My office is located in the dining room. Very little actual dining ever went on in there, maybe six times a year. This is a much more effecient use of space, though Miss Manners may not approve.

My home office is in an extra bedroom. My fine man created a beautiful work station for me when he worked for an office furniture company. The workstation, filing cabinets, bookshelves etc. are mostly wood. It looks like an office, a happy pretty comfy one. For several years I ran a small business from here. Many of my neighbors have similar setups.

Staggered arrival times, telecommuting, etc. are nothing new. They're effective for energy conservation and tend to increase employee production. So why aren't they being adopted by more businesses and energy-policy folks? To me, that's the real question.

The answer is that not everyone is capable of working from home. There are some unique distractions (and temptations) that telecommuters must face and overcome.

It is vital that remote employees have a solid work ethic and that their manager can track their progress toward completing what is required of them.

That said, I cannot think of a more rewarding way to work than telecommuting from home. The flexible work environment and relaxed dress makes me more productive and allows me to watch the kids in a pinch and blog during the day.

I've done it for over 5 years and have decided that my next job will also be from home if at all possible.

If you want a good thought experiment, imagine where trains would be in this country without the truckers unions.

18 wheelers (or, worse, 2-3 trailer rigs) are used to convey stuff from any x to any y in America, and how stupid is that? Trains are a much better answer for interstate and long-haul commercial shipping. If there were commercial shipping via trains, Amtrak would disappear just as quickly as it took for a freight hauler to tack on a few passenger trains on the most promising lines.

In other words, here is one more reason that soc-ialism in any form stinks.

John