Telecommuting

Frank Gruber's workstation at AOL in Dulles, Va., could be in any cubicle farm from here to Bangalore -- pushpin board for reminders, computer on Formica desk, stifling fluorescent lighting. It's so drab, there's nothing more to say about it, which is why the odds of finding Gruber there are slim. Instead, Gruber often works at the Tryst coffeehouse in the Adams Morgan neighborhood here, at Liberty Tavern in nearby suburban Clarendon, Va.

Michael Hanik used to have 12 employees, a warehouse and trucks to run his medical devices catalog company. But four years ago, he turned to the Internet to look for ways to reduce overhead costs for his Rockville, Md.-based Total Medical Systems. He now has just three employees on the payroll but as many as 50 contractors working for him, some of them known as virtual assistants.

Maybe Woody Allen was right, that 80% of life really is just about showing up. At least that's what most executives seem to think about people who work from home. Telecommuters are less likely to get promoted than peers who head into the office every day, according to a global survey of 1,300 executives released Tuesday by Los Angeles-based executive search firm Korn/Ferry International.

The rise in telecommuting has led to home offices becoming the most popular special-function room that architects are being asked to design, according to the American Institute of Architects' Home Design Trends Survey for the second quarter of 2005. Low-maintenance materials and more storage space are also increasingly sought. Meanwhile, consumer demand for exercise rooms appears to have peaked in many markets. Upscale entryways and defined hallways are becoming less popular.

David Neeleman believes he has discovered an answer to the outsourcing of jobs overseas. Call it "homesourcing." "All of our reservation agents work at home," says the founder and chief executive of JetBlue Airways Corp. Neeleman first tested the idea at Morris Air, which he co-founded in the early 1980s and sold to Southwest Airlines Co. in 1993. Now at JetBlue, which he launched in 1998, Neeleman has become hooked on the concept.

Amy Greene has a blatant disdain for her workplace. She shows up at the address on her business card only for mandatory meetings. "I don't like going into the office," said Greene, a computer systems manager for Sun Microsystems Inc. "You just end up talking to people in the hallway. It's unproductive." Such an attitude could get many employees in trouble. But Greene's bosses applaud the 12-year Sun veteran for rejecting her assigned office in Newark across a traffic-choked bridge.

A telecommuter who worked from Florida for an office in Long Island is ineligible for New York unemployment benefits, the state's highest court ruled Wednesday. The Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that eligibility for benefits depends on where the worker is, not where the employer is.

A White House panel studying ways to boost demand for high-speed Internet access is expected next week to encourage Hollywood and others to offer more online content. The report also will recommend that more workers use high-speed lines to telecommute from home.

Sometimes a spokesman--like me--should just stick to his knitting. Your recent article about working at home ["Companies Turning Cool to Telecommuting Trend," Dec. 28] was insightful. Nevertheless, while I did indeed say that the much-hyped telecommuting phenomenon is barely off the launching pad--and many bosses resist work-at-home arrangements--such observations were based largely on the experience of corporate America in general, not AT&T, my company, in particular. Here, the rate of white-collar telecommuting increased dramatically in the last decade.