jerryjackson.net

And that’s only the beginning of the problem…

My daily commute round trip averages 2.5 hours of driving. Multiplying that by 5 days a week and 50 weeks per year gives 625 hours of time. 625 hours equals almost 16 work weeks (assuming a 40 hour work week) of time I spend doing absolutely nothing productive during the year.

Then there’s the fuel. My daily round trip is 100 miles, during which time I average 40 miles per hour. The combination of distance and poor fuel economy while parked on I-4 works out to $4500 per year in fuel cost in my case. Recently, with the car I no longer have, it was much higher at around $7000 per year.

How about the 25,000 miles per year I’m accumulating on the car (not counting my personal driving which is another 8,000 miles)?. That’s yet another cost. It’s also a great way to expire the factory warranty sooner - even more cost.

Multiply the above scenario by a few dozen or hundreds of employees!

Can this be stopped, or at least significantly reduced? YES, it can be!

Thankfully, it is possible to perform nearly all the requirements of my job by working from home and connecting to the office computer systems via VPN over internet. One of the few reasons to come into the office might be for a face-to-face meeting (possibly involving a white board) which couldn’t be handled via a conference voice-call.

Then there’s the question of worker productivity. Several people I’ve talked to about this have a well rehearsed speech when arguing for OR against telecommuting. My speech is really short and simple:

“Any reduction in productivity while working from home as compared to working in the office will not be tolerated. Period!. If you’re goofing off instead of working at home and your productivity levels are negatively affected, you will be fired”.

Stated another way, either the employee can be trusted or not - and if not - the employee gets replaced.

It is also true that nobody forced me to purchase my home where it is located or forced me to find a job where I did, so maybe I should just shut up and enjoy the drive.

Now I just need to repackage this idea and take it to management. Wish me luck!