Work No Longer a Place but an Activity

Hmm I wonder... by DigitumDei · 2004-05-07 00:06 · Score: 3, Funny

how much work I'd actually get done at home. I bet many people would get more stuff done, but my ps2 being in such close proximity to my work station may cause more trouble than its worth.

--
East Coast Brewers

Re:Hmm I wonder... by StarOwl · 2004-05-07 00:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm in the odd sitution of working in my office (100 miles away from where I live), telecommuting from a sattelite office (15 miles away), or working from my house as my needs permit.

Curiously, I'm most productive at home, then at the sattelite office, and least productive in my actual office. I figure that's because people won't normally bother me while at home, but in my main office I have quite a bit of time eaten up by the pointy-haired bosses.

Considering that all that many of us need to work is 'net and phone, both of which are increasingly wireless, why should we be stuck in our dark little cubes all day?
Re:Hmm I wonder... by DigitumDei · 2004-05-07 00:22 · Score: 3, Interesting

I guess it depends on the office space. Where I currently work the pointy haired boss is an ex programmer and so isn't too pointy haired. I tend to work a lot more in the office because the way things are set up work. The management stays away as long as we are getting stuff done. :)

I think the point is that different things work for different people and their jobs and also apply differently based on the culture of the company.

I do know that at my previous company I would have gotten tons more work done if I had worked at home, but now, with a change of company, the reverse is true.

--
East Coast Brewers
Re:Hmm I wonder... by nojomofo · 2004-05-07 00:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

I think that the sorts of jobs where this works well are the sorts of jobs that are most likely to be outsourced. If all the communication that you need to do your job is some emailed spec docs and an occasional phone conversation, why couldn't the email be to somebody in India?

I occasionally work from home, but it wouldn't work for me to work from home too much. I spend a lot of time talking to various people around the office - marketing people who have ideas about what they want to see in the software that I'm working on, internal clients who actually use the software, other technical resources on what's in our data and how to use it, etc. It's my communication skills that ensure that my job isn't going to get outsourced - if a job could be outsourced, it isn't something that I'm interested in.
Re:Hmm I wonder... by cmacb · 2004-05-07 01:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yeah, good luck.

From the article:

"The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports there were 138.5m employed Americans in March 2004; eMarketer estimates that 19.2% of these Americans, 26.6m, worked at home in their primary job once a month."

Whoop dee friggin doo. I'd hardly call that progress. I first heard of this concept as a Comp Sci student in the early 70's. There shouldn't even BE and office for me to go to by now. "once a month"? that sounds like sick leave to me. What they are saying is that when you call in sick, automation workers are expected to sign on anyway and try and get something done rather than stay in bed like they should be doing.

My only extensive work-at-home period was when I was a truly independent consultant. My major contract at the time could all be done remotely. Even so, the customer needled me about showing up more often even though there was no place to sit and work available when I showed up. So twice a week I'd make the two hour drive, socialize with the staff and waste their time too, and make sure that the PHBs saw me doing it. Then in the middle of the day I'd drive back home and sign on to actually work.

Sounds like the best way to not have to drive to the office these days is to get your job in India.
Re:Hmm I wonder... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-07 03:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

I was recently working on a team as an ASIC verification engineer. Our ASIC team was dispersed across 4 locations, east-coast and west-coast. Most of the west-coast folks were 'unassigned' meaning they didn't have real offices, most worked from home, or drop-in offices. As a result I had an opportunity to work from home quite a bit.

I found that one day a week was fine, and that I was more productive on that first day, but when it reached 2-3 days for the week, productivity dropped off, and it felt less like a job, and more like unemployment! I missed the interpersonal interaction even if most of it was not with my immediate team.

As far as the team goes -- it was a horrible experience. Tracking people down was a nightmare, meetings became completely useless since everyone was dialed-in (half of the time you couldn't hear anything, the other half you were asleep), communication became heavily dependent on e-mail which caused the response time to be 1-2 days for any issue. If I had to guess, I think our efficiency was dropped by 50-60%. If the cost of more engineers to overcome the inefficiency is less than the cost of real-estate it makes sense, but not if you can't tolerate longer product cycles or more engineering resource.

