that? Shouldn't the quality and quantity of work be the yard stick used to measure employee performance? Is it really a better practice to value an employee by the amount of time they spend in the office, rather than the work they produce?

An average day in a standard office might go something like this:

8:00a.m. - Arrived at office, fixed coffee, ate donut. Talked with member of the opposite sex.
8:30a.m. - Sat down in cubicle, turned on computer, waited for computer to boot up.
8:35a.m. - Still waiting for computer to boot up.
8:40a.m. - Computer crashed. Called tech support.
9:40a.m. - Tech support took computer citing "unidentified errors" as the problem.
10:15a.m. - Took coffee break. Ate another donut. Had discussion with member of the opposite sex.
12:00p.m. - Ate lunch with member of the opposite sex.
1:00p.m. - Got computer back from Tech support. Turned computer on, combed through junk e-mail and forwards sent by other employees. Responded to the e-mail from the personnel office asking if I wanted to join the softball team.
2:00p.m. - Began working on major project due tomorrow.
2:30p.m. - Work interrupted for an impromptu, mandatory meeting with the boss about "the future of the company."
4:30 p.m. - Meeting over.
5:00p.m. - Gave member of the opposite sex a ride home.

The corporate world hates to think of people doing something other than the job they were hired for. Be honest with yourself - do you really spend every second of every work day doing only company business? If you do, you are a cyborg with no human emotions, and therefore planted here to take over the world. Otherwise, you're just a plain ol' human, doing what humans do. Not to mention all of the "official" distractions brought to you courtesy of a well established and completely archaic business structure.

A lot of money could be freed up if corporations began recognizing the value of telecommuting. Overhead, in the form of office buildings, utilities, maintenance, etc. could be avoided. Big Business would do the same (probably more) work and spend less money to do it. Employees would be happier. There would be virtually NO sick days for companies to lose money over, since someone working from home is probably more prone to do the work even if they feel ill. Telecommuting is just good for business.

If it's good for business, it's good for the economy. And believe me, the economy needs all the help it can get. So here's the call to arms, Big Business. Get smart. Send people home, get rid of the huge office complex and start utilizing the technology you have available to its fullest. The rest of the world is waiting for you to catch up.

J. Kevin Tumlinson is a writer and a schoolteacher living in Lake Jackson, TX. He is writing this in his boxer shorts.