From: utzoo!decvax!duke!dennis
Newsgroups: net.followup
Title: Re: Working at home
Article-I.D.: duke.2370
Posted: Fri Jul 30 18:09:25 1982
Received: Sat Jul 31 05:06:34 1982


I've been working at home for several months now, not because of any
management program, but because office space around here is pretty
tight, and the air conditioning at the office has been notably absent.
I'm involved with a fairly large project using the IBM PC, and have one
at home with all the goodies I need to work.  I have no such regularly
structured hours for it, as Will's prople do, and I only show up at my
boss's office when there's a meeting or some such that demands my
presence.

All in all, I regard it as a very positive thing;  I can keep my own
hours, and can easily stop work and watch Star Trek (twice a day here)
or M*A*S*H (four times a day, plus prime time) (no, I don't watch them
ALL). Since it's all standalone (except for reading my mail and news via
a terminal program that was my first effort, IBM's offering being
worthless),  I don't even need a dedicated phone line.  Also, I've
recently gotten married, and working at home enables me to be with my
wife all day;  we get along well being together all the time.  The
space requirements at home are not great;  I have a desk covered with
hardware and printouts, and a printer on a small table next to the
desk, and a bookshelf filled with those damned IBM PC manuals (at last
count, 15 of them).  I'm on a monthly wage (ie, no time cards), and my
paycheck is deposited directly to my bank, so those things don't
require me to go to the office.

I've always been a loner as a programmer;  the couple of times I
entered into a team programming project, I got too irritated with the
other members to work easily with them (I refuse to allocate blame; I
know I'm pretty fussy about things that may or may not matter).

I heartily recommend it, and hope I can continue to work in this way.