Tomorrow begins a three day journey of working from home.  My employer’s current feelings on the matter are that in certain circumstances it may be beneficial for employees to work remotely.  This can be situational (i.e., delivery, home repairs) or project based.  There is not an official policy that allows for N number of days a week (like Monday/Friday, etc). 

To date I have been able to Telework one day at a time so three days will be the longest stretch.  Of course working from home sounds like all fun and games but it is far from it.  Without an official infrastructure for communication other than e-mail it is a lot of work to make sure everyone has cell phone/home phone, etc.  Other considerations are power loss or Internet connectivity loss.  These things all take some overhead to plan for and flexibility on your coworkers part, especially those who are "stuck" in the office.

Beyond the work overhead there is the home overhead.  My wife and the kids have their daily routine and daddy being home definitely impacts them.  Since I have worked from home a few times already my daughter kind of understands that when daddy is downstairs he is busy.  We’ll have to see what the real impact of three days is on my wife.

Some of you that read this may laugh because you’re doing this five days a week already.  Others may be turning green with envy.  It still seems like for a majority of companies teleworking is not quite an option.  I’m lucky to be in a field where I can do my job from anywhere which is usually the first barrier to teleworking.  Beyond that there are the cultural and comfort issues that an organization faces when they have people who don’t clock in at the front door each day.  Quite honestly, if you can’t trust a person to do their job, you can’t trust them in the office or out of it.

I’m going to go hit the Xbox for a bit.  I can sleep in an extra 45 minutes and report to my basement at 0700.  Day one should be the same as the other days I’ve done this.  Days two & three may be a different story.