I have gone from a 3 hour daily commute and filling up my tank twice a week (mostly from idling in traffic!) to filling up once every 6 weeks. The traffic jam in the morning here consists of a shiztu and a lab puppy competing to get to the back door first, then I swing by the coffee pot and microwave, then I battle the cat for the computer. I heat only my home office during the day by using a ceramic heater and beat any chill outside my office by wearing sweats and thick socks. During the summer, the office attire is t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. Usually a ceiling fan suffices except for the most torrid months of July and August. My energy bill has dropped from $180/month when working to $151/month now.

My work schedule is my own. I set my own conference calls with my project teams, and we each work on our own sections of the project. Once completed, I compile and send to the customer. We rarely print out the reports; customers are requesting soft copies more than hard. In the past year, I’ve printed only 5 sets of proposals. In 2007, I printed 20 sets. Combined, it is a huge savings of paper and binders.

This is not a job for a social butterfly — I get visited rarely, and that is usually by family stopping by to chat. When husband and stepson get home, I shut the door to the office and spend time with my family instead of sitting in traffic for 1-1.5 hours. Yep, this is the job for me, since I tend to be more job-focused than people-focused. As long as I get to see my grandkids every couple of days, that’s all the social needs I have!

As for halving office space as more people telecommute, I don’t think it will be a one-to-one drop. Also, there will always be a need for offices for those who don’t want to work at home, customer visits, etc. But it’s true that office space may get smaller and that could have an impact. I don’t think it will offset an increase in home energy use, though.

What i find interesting is the topic and circumstances described in the previous emails. This is definatly not a topic that office people would have.

I would get out more and enjoy the surrounding environment that telecommuting allows you to enjoy.

Your hometown is on fire from the sun and from the amount of bikiness going on:

http://www.austincycling.org/
http://googlemapsbikethere.org/
http://snipurl.com/25fx6 [www_austin360_com]

Ride a bike, Ride a bike, Ride a….

As for the AC, others in the house mean that mine was already set lower during the day.

From a broader sense, I think Tyler’s argument is flawed. If half the workforce worked from home, then obviously half the world’s office space could be shut down with it. That would create savings, not to mention the savings you would see from reduced infrastructure for highways.

For me the proof is simple, I’m spending less on total energy bills — electricity and gas (not to mention tolls, insurance, and depreciation of my car). That’s proof enough for me that I’m being more eco-friendly.

I’ve been thinking about this for years — imagine if half the workforce worked occasionally from home. Offices would still need to keep the air conditioning going, heating, lights, etc… but you’ve got millions of households increasing their load on the grid.

I’m not so sure I’d drive more if I stayed home, but certainly I’d be opening the fridge more, making coffee, using more water, likely watching TV. I came to realize this effect by noticing how my energy bills spiked when we moved from a daycare to a nanny for my children. With the nanny, the house never shuts down for the nine hours or so the parents are at work. That adds up — both financially and from a carbon footprint perspective.

Taking transit and car pooling to work is more effective, in my view, that having your employees work from home.

So again, thanks for pointing this out.

That said, I think telepresence technologies for meetings are more important because they at least cut down on longer travel times, whether by car or more importantly by plane.