Bay Bridge Traffic Problems Could Lead More Workers To Telecommuting
from the working-in-your-underwear dept
Despite things like high gas prices, environmental concerns and the supposed flexibility it gives, people remain largely uninterested in telecommuting. But following this weekend’s gas-tanker accident that caused the collapse of a key overpass leading to the Bay Bridge near Oakland, officials are urging people to telecommute if they can to ease the expected months of traffic snarls. A significantly increased or more arduous commute could lead some people to decide to work from home, but pro-telecommuting groups are upset with what they see as a “telecommute only in case of emergency” message. Telecommuting itself isn’t an objectively good or bad thing across the board, but if this situation prompts more employers to offer the flexibility of telecommuting to those employees who want it, that’s great.
Comments on “Bay Bridge Traffic Problems Could Lead More Workers To Telecommuting”
Which people?
Are “people” largely uninterested in telecommuting? Or is the limiting factor employers that don’t trust their employees to work when no one is around to watch them?
And is the concern justified?
I dunno if its so much employees being “uninterested in telecommuting” as it is employers being uninterested in stepping outside the box.
Telecommute
I work for a financial business and we are not allowed to telecommute. I believe my employer’s concern is the concern of many. I deal with a great deal of very sensitive information and it’s easier to prevent someone stealing that type of information if you’re on site, using company equipment. Not only that, the employer’s have the ability to restrict non-authorized people from entering the building, something they can’t do at your house.
I’m all for telecommuting, and I know I’d love to be able to, but alas I cannot. I wish more companies would open up and allow people to telecommute, it would be a great deal easier for everyone involved.
Just my $0.02
Telecommuting SUCKS
When you are in a cubicle farm (the only people that the true benefits fo telecommuting apply to) then telecommuting is akin to job suicide.
No matter how well you perform, EVERYONE assumes you are slacking off all day.
Obviously, IT SHOULDNT MATTER if you are doing what they paid you to do. But it does.
I refuse to telecommute. I don’t need the pressure.
when I telecommute
I end up playing world of warcraft instead of working. I get very little done at home.
telecommuting is when I get the most work done; I tend to slack off in the office, especially between wasteful meetings.
50 / 50 Responses
We will most likely see 50/50 responses here. Those who get distracted at home will vote nay on working from home, and those who couldn’t care one bit about the office environment will vote the other way.
FWIW, I get more done at the office by putting my out of office on for several days and all but locking myself in a quiet room, or small conf room. Works for a while 🙂
Either Or
I get just as much done at work as I do at home. I think it’s more a willpower/self-discipline thing.
telecommuting
As a firefighter, I find telecommuting rather difficult. I’d be interested in knowing for what percentage of commuters it’s even *possible* (in a physical sense, not whether there boss allows it, etc,) to telecommute.
Currently I work for a non-profit and I have better resources and equipment in my home office than I do at work. Therefore, what I can do at home takes me half the time it does when at work. I convey to my boss how much he is saving in actual payroll and that helps with much of the usual grumblings that come from employers.
To those who say they only play games when working from home, all I can say is you won’t have a job for very long if you can’t produce. Self-discipline aside, whether at home or in the office work is work and you either do it or you don’t. Don’t fool yourself and give your lack of work ethic a label just to “prove” how telecommuting doesn’t work. Just because you don’t want to work doesn’t mean there are not plenty of us who do.
I may be wrong, but I think what the ‘telecommuting industry’ is having issues with is the whole idea that working from home is only a temporary fix or a band-aid when it can be a very viable and effective working situation over the long term. If employers can accommodate telecommuting even temporarily, then why not permanently or semi-permanently? Taking the view that it is a band-aid solution adds fuel to the age-old fire of how working from home isn’t feasible in ‘the real world’. It gives employers excuses, whether true or not, as to how it may have worked in an emergency situation, but still can never succeed as a more permanent environment.
Yes, there will always be those who need a babysitter or drill sergeant to get them to do what they are paid to do. They are the ones who will be phased out of the working world. Once I have proven to a potential or current employer all the benefits and savings of telecommuting, I have yet to hear them say anything negative about the situation. But there will always be those employers who refuse to actually listen to logic and would rather pay twice the expense for half the work. So as telecommuting progresses, it will be those non-conforming employers stuck with the non-producing employees left wondering why their business isn’t making money. After all, why pay for an employee to sit at their desk with nothing to do when you could instead only be paying for the actual time worked!
Just my thoughts after working from home for the past 15 years…
Telecommuting is good
I think telecommuting is good. So what if the worker doesn’t get up until 11:00 in the morning? Will he actually stop working at 5:00pm because it’s “quitting time”? Or will he continue working because he’s on a roll… and before he knows it, it’s 1:00am and he’s been working for over 14 hours.
I think one of the biggest obstacles to telecommuting is the office manager who wants to see “bodies”. Could programmers get the same job done if they worked from home? Sure they could. But then the office manager would have one less person in the office.
If a VP walks by, the office manager can point to the 10 people in the cubicles as “proof” of the 10 people on the team. How can the office manager “prove” the people who telecommute are actually at work?