Slashdot Mirror
Teleworking in the UK?
neiljt writes "As a UK-based IT worker living about a 90-minute journey from London, I am interested in the idea of working from home, or teleworking. In the UK, however, the take-up of this practice has been less than frantic. My own immediate plan is to find work at home here in the UK, however my ultimate aim would be to find employment, which gives me the freedom to live where I choose. What barriers exist to working in the UK for a non-UK (e.g. US) employer. What about a UK citizen living outside the UK working for a UK or US employer? (Feel free to substitute your country of residence)"
It would be interesting to hear both from employers who support (or would support) this model, and from employees who have successfully negotiated employment at home.
In general, have your experiences been positive? If you have had problems, how have they been resolved? And now that the technology has been available for at least 10 years, will teleworking ever take off in the UK?"
"The arguments will probably be familiar to most here, but I will state them anyway, just to be sure you know how I'm thinking.
Advantages for me:
- Save journey time of 3 hours per day
- Save travel expenses
- Save travel frustration (delays, crowds, mobile phone idiocy, etc.)
- Be fresh and alert when I start work
- Feel better at the end of the working day
- Be at work promptly each day
- Work in a pleasant/relaxed environment
- Ready access to my (large) technical library
- Cost savings
- Office space savings
- Improved productivity
- Increased motivation
- Reduced traffic congestion
- Reduction in total travel and therefore pollution
- Employer needs to monitor quantity and quality of work performed
- Internet connectivity (mine currently limited to 56Kb)
It would be interesting to hear both from employers who support (or would support) this model, and from employees who have successfully negotiated employment at home.
In general, have your experiences been positive? If you have had problems, how have they been resolved? And now that the technology has been available for at least 10 years, will teleworking ever take off in the UK?"
sounds silly, but it isn't. you're on your own for a lot of the time. you have to do things to keep yourself from going crazy. maybe i've been really lucky, but except for a few rotten apples i've always had great co-workers. and not being able to work with them kind of sucks actually.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
I am living in the netherlands atm and i agree with the above, especially on the part of how when you are not constantly in the office, it affects how you are seen in the organisation, out of sight, out of mind.
Its true that there are alot of positive and negative points about working from home, the most important thing i found for myself was making a area at home that is solely dedicated to work, because if you are sitting in front of the TV with a laptop on your lap, you aren't gonna be too focused on your work.
Mind you, its also a huge time saver as well, as 2 hours work at home (say if you are trying to document something large and complicated) is greater than a whole day at office (constant interuptions)
i think working from home should only be done when its appropriate, but shouldn't be a regular thing unless you are a outside contractor (paid on completion) or if you have small kids or something like that.
all you are, is all you are, i'm so sorry for you.
I was working for the IT department of an austrian company in Tokyo. The company grew and office space is expensive, especially if you need to move to another building. The simple fix was, to let some of the developers and translators, who were working already several years at the company, work from home. After all, those do not need physical appearance and they prefer (due to the nature of work) a quiet environment. Something which is difficult to get in a japanese company.
Worked out well, as it was easy to check they are working by checking the results. The employees (not all wanted to work from home) were generally happy, some office space was saved, travel money (paid usually by the company) was saved, in the end, everyone was happy.
I think the trick in this excercise was, so let experienced workers work from home. People who are known to be able to motivate themself. And as everyone could check the productivity, the usual problem of teleworking, not being able to tell if the employee watches TV or works 8 hours, did not apply here.
5 days per working week is 15 hours per week.
Assume 25 days holiday per year which is 5 weeks, so 47 working weeks/year times 15 hours per week is 705 hours per year spent sitting in traffic...
Assuming 16 waking hours per day, you spend 44 days per year of your awake life just sitting in traffic. A month and a half? That's gotta be fun.
Assuming a working lifetime of say 40 years of the same, that'd be 1760 days, or nearly 5 years of your life you'd spend sitting in a cage, listening to Chris Tarrant on the radio.
Now, isn't that an interesting, exciting, useful, challenging and productive way to spend 5 years of your life?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I have worked for several consultancies, including big 5, who all allowed home working, mainly due to the fact that they never had enough hot desks in the offices.
