Working from Home

It's Minnesota.  It snows here.  When it snows here, people forget how to drive.  It's dangerous.  I don't like sharing the road with these morons. So, on snow days, I like to work from home.

Well, actually, I just like to work from home.  It really doesn't make sense to drive into an office where you have to spend all the gas and time to sit in stop-and-go traffic both ways, pay for lunch (unless you brown bag it), and generally end up wasting your time because the servers are down.  It makes much more economic sense to just work from home and I don't understand why more companies don't enforce this as a viable option for their companies.  We live in the freaking 21st century- we all have high-speed internet at home.  Every company has VPN (that would be virtual private network software or some other way to connect to the work system when not at the office).  Everyone can afford a $30 webcam+ microphone set.  And don't tell me that people don't use some sort of chat software every day of their lives.

I think about how much money is wasted by companies who make their employees come into work- they have all of the electrical bills for the lights and machines, all of the liability bills for insuring the site, all of the utility costs for internet and phone, all of the desk rentals, all of the paper supplies, etc.  So, why can't they just tell people, "Go home.  Please don't come into work.  You're expected to be at home getting XYZ done, not sitting in traffic and using our copy machines."

Just think about how much less waste there would be (just to name a few)

1. No more sitting in stop-and-go traffic.  Just service industry people would need to go to work (like doctors- sorry, you can't get out of that one).
2. No more "'I'm sick', but going on vacation today to make myself feel better".  When you have results-oriented work environments (also known as "ROWE"s), you are expected to get your job done, but it doesn't matter WHEN you do that job or WHERE- just that it gets done by the deadline.
3. Decreased costs for industries- without all of those office expenses, companies could spend their money, thereby getting the economy going (yes, that sounds republican and I really can't argue with that, but there is some truth to the idea that if big companies don't feel secure, they won't spend their significant amounts of wealth).
4. Happier people- I think most people would agree that working in your PJs and visiting the restroom on your own schedule qualifies as sheer bliss.

So, big business, think about it.  Your productivity will go up because of fewer "sick" days, your costs will go down because you're not paying for the electrical or supplying all of your employees' houses with post-it notes and pens.

And for all of you out there that have abused the privilege- thanks for ruining the chance for us all.