THE HOME OFFICE - THE SHORTEST COMMUTE
"A home office allowed me to maintain the career pace I was on," says Colleen
Clark, reflecting on three years of telecommuting between Sacramento, California, and
Richland, Washington.
When Clark and her husband decided to move to California, she looked for a way to
keep her job with a public relations company that contracts with the federal government.
To that end, she proposed a telecommuting schedule that had her at home in California
for three weeks and on location in Washington for one week each month. Her company
astounded her and said yes. It hadn't been done before, but now the company is looking
into ways to encourage more people to try telecommuting.
A home office loft was added to Clark's plans for the new house in Sacramento.
Though open to the second floor of the house, the loft was designed to be self-contained
and separate from the rest of the house. Extra phone lines were installed during
construction. Her employer arranged for her to have remote access to the Local Area
Network, processed through an autodial feature with a built-in calling card. Clark's office
phone in Richland automatically bounced callers to her Sacramento address. "A lot of
callers didn't realize I wasn't on site," she says.
Adapting to working at home was "a learning experience," Clark admits. She found
that it was important to minimize distractions. "Everything needs to be in the work area,"
she says, "so that you're not up and down, back and forth." She also came to realize that
her work benefited if she followed a routine of getting ready for work as if she were going
to
a regular workplace. "At first, it seems cool to roll out of bed in your pajamas and sit
down to work still bleary-eyed - it's the shortest commute in history; it's really a dream.
But I learned that it was important to stick to a professional routine. In this manner, I find
it easy to stay focused."
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