Whilst for some tasks it works really well, e.g. reading documentation, writing presentations etc., for most work I find that it inhibits communication between colleagues. Communication (or lack of) is one the biggest issues that companies face. Many companies spend a fortune implementing all kinds of systems and processes to improve communication, but often the most efficient and cheapest way is to have the entire project sitting at adjacent desks. People then just tend to chat about problems, solutions etc.
Personally though my biggest problem was sitting at home by myself for an entire day with no-one to talk to. I also found it much harder to motivate myself and would often just put things off while I watched day time TV. Maybe I'm just a lazy b*stard but I don't think I'm that unusual.
Disadvantages for you I can think of are timezones and exchange rates.
.com boom times. It was hell trying to co-ordinate properly. Language, culture, timezones and the asshole quotient (French people) made it difficult to work effectively - and we had an office!!
The A$ is currently worth not very much at all (too lazy to look it up) so working "over here" would not be possible - A$50 is a decent enough hourly rate in Sydney, which I think is about 16 pounds and around US$25. I doubt, therefore that someone in the US or UK would want to Telework to Aus. (but contact me with outsourcing opportunities *grin*).
Timezones. I used to have an office in Switzerland (I am based in Sydney) during the
It is amazing that an 8 hour time difference and a lack of understanding on the other side made it difficult. I was regularly attending meetings at 2am and staying back until 7 or 8 on a daily basis. We couldn't change hour working hours much as we had Aussie customers to deal with.
Now I am working from home by necessity, and I must say I find it more effective, but this is a factor of who I work with rather than the location.
Motivation is key. Time management is a must. Install instant messaging client to reduce comms cost and provide a feeling of connectivity - you can page people to say hi, ask a question.
Working from home you can also get a sense of Isolation, of not being part of the "real world".
It was good recently that I had to go work in the city, put on a suit and get on the train. I enjoyed the variation, it got me out of the house - and also made me appreciate my lair more when I got back home!
Our sister office is in London. Having worked with my UK based compatriots for a few years now, I can safely say that while they have no objections about working late hours THEY DON'T DO S**T DURING THEIR ENTIRE WORK DAY.
I work in the UK.
I hate to say it, but you are right in a lot of cases.
I see a lot of people talk about football and do very little work all day. They then start working at 5 pm just so they can be seen to be working hard when the boss walks past later.
I don't do this, I work when I'm paid to work. But I see people getting pay raises for this.
You'll probably never get over this though. If no one can see you at work, you're not working. You could be sleeping at your desk and your coworkers would have a higher view of you than a telecommuter. I don't know if it's jealously or just plain incomprehension of the fact that someone doesn't need to sit their butt at the office to do work for the company.
It's not like you're sitting there sorting and filing papers or working at a factory. All you need is a computer with an Internet connection and most of us could do 99% of our jobs in our pajamas from home. Of course, then you get the frightening prospect that your work could just as easily be farmed off to some low-payed worker in India. It's a double-edged sword.
Basic Field support job... basicly a business where time tied to a desk was lost money.
Most of my best work was done from home. My computers were faster, my connection was faster, I had software the boss wouldn't buy, and saved a 4hour commuite from hell. It wasn't every day I was at home, but about 1/2 the work week was done from the home office, well till eventually I gave up on the whole going to the office.
The boss didn't really approve though... basicly under the old impression of, "if I can't see you working, you are not working", but at the very least had server logs, VPN access, database access to somewhat justify why I wasn't in the office. Simple answer, "I was working" It was honestly a case where it was pointless to hit traffic go to the office, just to check my e-mail to see what projects were schedualed for the day, then drive back home to complete them.
But eventually there was an argument over paying me for work done in my home office, basicly a documented claim in e-mail about how he doesn't pay for what I do on my own time, which was fine by me, so I just billed the clients directly rather then going through him, and made more money. He wasn't happy, but it was his choice.
But the point is that telecommuting can work, provided you don't have an employer who's a total bozo. In my case simple call forwarding to my mobile, or mobile to my land line, gave the illusion of a tradidational office setting. Phone the office, need to talk to the staff, the staff answers. (Little diffrence in America being the cell holder pays for the air time, never the caller, but the office switchboard should accomplish this illusion quite well). I know also that the network known now as t-mobile supported fax to mobile services, where the subscriber who recieved a fax on the mobile could route it to any number of their choosing, again making it easy for the staff not to be near the physical office fax.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
You'll be dealing with the INS. As self-serving a bunch of human beings as you're likely to encounter. They make sure you wear brown lipstick because they have some things (a visa and the power to toss you onto the next plane to nowhere,) only one of which you want.
