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  3. HOME-THE NEW WORKPLACE One of the scourges of the modern world is the length of time we take commuting to and from work. In

HOME-THE NEW WORKPLACE One of the scourges of the modern world is the length of time we take commuting to and from work. In

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问题                HOME-THE NEW WORKPLACE
    One of the scourges of the modern world is the length of time we take commuting to and from work. In large cities this can mean losing three or more hours every day just traveling from home to work and back again. Surely there is an alternative! Well, according to a survey conducted in the US, 22% of people would much prefer working from home, should circumstances allow. Liz Sewell spoke to several people who have already made the change to this modern-day workplace to try and find out more.
    Scott Miller is a 40-year-old draughtsman who has been working from home for the past two years. He admits that it wasn’t something that he craved for; rather it happened when his wife, Jules, a university lecturer, was offered a full-time position. "She didn’t think that she could take the job. I knew that she really wanted it, but she didn’t want to put our son into full-time care. I had been working for the same firm for seven years and decided to approach my bosses. My track record probably helped because they accepted the proposition. As long as my productivity was maintained, they didn’t mind where I worked. Also my wife is happy, and her career is blossoming."
    "Now I go into the office every Monday afternoon for a meeting and to pick up my week’s work. Interestingly, I feel that I work even better from home, so much so that even though our son is now at school, I still work there."
    However, is working from home as simple as it sounds? Transferring work to a different workplace is only part of the equation for Joanne McCarthy, who until three months ago was a Human Resources Manager for a large public corporation. She has now become a full-time trader on the stock market. She says she loves the freedom that working from home gives her, but she really misses the social interaction.
    "As my job just involves working for myself, by myself, I find that I have become much more introverted because I don’t have that face-to-face, professional involvement with people any more. I spend all day on the computer checking the prices of my stocks. By evening, I am desperate to talk to my husband - even if it is only about what he has been doing all day."
    She has realized that this could jeopardise her attempts to work from home and has decided to join a local investors’ club which meets once a week, just to get more interaction in her life. "I don’t think I’ll learn anything from it, but it will be nice to meet with like-minded people and talk business. Meeting friends for coffee or for lunch meets my social needs, but work is still a large part of my life."
    One of Joanne’s friends helped her to make the transition to working from home. Louise Tate is an accountant and used to commute an hour each way to her office before deciding there had to be a better way. For her, the biggest problem with working from home was distractions. "It was so easy to get distracted by the other things you have to do at home, like washing and cleaning," she told us. "I had to force myself to view my study as an office, not part of the house. So I came up with a novel idea-my husband thought I was mad, but I had a separate entrance built to the office. At the beginning of my workday, I go out of the front door of our house, lock it, and then walk around to the office. Now I feel that I am really at work, and my productivity has increased as a result. I know it sounds strange, but it works for me." Twelve months down the track and Louise never wants to face the morning traffic again.
    People choose to work from home for a multitude of reasons. Take the example of George Mercer, who owns seven cafes within a 7 mile radius of downtown Miami. He has based his office in his Fort Lauderdale beachfront home, and keeps in contact with his various managers by phone, fax and email. "When I started the business four years ago, I couldn’t decide which cafe to have as my main base, so I decided to set up my office at home. With modern telecommunications nowadays, I am always able to contact my premises and order provisions from my suppliers."
    "If I get fed up with working from home, or if there are problems that have to be dealt with in person, I just jump in the car and drive to the cafes. From time to time, we have meetings at my place, which give the managers a break from their own ’offices’. They get a change of scenery. I still have control but they have a large amount of independence in the day-to-day running of the cafes. I love my job and it’s obvious that my managers respond well to the arrangement. Life’s great at the moment and I wouldn’t change a thing!"
    Obviously, not everyone is able to have the type of work that can be done from home, but there are plenty of people just like me-judging by Internet sites and the more traditional employment vacancy ads-who would jump at the chance.
______ lives on the coast.
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