From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!duke!ucf-cs!goldfarb Newsgroups: net.followup Title: Working at home Article-I.D.: ucf-cs.729 Posted: Tue Aug 3 19:51:27 1982 Received: Thu Aug 5 04:25:49 1982 Some responses to my working at home query were mailed to me directly so I thought I'd share them with the net. ======================================================================== I work for a small software house here in Philadelphia in software development. I've been working here for two years. From the beginning they had a policy of providing technical types with home terminals (we have a VAX/11/780/VMS system). My first child was born around the time I started working, and my wife's part-time job was scheduled to begin three weeks after the baby was born. So I asked if I could stay home two days a week, to look after the baby while my wife was at work. Given the company's flextime policy, and given that 90% of my work was done sitting at a terminal, I argued that there was little reason for me to actually come in to the office. My managers agreed to a trial. Well, two years later, I'm still working at home two days a week. I'm still the only person in the company who has this arrangement. One of my co-worker's wife is expecting in October, but he hasn't expressed any interest as yet in working at home. Another colleague would like such an arrangement when she starts her family. I've found that on days I work at home, I often get more done since when I work, I really work (instead of BSing with the gang). It has been a tremendous help to my wife, and I feel I am a full partner in raising my son and (new-born) daughter. I have had four different managers since I started this arrangement (things move quickly in small companies) and not one of them has expressed any complaints or doubts about the arrangement. Unfortunately, our company has been going down the tubes recently, and we were just bought out by a large conglomerate. They have promised not to upset current work-environment policies. I hope they keep their word. ========================================================================== I work at the ITT Programming Technology Center in Stratford, CT. In our group (a research outfit), we can work at home anytime we like, as long as we don't miss vital meetings, etc. We have even been given terminals, modems, and dedicated phone lines for use at home (ITT picks up the tab for everything). Sure is nice - I'd recommend it to anyone who can convince the management... ============================================================================ Well, I haven't been keeping up with DEC internal policies for the last few years, but I do know that the "work-at-home" policy has *always* been in effect for programmers. I have quite a few friends in software development for DEC working on 8's, 11's, 10's, 20's. Many of them have been there since the PDP-8 was the hot machine (i.e. pre-11 days). One of the attractions of working there has always been that DEC is extremely lax in work requirements. They merely insist that you get the job done. Furthermore, they have been so lax that some of the folks I know there tried to see how long they could get away with doing absolutely nothing. I believe it went for a few months before someone realized what was up. Perhaps the major source of the trouble is that nearly everyone at DEC is a manager -- all chiefs, no Indians. Where did you hear of a new policy being initiated?? I'd like to know what it is. ============================================================================== As far as Sytek (Silicon Gulch, California) is concerned, while people are supposed to show up (at whatever hours they choose, as long as they can still interact with others with whom they must work and get their work done), occasional working at home days are acceptable. In my case, I live 37 miles (one-way) from work and will sometimes not come in but work from home (using dialin lines for computer access and then downloading/uploading things to/from my home micro system). We have most all our equipment on a broadband-cable local network (LocalNet, which we manufacture), by dialing in to it, I can still run development systems, various test equipment, etc. as well as our Unix systems.