It doesn't get worse than that unless you're black, don't dress in visibly wealthy "old money" style and just went through a stop sign...
America is a great place as long as you have money... Its pretty damn dismal when you don't.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
What barriers exist to working in the UK for a non-UK (e.g. US) employer.
I don't know about being a US resident working in the US (it's outside the boundries of the European Community)...
For the EU, there would be no problem in attaining a permit to work (it is after all the EU)... The one thing I'm unsure of is taxes (here in Sweden, you pax taxes to the municipality you live in (as opposed to the one you work in)... The employer on the other hand pays taxes based on where you work.
I'm not really in to tax laws between countries and such... *Sigh*
I'm in Australia, and I telework 4 days a week. Actually, I telework about 6 days a week and turn up in the office on the other day, but have very flexible hours. I've also done some technical writing for a usa company. (free plug: www.devx.com) Situation: I got my setup as I have to provide after-hours remote support to our manufacturing sites during the production season (cotton harvest, March-July). Also, I do both development and network admin tasks, and cannot focus on the devt with all the interruptions in the office. Still being in place once a week does help the relations with other staff - even without realising it we tend to give people more credibility in person than remotely. "The office" is only half an hour away, but that's "the next town" - ie around here it's considered a hassle driving that long to get to work. otoh, half of "the office" (including my manager) is being relocated to another town 5 hours away. I got the option to choose, and chose to stay. Most didn't get an option, they were told. I started with a modem-router, then moved to ISDN, and now ADSL, which I've ramped up to the highest speed available here. (I do at times download huge fixpacks and tools under development subscriptsions with IBM and MS). Foreign Work I was approached via email to do some tech writing, by someone who observed my activity on a relevant newsgroup. I'm paid a flat rate per article of a certain size, in $US. (The jolly exchange rate movements have wiped 20% off my current invoice - dang!) This has worked fairly well, with an added bonus that I can write while my editor is asleep, giving next-day turnaround on minor edits. I have to declare the income as "other foreign income", ie it doesn't fit in any normal categories on the tax form. Actually the tax office wouldn't even know unless they audited my bank account records. Lifestyle Working from home with flexible hours has been great, as I have two young children. It meant I could be at home with #1 while my wife was in hospital with #2. It also means my wife can do part-time work. The lifestyle thing can go either way. There's the danger that you won't self motivate. There's also the risk that you end up spending every waking moment in front of the computer, working, feeling no other sense of identity. You can start in your pyjamas and forget to get dressed. (That's if it actually matters). It works for some. It doesn't work for others. Having a dedicated "work area" is essential, especially if anyone else lives in the house. It's then easy to define "I'm at work now" by which room you're in. Finding work It's just another arena for the same question - how do you find work at all? It can depend on contacts, on reputation, on spending time hunting or you might just fluke it like I did. It depends on managers' perceptions and requirements. Good Luck. I hope it works for you, but don't forget to go meet people sometimes :-)
-- All your bass are below two Hz
I'm also in the UK, coincidentally about 90 mins from (central) London. Before I took this job I'd lived & worked in London for 8 years. I was/am amazed at the way everyone seems to accept spending hours a day sitting in car commuting. Give me trains any day - you can read, sleep, finish that last minute report... :)
Some of my group are often on the road visiting clients (mostly doing firewall installs but also presales and other consultancy); personally I'm looking forward to the time I get myself some proper accomodation, work pay for broadband and I can do my (pentesting) work from home at least some of the time. That said, I'd go bonkers if I never came into the office at all.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
It would be interesting to hear if open source developers think that this might work - I imagine it's a similar style of working albeit with different motivations....
Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
My experience is that the political stuff varies from company to company. Current employer has an amazingly low level of background political radiation. We have several people who very rarely come in, including someone who works from the Czech republic... and anyway, most of us (geek types) do most of our in-office communication using mail/IRC/whatever anyway. What difference does it make whether someone's on the next floor or the next country, either way you won't see them very often. So long as they answer mail, it doesn't really matter.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Having worked for a year as a Network Consultant from home, I found it to be a nightmare.