For a while I thought I could go live somewhere cheap and work remotely, but the question always turned to, "What do I do if I can't work with this company anymore?" How hard would it be to find a job, get trained, and integrate into a new team from a remote location?

I used to be a big fan of telecommuting, but now I would avoid it. I think having the option to work from home is good, say when it snows 4 feet, or you have to wait for the UPS guy or something, but I don't think I would want to be required to work from home.

Just my thoughts.

telework? by imag0 · 2004-05-07 00:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

Do they mean "moving jobs offshore telework" or "americans on call 24 hours a day" telework?

Either way it sounds hellish to me. I like my days off too much.

Welcome to marketing by ebh · 2004-05-07 00:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

Most sales, marketing, executive and other customer facing jobs have been like this for years. Also, things like "hoteling" of office space predicted this a long time ago.

Commercial square footage is expensive, and employees who want window offices instead of internal cubes are more likely to get them in their own homes.

But good luck getting that home-office tax deduction...

Re:Welcome to marketing by subguy · 2004-05-07 00:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

Reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon from a few years back.

The gist was that technology was advanced enough that you could legitimately claim to be productive working from home, yet not sufficiently advanced for your boss to check up on you. We were therefore at a historical point in time where goofing off from home and getting paid was a possibility.
Re:Welcome to marketing by Zoinks · 2004-05-07 05:20 · Score: 3, Funny

I believe the final panel was this:

PHB: "You mean you'd stay at home and we'd just send you checks?"

Dogbert: "Actually, I was hoping for direct deposit" (little dogbert tail-wag...)

you don't need wifi to work from home... by baeksu · 2004-05-07 00:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

...nor broadband. especially not wi-fi, that would just be silly. anyway, my dad has worked from home for a insurance company for 5 years now. all he needed is a telephone and isdn-line. not much high-tech, really.

--
Gnome: A never ending quest to make unix friendly to people who don't want unix and excruciating for those that do.

Re:you don't need wifi to work from home... by demi · 2004-05-07 00:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

The article is about working outside the office, not just from home. I, for one, find Wi-Fi convenient when I want to get out of the house and work in the local coffee house or pub.

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demi

Telework means Outsourceable by RGautier · 2004-05-07 00:10 · Score: 5, Interesting

If your job can be done from home, it can be done from India, or China, or Mexico.
I don't have anything against job assignments that allow some telecommuting, but if you think your job can be both safe, and something you can do from home, you need to find a different line of work.

Re:Telework means Outsourceable by AlecC · 2004-05-07 00:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

if you think your job can be both safe, and something you can do from home, you need to find a different line of work.

No. You just need aome unique skill or knowledge which cannot be picked up on tbe street corner. Certainly, if you think of yourself as a "warm body" programmer - "Have emacs, will travel (virtually)", then you can be replaced by another such - and it doesn't matter if they are in India or down the street. Wherever you may be, you need to build up skills and knowledge. Work out what distinguishes you from the next cubicle and (provided it is good, of course), polish it.

This is something self-employed people and small traders have had to live with for ever. It is now moving into the previously sheltered world of software. It is not thst the world is suddenly being nasty to geeks - it is that geeks have had it unfairly easy for thirty years, and the real world has finally woken up to the easy ride we have been getting.

--
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Re:Telework means Outsourceable by Masa · 2004-05-07 00:26 · Score: 4, Interesting

If your job can be done from home, it can be done from India, or China, or Mexico.

I think, you are wrong. Yes, I can see your point and agree to some degree, but in general, a telecommuter is a person, who has to do creative work and his/her presence is not required regularly at the office.

