I've been working out of my home for nearly 8 years now. Rush hour? That's the 6-7 steps I take down the hallway to my office. No fossil fuels burned, no loss of 45 minutes each way, and snowy days like today just look pretty instead of infuriating.
In terms of the efficiency, it can't be beat. I have to believe that telecommuting is the future of work. Why waste so much time and energy just to go to a central gathering place to work? For face time? Meh. I have internet and phones as the tools of my trade. We can teleconference when we need to.
For now, I'm the tip of the iceberg. Old school employers don't trust their employees enough to allow them to work out of the home. They want to look over their shoulders and generally micromanage- which is inefficient enough. In time, though, I have to believe that more professionals will give up on expensive office space and encourage home work.
Certainly, on a day like today, where the schools are on two-hour delay, and the old school employees are cursing Mother Nature and the Department of Public Works for failure to clear the roads adequately, telecommuting becomes very attractive. But every day, I celebrate the time I preserve in not commuting. The advocates of mass transit would point to trains and buses as stress and greenhouse gas reducers. That's thinking small. I've eliminated these things entirely by staying home.
Then again, "I couldn't get to work today," is never an excuse. Off to work I go!