I still needed to travel to the office at least once a week for meetings, or to trial equipment in the employers labs.
I ended up working longer hours, and was made to feel bad if I left home after my contractual 5pm finish time. Of course, you can claim tax breaks through having a home office, but this just adds complication to your tax return...
The biggest thing I noticed, was not feeling part of the 'team'. I could turn up to events, and no-one would know who I was....pretty bad considering I brought in a large part of their profits!!
I wish anyone else trying tele-working out the best of luck!
You might want to look into the 2002 EU teleworking agreement.
/. . If you are self-assessed for tax you definitely want to contact the DTI/Revenue or your accountant to make sure you're not going to get screwed for extra tax.
This page has a reasonable description (skip down to the bit about the main points) although some of the links seem to be broken.
The agreement is voluntary but lots of large companies do follow this. My own experience was that companies often prefer to have you work *part time* in the office rather than full time at home, to avoid the onus of a health and safety inspection of your house (I can't remember if this one is required under UK law, we have some regs which differ from the EU agreement). There are definite tax implications in the UK when you work from home, and you should allocate a room or an area in your house as your 'home office'. (the issue was, IIRC, that if the company provide you with furniture and/or equipment - as is often the case because of their health and safety duty of care - then this can be taxed as an additional benifit, unless you use it *exclusively* for work)
If you belong to a professional organization or union they will almost certainly be able to provide you with better advice than anyone
You should also read this note on working outside of the UK.
Disclaimer: IANAL, but I did serve as a union official 3 years or so ago, and dealt with a couple of teleworking cases.
-Baz
I have no problem trying overseas programmers again, but only for very well defined projects, and not where the client requirements are in the slightest bit fluid.
+1 Interesting? It sounds like a bloody joke! I earn that in a month teleworking.
> A tiny 2 bedroom flat in London city center can cost £200k-£500k GBP
;)
> which would be $320k-$800k.
>
So get a few friends together and rent a house. We paid £1100 pcm for a 4 bedroom place with std. mod cons, front & back garden, 7 mins walks from the tube. (Granted, this was a bit of a bargain, but they're still out there if you're prepared to look.) Get a geek house going and you might be able to club together for a leased line, too. And think of the savings in video rentals when the Matrix, LotR etc come out
And anyway, tech workers in central London still earn a fsck of a lot more than the average wage, even post-boom and with the City firing thousands. In fact this HELPS- without all those huge bonuses, the demand for very high-end gaffs has dropped off a lot, and theoretically at least that'll ripple down the accomodation food-chain. IYSWIM.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
I work for a small software/web company located about half an hour outside of London
About six months ago, it was decided that all technical members of staff would be allowed to work from home whenever they wanted as long as they weren't supposed to be in a meeting or something.
About half of the staff here have never bothered doing this; I have tried it a few times but usually come in. Why?
In short, you can keep it. I'm friends with the guys I work with and I like taking my lunch at a pub on the side of the Thames...
For a lot of people, being available so that people can just walk up to you and ask you a question is a big inconvenience - especially developers. The solution here is to have a ticketing system mediating all questions. This increases productivity for everyone because everyone benefits from the answers to questions - not only those who were within earshot and were listening in.
Meetings can be more of a pain, but quite honestly, meetings are automatically a pain. Most meetings are non-interactive - they're manager-to-employees dissemination of information. I have not been in a interactive meeting that could not have been handled over e-mail, and in fact, in our 24x7 environment, this makes more sense because it can involve everyone.
Personally, not needing to pay attention to political sagas is an advantage for me, since I don't have to care about that. I have my work done and I don't have to bother with unrelated stuff.
The disadvantage is, that you are not seen and people don't think you are commited. They will eventually see the hard work, when something bad happens and they see how promptly you can solve issues.
Now I'm also a contractor for other companies, also working from home mostly. I don't have to be anywhere during working hours, I just need to have my laptop and cellphone connection with me in case something bad happens. And of course I need to have my work done. Pretty nice, I wouldn't change.
Interesting thread.