I'm telecommuting and I don't feel that my position would be threatened. My contribution to the company is pretty important and both my employer and I have agreed that telecommuting will increase my productivity. I'm working as a software engineer and I constantly find it hard to concentrate at the work-place (I'm sitting in the cubicle). Telecommuting makes it possible to get out from the noisy office to much quieter place and achieve better results.
Re:Telework means Outsourceable by KrispyKringle · 2004-05-07 00:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

I don't see how you come to that conclusion. By that logic, pretty much the only jobs safe from outsourcing are manual labor and customer service type jobs that require a physical presence. Yet many argue that there are still things that must be done domestically to be done right, and that among these things are jobs require innovation, cultural familiarity, etc. These jobs include research and development (of which at least a portion could be done at home), software engineering (of which at least a portion can be done at home), hell, even lawering, of which a portion can be done at home.
Perhaps I'm way off base here, but my impression is that the jobs being outsourced are more rote jobs, like data entry, or basic coding. I don't see a lot of R&D or software engineers being replaced with offshore counterparts--though there are cutbacks in these areas simply because of hard financial times. So it seems like if what we are left with is a notion of jobs that generate some form of intellectual capital--I don't be raw code, but more in the line of innovation and higher-level stuff--these are the jobs requiring intellectual interaction, but not physical presence. So I don't think your point necessarily holds true.
Re:Telework means Outsourceable by alcourt · 2004-05-07 00:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

One of the basic rules of outsourcing is you don't outsource your mission critical work. If you do, then why does the company exist at all instead of the outsource firm doing it directly without the overhead of the other company?

Also, some jobs are just fundamentally a bad idea to outsource because of the issues with continuity and corporate security. Examples of this include your internal corporate security department.

There is also little difference between teleworking from a different office and teleworking from home. As someone who has telecommuted for the past seven years, I started not because of some proclaimed convienience factor, but because my official office had no one I worked with in the same building. A couple years later, I didn't work with anyone within a few hundred miles. Yet being on the corporate network and a corporate employee (instead of an outsourced contractor) makes my job far easier for me. Our outsource sites are constantly fighting a lot of issues of network access, management structure, etc. that I just don't have to deal with.

--
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire
Re:Telework means Outsourceable by RGautier · 2004-05-07 00:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

Let me clarify what I mean.
#1 - If your job is only partially telecommuting - requiring your presence for customer meetings, or other in-shop collaboration, that's not easily outsourced. So, I agree with this point already.
#2 - Some people feel that research and high-level functions cannot be done outside of the walls of the great USA. They're wrong! There are countless numbers of highly intelligent engineers and other high-level positions outside of the United States. Not only do they speak English, but they also fluently speak German, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, etc... And they're willing to do the same work (or MORE WORK!) for less money.
Telecommuting is a double-edged sword, and that's the point I was trying to bring up here. Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it. The only way to continue to protect American jobs is ensure that American education is better than the rest of the world, keeping our children and our collegiates worth more than someone from another country.
If we don't do that, then indeed manual labor will be the only thing left for us, and even that will be outsourced if we continue to allow overseas factories to outperform the Union-run shops in the good ole USA.
Re:Telework means Outsourceable by Anonymous Coward · 2004-05-07 01:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

"the only jobs safe from outsourcing are manual labor and customer service type jobs that require a physical presence"

Well, yes. You can't outsource plumbing, burgers made in China still have to be prepared locally, and it's not yet practical to ship diesel equipment to India for maintenance.

Everything else can be learned. And many, many people in "disadvantaged" countries who have nothing else to their name or credit, do have all their marbles and are eager to learn everything they can in the interest of making themselves better off.

"jobs [that] require innovation, cultural familiarity, etc" are not safe.

Commuting is stupid by xtal · 2004-05-07 00:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

Teleworking will happen when there's enough communications infrastructure in place to have a high definition, or at least good quality, video feed to the employee at home. Until this can happen it will be too difficult to get things done outside of a personal working environment.

Really though, the kick for all of this will be gasoline prices 2-4x what they are now. It's insane to spend the amount of time most people do commuting, it's a huge loss of productivity overall. There is a culture of mistrust that won't change until it absolutely has to.

You can always (try) to work for yourself, too..

--
..don't panic

Not really by Epistax · 2004-05-07 00:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

While I don't really like the dress code that is typical of work (thus I love my Intel internship), the office environment isn't replaceable. Even if I like what I am doing for work, distractions at home purely cost the company money. Distractions at work, on the other hand, largely provide to the company. At the very least the distraction is a team effort.

Now maybe it's just because of where I'm working right now but just about the whole day is about work. We're always talking about what we're doing, what we've learned, and what not to do, during any 'distraction'. During lunch I may learn how to get around a problem I am having because I'm communicating with different people than I directly work with.

Anyway I don't think I can explain well without running on about one thing or another; however I am confident that getting even a solid 8 hours of work done at home will be less productive than a half a day or work, and a half of day of distractions at the office. And you'll never get 8 hours of solid work at home without fretting over something.

Re:Not really by canolecaptain · 2004-05-07 00:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Ah my padawan learner - you haven't yet become the master.
I work from home a few days each week, and questions, when they occur, are only an IM, email, or phone call away. It's the same thing as being there. Once you cross a certain level of understanding, the need to have problems and questions answered drops considerably.
The office has become more about socializing with peers, giving hands on help to QA / marketing / etc, and having good design discussions. After that, it's all negative for the company. The constant interruptions (phone calls, drop in visits, etc) for things better answered by email are the big productivity loss.
Being forced to take the time to write an email forces a better explanation of the issue than the most typical drop in visiter has actually formulated. It actually makes work more productive in many (but not all) circumstances).

Working from home by Anml4ixoye · 2004-05-07 00:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

I have to agree that it is certainly becoming easier to work remotely. When I moved to North Carolina in January, my previous job kept me on board. I can easily VPN to them, authenticate to the network and get all of my shared drives, and, because we use Cisco's IP Phone, have a local Tampa number in Charlotte, NC that I answer with my computer. Except for the fact that my cubicle is empty down there, you would have no idea I was even gone.

In my present position we use as many tools as possible to facilitate being able to work from home if so desired (like Source OffSite, our bugtracker on a public facing address, etc), but the best part is that there is no requirement we work from home. If I come up with an idea on how to solve some issue at 11pm at night, I can hop on, check out the code and make the changes.

The hardest part for me about working from home is (as another poster mentioned) the distractions. We just moved into a house where I was able to grab a bedroom and turn it into an office, so at least I can close the door if need be, but if you have a hard time seperating yourself out from that, working at home is only going to make things more difficult for you.

--
Random Musings

It may happen, but then again by TrueBuckeye · 2004-05-07 00:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

maybe not. You are forgetting that first off, a boss has no control over someone working from home. Productivity, already hurt by internet access at every workstation, will fall, especially when Montel is on.
You also have many jobs where being at home is not an advantage, like if you have to meet clients. I work in a homebuilding company and we have customers coming in daily to view options, do financing, and the to close on the home. All things that need a central office.
Finally, there is the issue of security. Do you really want your Accounting or other information being passed over the internet? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know about VPNs and IPSec, but that doesn't make it secure, just harder to crack.
There are some areas that can, and will, move to a more decentralized model. IT in general can work well this way many times (net admin, coding, etc), but don't think that it will work for all other sectors of the economy.

--
Was that night on the marge of Lake LaBarge I cremated Sam McGee...

Re:It may happen, but then again by jbarr · 2004-05-07 00:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

"You are forgetting that first off, a boss has no control over someone working from home."
I disagree...to the extent that a teleworker's job must be measurable and accountable. My wife, who now teleworks from home full-time doing accounting-related work, is given specific duties, tasks, and goals. As long as she performs in a competent and timely manner, it's a non-issue. Of course, that would hold true regardless if of where her "office" is located.

It's also a matter of integrity and discipline. The reality is that not everyone is cut out to be an independent worker. My wife is very diligent and self-disciplined, so she has no problem working from home. Me, I often get distracted, so I would question just how well I would do at home. At least I know that, though.

--
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!

I'm doing this now... by canolecaptain · 2004-05-07 00:18 · Score: 5, Interesting

As I write this, I'm working from home for the second day this week. As a software engineer, this is becoming easier all the time. It's a great thing.

The great part is that rural communities with substantially lower living costs could end up the biggest beneficiaries. Workers able to take advantage of the trend could finally move out of higher cost areas into these communities. The workers expenses drop, so they could lower their salaries as an incentive for their company to allow it. With new cash from taxes, these communities could dramatically improve their infrastructure (schools, roads, etc) without necessarily having the problems of a metropolis.

The downside is that if I can do my job from home with only occassional face to face work meetings, as soon as the software is available to truely make those f2f visits virtual (and no, none of the current software is truely good enough yet), the competition for my type of work will increase dramatically.

Bring it on. :-)

Re:I'm doing this now... by ddewey · 2004-05-07 04:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'd like to take this idea of living in a low-cost neighborhood and telecommuting to a new extreme. I've been living in China for six months now and have found that the cost of living, including food, housing, transportation, and entertainment is only about $10 a day. Now if I could just get a telecommuting job doing software development for a company in the US I could put tons of money into savings and long-term investments. That way I could retire much earlier or use the savings to develop my own business.

I don't think companies would consider hiring me the same as outsourcing to low-paid Chinese or Indian coders. As an American I have perfect English and an understanding of American culture, as well as a quality education from an American university. Plus I already have experience doing software development for American companies, including plenty of telecommuting.

Will I ever find such an ideal job? Who knows, but hopefully as telecommuting becomes more and more ubiquitous it will become more and more likely.

--
Manufacture in China

Commuting by ArbiterOne · 2004-05-07 00:20 · Score: 4, Interesting

Commuting is becoming such a problem (re: LA traffic) that it might be faaar more productive for people to work at home than to commute. It'd also be more environmentally friendly.
Especially for people in the tech business.

This pushes data security to the foreground... by thesaur · 2004-05-07 00:24 · Score: 4, Interesting

With teleworking on the rise, companies need more than ever a secure working environment for their outsourced employees. While doctors have often outsourced dictation typing, this is much less dangerous from a data protection standpoint than if Ford would allow their engineers to work at home.

A primary concern will be preventing hacking, etc. A VPN may be sufficient to transport the data securely between the home-office and the company, but there is no guarantee that it will be safe on the employee's computer. Companies can prevent a lot of attacks by installing a good firewall. But it is virtually impossible to require the tech staff to monitor all offsite installations.

Doesn't work for every industry... by jawtheshark · 2004-05-07 00:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

I work mainly in banking, developping custom applications. I'll be the last one that is going to do his job at home. Oh, I damn well could, I only need email my devbox and some kind of access to the backend (over VPN it must be doable). However, no bank is going to do this. At least not in my country where banks are required to have their IT infrastructure in-house. Besides, they are so paranoid about security breaches (understandable) that they probably won't give anyone outside the bank a VPN connection to their network. You might after all steal customer data or so...

--
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)

Telework halftime = ideal by websensei · 2004-05-07 00:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

I work from home roughly 1/2 the time, and drive in to the office the other half. It is *ideal*. When home, I get fewer interrupts, can multitask (e.g. catch up on email during phone conferences where my input is needed for only a portion of the meeting), and generally am about 1.5X more productive. Plus, coding with my music up and the dog curled at my feet makes for a happy me. OTOH when I do go in, I maintain social/personal relationships, get enough of the hallway chats and facetime w folks to preserve my "presence" in the workplace, and feel somewhat more connected to the office per se. I wouldn't want it any other way.
My boss (tech director) feels the same way about my schedule, and everyone's happy. /anecdote

--

La via sola al paradiso incommincia nel inferno

Not always positive... by gillbates · 2004-05-07 00:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

There is a downside to this, though. When programmers hear their company allowing telecommuting, they think of working in their pajamas during normal working hours. Companies often have something completely different in mind...

Companies view telecommuting not as working from home instead of coming to work, but rather, as working from home in addition to coming to work. There are firms which expect their employees not only to work a full 8 hour day at the office, but log on and work from home after office hours. Because the employee isn't at the employer's "place of business", the employer believes they owe the employee no additional compensation for those extra hours.

And unfortunately, employees who convince their employer they need not be physically present to do their job find their jobs outsourced to other countries. Thus, telecommuting can never completely replace the office for the average American worker.

--
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.

Return to the past by G4from128k · 2004-05-07 00:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

This trend is merely a return to the past. The entire "going to the office" or "going to the factory" concept rose with the urbanization and industrialization of civilization. Go back more than a couple of hundred years and I'd bet you will find that most people had very little worklife-familylife separation. People lived on the farms that they worked on or you lived above their shop. People worked with their parents, children, and extended family. If their livelihood had a problem in the middle of the night or on the weekend, they dealt with it. That why we have so many surnames that are careers (e.g., Carpenter, Smith, Baker, Farmer, etc.)

It's not the current blurring of work and life that is a fluke, it was the recent past's separation of work and life that was the odd phenomenon.

--
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.

It really does work! by jbarr · 2004-05-07 00:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

My wife and I recently relocated to another state because I took a new job, and the company she works for let her keep her position but work from our new house. I know that's not that common yet, but with the availability of technologies like broadband, scanners, VPN, conference calls, and NetMeeting, her job experience really isn't that different from what it was when she was "in the office". The only real change is the lack of face-to-face social contact. Only time will tell the impact of that.

And as to how much work does she get done from home? Somehow, she manages to get her all of her "company" work done, gets a chance to rest, and even does the laundry. Boy, am I lucky or what?!?

--
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!

Re:Hmm I wonder... ...but you don't have to. by Matt1313 · 2004-05-07 00:56 · Score: 5, Informative

That is why when you start working from home you need to set up an "office". Whether it is an actual separate room or at least an area where you have your work stuff. I have found it to be helpful to keep that area clear of non work related stuff.
There are several other key things to do when working from home...
Follow the same routine that you would when you physically go to work.
Get dressed.
Get some coffee (or your normal morning drink and/or some breakfast).
As a side note, I find that on the days I work from home I eat breakfast more often and I choose more healthy breakfast foods.
Working from home takes some discipline but I find that when I do work from home I get more work done as there are not so many "walk-up". Ie, co-workers stopping to chat and/or co-workers using me as their reference guide for their current client issue.

In my current position it could be done 100% from anywhere there is a broadband link and cell phone reception. I only telework two days a week as I still like to show my face in the office. There are also some meetings that we have that I like to have a physical presence at as well. It is much more effective IMO when you are making an "angry face" in a meeting then when you do it over the phone. Granted you can learn how to voice your anger at your project possibly being under funded or whatever but it is easier to show your emotions physically then verbally.

(I prefer telework to telecommute as it puts the emphasis on "work", instead of a side benefit of not having to commute).

For more information on telework and proposing it to your boss/company check out this link.
http://www.telecommute.org/telework/1999wor kshop3. htm

Why would anyone want to work at home? by trash+eighty · 2004-05-07 01:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

i never understand why some people are happy to work at home, it blurs the distinction between your time and the company's time to the extent where there may no longer be a distinction.

Re:this proves the need to support academic resear by ecklesweb · 2004-05-07 01:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

Did you write this post back in 1996?

"use of comuters to predict lot of stuff"

Like, uh, the weather?

"doing your own wordprocessing"

You mean you don't have your own secretary to dictate to?

"working from home with modems"

The point of the article is that broadband is enabling more and more telecommuting.

"This justifies giving money to apparently useless research."

Who modded this insightful?

Working from home only good for some personalities by amichalo · 2004-05-07 01:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

I am a product manager responsible for a web application. Our office is seriously OUT OF ROOM and rather than rent office space across the street, I volunteered to work from home. I thought this would be great, but in practice, it has not been.

I find it too distracting to be both at home and at work 24 hours a day. It allows me to pop out of bed and be at work which is GREAT and I can recieve a FedEx package or run an errand no problem, but I am also able to just pop in the office after dinner .. and stay for two or three hours. Weekends are just another work day too.

But there are other issues that make me less productive. Though I try to stay focused, small things like unloading the dishwasher yield to larger things like mowing the yard. And when my wife is at home, it is even more distracting because I don't get to spend much time with her.

Then...there's Slashdot!

--
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.

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Work No Longer a Place but an Activity

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