CNN has an article today that may help a lot of people. The title is “Companies that will hire you to work at home“. It gives examples of some large companies that hire people to work from home or offer the option to their existing staff.

And even if you aren’t willing to jump ship and change companies right now, the article includes some talking points to discuss with your own company when trying to convince them of the merits of telecommuting. And having a list at your fingertips of other well-known companies that allow telecommuting is another great piece of info to bring to the conversation!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telcommute, remote work, work at home, work from home moms

I’m going on vacation tomorrow - and I won’t be bringing my laptop!

That’s such a freeing thing to say. The problem with all this great technology that allows us to work from home so easily is that it allows us to work from home so easily. We duck into the office to check work emails right before we go to bed, or here and there on the weekend. And we see something important so we just “spend 5 minutes” taking care of it. Which becomes 10 minutes, etc.

If you’re really unlucky, your coworker in another part of the world will see your IM go active when you check your email and start to chat with you when you really want to go to bed. I got caught once by a local coworker who was on pager duty and there was a problem with my service. Of course, as soon as he saw me, he pounced on me and then I was on the phone for the next 1/2 hour.

Anyway, enough complaining. I sometimes fail to follow my own advice from my book (shameless plug here - sign up on the right side of this page to get on my mailing list and get access to my book) about shutting down my laptop when I’m done with my workday.

But the nice thing about going on vacation - an actual trip - is that I’m not going to schlep my laptop with me so I *won’t* be able to check email whether I want to or not.

Uh-oh. My teammate just signed me up to get a PDA for work that will allow me to check email, etc - as I have to test some compatibility for my own services on the PDA. Thank goodness it won’t arrive until after I leave for my trip!!!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, telecommute, work at home, work from home moms, vacations

Halloween is a perfect example of when the ability to telecommute helps a parent maintain work/life balance.

I have 2 small children in daycare. Telecommuting today allowed me to stop working at 10:30, be at the daycare for the halloween costume parade at 10:45, and be back home again by about 11:15. Not much time away from work, but being there was important for my kids and I have some photos that I’ll cherish forever.

If I’d had to drive back and forth to work today, I’d have either had to miss a *lot* more work, or miss the parade itself.

I was talking to another dad at the parade who told me he was “working from home” today. He did the air-quotes with his fingers, implying he wasn’t really working at all. I don’t understand this. Why do people think that the occasional telecommuting is an excuse to not work? It gives telecommuting a bad name and makes people think in general that if you’re telecommuting you’re not getting work done.

I think this is, in part, a corporate culture thing. For instance, I have a number of co-workers at my company who worked from home today with the full intention of ducking out to be involved in their kids’ school activities… and to leave work a bit early to get started on trick-or-treating before dark. But these people did work the majority of the day. I’ve been on phone meetings with them, so I know. Perhaps it just depends which company you work for and what your peers do?

So don’t be a sheep! If you tell your boss you’re “working from home” today, please do get your work done. Otherwise if you ever want to start telecommuting more frequently you may be surprised when your boss says no!

Technorati Tags: telecommuting advice, work from home moms, telecommute, telecommuter

So here is the primary reason I telecommute!

My daughter, Danielle, was born Sept 20, 2004 (yes, the picture is a few months out of date but cut me some slack, I’m a busy, working mom!). I work from home and have a nanny come in to look after her. (For those future moms and dads who have a baby on the way and think they can work at home and take care of the baby simultaneously, please rethink - more in me e-book coming soon!) This way whenever I need a break from sitting in front of my computer, I can stop and play with my daughter for a little while. I get to have little spurts of quality time with her throughout the day and she gets to know mommy is around if she needs me. I also can be around for the nanny to answer any questions or help her with any problems (which especially gives me peace of mind when the baby is sick).

Telecommuting allows me to have a closer connection to my baby than if I were going into the office and just seeing her for an hour in the morning and a couple hours in the evening before her bed time five days/week. I am very thankful that I’m in a situation that allows me to do this.

Technorati Tags: telecommute, work from home, work from home moms