I wanted to work from home, none of my previous customers were happy with me doing it since they paid me per hour. Paying people per hour gave them this strange compulsion to actually have me on site so that I could see that I was actually working.
I changed my relationships with my customers such that I now quote for "lumps of work" or "deliverables". They say "We want XYZ", I say "Thats £2.50". How I do it is none of their concern - how long it takes me, what I do in the intervening time is my business - not theirs.
How do you sell that view?
Advantages to Customer:
1) Liability. When things go wrong, if the consultant is on a time-based contract then the bill to the customer is as long as it takes to fix the problem. Ie, open-ended liability. If things go wrong YOU get the bill. Goodbye IR35.
2) Accountability. Once you have given the customer the comfort level they need that you can provide the services to them competantly, they are more than happy to outsource their non-core business functions out.
3) Cost. If the customer insists on working you on T+M, provide an incentive. I have two rates, Rate A is for formal training and knowledge transfer or anything which is ON-SITE. Rate B is for anything else which is OFF-SITE.
I'm not going to publish my rates here, but to give you an idea - my discounted rate (offsite) is 40% of my normal rate (on-site).
This means that the customer saves 40% on his costs if he doesn't mandate my consultants being on-site.
What does this mean for me now?
Well, I've been working mainly from the home office for the best part of two years, my customer visits are on average two or three times a month.
I have my green-card, I'm emigrating to the US on July 1st. What difference does this make to my customer? None at all. Does my customer mind? Not in the slightest. If they need me on site a few days consultancy easily covers travel expenses.
My customer continues paying my UK company. My company continues paying UK taxes. I continue paying (some) UK taxes, and according to two Tax Attournies in the US I am exempt from US taxes.
I don't believe them.
Hope that gives you some ideas and food for thought.
So perhaps working out of home isn't the best idea, but perhaps your local coffeehouse might allow that simple social interaction that would help.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
I'm a US citizen currently living in the UK (also about 90 min from London) and have worked from home for nearly 3 years. The first time was as out of necessity to help take care of our 3-year old when my wife was ordered on bed-rest whilst pregnant with twins. I arranged to write code for my employer from home and go to the office when we had other help around. At the time I only lived about 10 min from the office so going in on occasion or even on short-notice wasn't an issue.
The next time was after relocating to Germany to work for the European office of a US internet consultancy. The company went under when the dot-com bubble burst and I took a job with a US software company which was expanding into Europe. I was living in the north of Germany and this company's German office was in the south of the country (about a 7-hour drive). I worked remotely and travelled to customer sites for several months and then relocated to the UK but continued to work from home full-time.
Since then, I've changed employers again but was able to negotiate working from home 3-4 days a week.
My experience:
-I agree that you need your own space in the house. When daddy's in his office the kids need to understand that they can't be screaming outside his door or barging in whenever they want.
-If you've got a dedicated connection, being on IM or at least being able to quickly reply to email is an invaluable way of keeping in touch with colleagues and even partners or customers.
-Being remote doesn't have to hamper career progression or management opportunities. If you're working for a multi-national company and most of the folks who report to you (and the folks to whom you report) are in another country it doesn't really matter if you're talking to them from home or the office.
-My current client is in Milan but my deliverables don't require me to be on-site so, again, it doesn't matter if I'm working on my tasks from home or the office.
-I've been on conference calls with executives from customer or partner companies across Europe and discovered that more than one of us are calling in from home (I've even heard they're kids in the background).
-Regular communication (phone, email, IM) during the day with fellow workers can help address loneliness and isolation.
-Keep consistent hours. Start and finish work at the same time and for Pete's sake, change out of your pyjamas before you clock in.
I'll admit it takes discipline but getting those extra 4-5 hours a day to spend with the family is all the motivation I need.
...they are probably seeing this list of advantages/disadvantages like this:
Advantages for me:
Advantages for my employer:
Advantages for society:
There are a number of disadvantages and factors to consider, though none should be insurmountable. A couple might be:
So if you're having trouble getting approval to work from home. You might be running into these attitudes.
Have a nice day!
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Now that's pathetic.
What could you do with two or three extra hours a day, 10-15 hours a week??? Read books. Watch films. Learn to play guitar. Study a martial art. Spend time with friends. Take a class at your local college. Write poetry. Play with the dog. Play volleyball. Volunteer for some cause you think is important.
If you can't find an interested way to spend that time, you are in serious need of a life transfusion.
You'd rather spend all that time stuck in your car? Ugh.
I find a half-hour commute to be just on the edge of bearable. I'd slit my wrists if I to drive 90 minutes each way every day just to go sit in front of a computer, especially when there's a perfectly good computer less than five meters from my bed.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I am working for a Marketing Consulting firm in more or less of a support role, but as time has gone on, I have selectively chosen projects that could be done remotely and tried to not take any projects that relied on me being physically tied to any one place.
The end result is that if I wanted to move now, I could move and keep my job in NYC. I find this especially attractive because wages in NYC are very high to compensate for a high cost of living, but when I move, my cost of living should be much lower.
Working from home is also attractive to me because of all of the airborne allergies I have. I run air purifiers at home and they make a huge difference in how good I feel. Unfortunately, I am actually allergic to my employer's offices. But since I am there a couple days a week I just have to take my meds and deal with it.
Those who trade freedom for security will lose both, and deserve neither" -- Ben Franklin
This is because most countries have a "control" test - if the shareholders/directors of a company live in that country, the company can be taxed there.
For example if you have a UK co and live full-time in France, the French authorities (as well as the UK!) can tax it. Nightmare of paperwork. Of course they have to find it but nowadays any arrangement that relies on secrecy is doomed to failure, eventually.
But the lower tax solution: incorporate offshore and then live in a country which does not have such rules, or live in multiple countries for part of the year without being a resident in any of them (a great lifestyle which I did for years).
Note that many clients would have problems paying some of the more "offshore" places like Nuie, Vanuatu etc. The Isle of Man is the best place to form a company for European Union people (in fact best for most).
Rob
If you'd like to do independent consulting from home, you might want to try out KEEN at the UK site or the US site. This site allows people with questions to get connected with you for help, and you get paid. I have no association with the site other than someone showed it to me a couple weeks ago.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
If no one can see you at work, you're not working. You could be sleeping at your desk and your coworkers would have a higher view of you than a telecommuter. I don't know if it's jealously or just plain incomprehension of the fact that someone doesn't need to sit their butt at the office to do work for the company.
I've telecommuted on and off for about a third of my 20+ year career in computers, and I've thought about this a lot.
I think the real problem here is that if you are away, the superficial information bosses are used to using to tell if you're working go to pieces and they have to either (a) come up with equally superficial ways of judging you at home or (b) [and they really dread this] decide to judge you on what you actually do.
Now, I don't think that it should necessarily even be the case that a boss could do his/her underling's job. However, I think the problem that comes with judging people on what they actually do is that many managers are either ill at ease or downright unqualified to say whether the people working for them are in fact doing their job if the actual criterion to be used is "understanding what they are doing" or "knowing whether what is being done is being done right". And the lack of desire to own up to this is a big problem. Managers have to figure out when and who to trust, and that's not always easy.
I've worked at companies where when you were tired, you just took a nap and no one said anything. After all, wasn't that better than sitting at the console sleepily, one eye on the clock waiting for 5pm so you could duck out after a day of getting nothing done? People came and went when they wanted, too. But this meant that managers had to have the skill to judge who was producing and who wasn't, and the confidence to put their own reputation on the line in asserting this belief and trust.
At MIT, many years ago, I asked why I had to take so many hardware courses for a degree in software. I was told that they didn't know how to grade software, and so they wanted me to take at least some courses that they did know how to grade. Working at a technical job is a lot like this--you have to both do the work assigned you, plus also some busy work that they know how to grade you on.
Slashdot reader TaraByte struck a chord with me with some sad but true commentary on another article, including the remark "For extra credit, send in your report at 8pm or later." This is so familiar. I've had situations where I was working my heart out for up to 80 hrs a week at home, barely eating and sleeping, and it went entirely unnoticed by management until once, not realizing the effect it would have, I sent a status report at 3am (a perfectly normal working hour for me). Someone in company management picked up on the timestamp on my report and said "wow, he's working really hard" (without, I'm quite sure, checking to see if I had been asleep at 3pm that day). I had been working really hard, and was glad to have it realized, even if the "evidence" that led to the conclusion was bogus.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer