Conference 7.286::digital

            -< Teleworking: Save the Employee - TFSO the Facility! >-

<    	The paper is entitled "Teleworking Network Study" and the
<    postscript version can be copied from the following location:
<    

dave,

   You might want to talk with Dave Doucette at HANNAH::DDOUCETTE for a few
minutes.  He has been trying to get something in that arena going for 4 years
now.  As I recall he had some limited success early on, but funding was hard
to find.  Most of the interest he generated was in Europe...

   If you're serious about this, you should give him a call...

Al

    It's a concept whose time has come. We have to get over the hangup that
    to "manage" people, you have to have them in a cube "just down the
    hall". For big time projects this type of effort may be required for us
    to reamin competitive.
    
    Gene whose_about_to_live_through_it.................again
    

If you're single and devoted to work 19 hours a day anyway, then this is
all well and good.  Of course relying on all-electronic communications
and losing the cues from tone of voice, facial expressions, etc., will
probably make everyone rude, bigoted and unsympathetic, such as what we
see commonly with NOTES and VNEWS already.

For people who have a home because there are other things in life
besides work that need to have a place to transpire, this will become
an unwarranted intrusion and a potential source of family discord.
Will corporations try to assist their employees in minimizing this or
will we be thrown to the wolves?  (P.s.: two guesses!;^))

Another factor is that not all jobs CAN be done without meeting fellow
workers in an office-type setting.  Maybe for technical writing you
could work at home 4 out of 5 days, for large team software engineering
2-3 out of 5...but then of course there are things like manufacturing,
petty cash, security, etc.  And even coming in 1 day out of 5 requires
that some space be available to you and that that space be allocated
and managed by someone.  Well, at least we could have a new caste system
and status heierarchy based on how many "working-at-home" days you're
trusted with (yet another variant of "mine's bigger than yours!":^)).

(Would it shock anyone that the folks who crank out all those "visions"
and strategies and architectures would get to work at home the most,
seeing as they're already least connected to reality anyway, and that
these folks might even become the biggest champions and advocates of
the whole concept??)

If the justification is reducing office floorspace requirements, i'm
skeptical that this will have the desired effect by itself (without
making it even harder to identify the "deadwood").  By combining some
variety of this with a shortened work week and longer work days, you
might then be able to realize some real "timesharing" of facilities
space with all the related savings.
								paul

    Of course, if one is working from home and saving the company real
    estate costs of office occupation then that saving should be offered
    against one's mortgage costs. (?)
    
    CW
    

RE:   <<< Note 1713.4 by TRUCKS::WINWOOD "Pick up the phone - Press execute" >>>

    >Of course, if one is working from home and saving the company real
    >estate costs of office occupation then that saving should be offered
    >against one's mortgage costs. (?)
    
         That, plus the tax benefits of a home office, could make this even
    more attractive.

                                         Greg

    IBM Germany has implemented such a system (not easy here, because of
    stronger unions etc. which tend to be against teleworking).
    
    They give each employee a workstation (PCs mostly, I think), modem etc.
    whatever HW is required. They also pay a flat monthly rate to cover
    miscellaneous costs caused by having an office at home. Somehow I
    remeber the amount might be DM 70 (~US$ 45) per month but I might be
    mistaken. In any case, you can deduct the rent/mortgage for the office,
    as well as any other costs (heating, lighting, furniture) over and
    above what your employer pays.

Re .3:

> Maybe for technical writing you could work at home 4 out of 5 days,...

Well, speaking as a technical writer, I doubt any of us could be
effective on that schedule. Interaction is an important part of 
tech writing, and face-to-face contact is a very important form 
of interaction. 

I know of some (not many) writers and editors who typically work one 
day a week at home, and they're productive and seem to be satisfied 
with the arrangement. Perhaps more would work at home some of the time
if the company pushed the idea, but I doubt that telecommuting would
become the norm for tech writers or editors. And I especially doubt
that it would work out well if more than half the work time was at
home. (I'm talking about regular full-time employees -- don't know 
about contractors.) 

Incidentslly, I agree with most of what you say. In addition to the 
concerns you raise, I wonder if advocates of wide-scale telecommuting 
have worked through various legal issues. For example, there are lots 
of regulations concerning liability, reporting, and salary continuation 
for "on-the-job accidents"; and these would no doubt apply, for example, 
if I slipped and fell down the stairs at the DEC facility that was my 
regular work place. Do the same regulations and considerations apply if 
I did the same thing at home? Would I have to prove the accident was 
related to work I was doing or occurred during "normal business hours" 
(whatever that might mean)? 

>              <<< Note 1713.5 by IMTDEV::BRUNO "Father Gregory" >>>

>    >Of course, if one is working from home and saving the company real
>    >estate costs of office occupation then that saving should be offered
>    >against one's mortgage costs. (?)
    
>         That, plus the tax benefits of a home office, could make this even
>    more attractive.

If Digital helps an employee to pay their mortgage, then it will probably 
be construed as a taxable benefit and the employee will need to pay more
taxes as a result. Not only that, but if a business operates from a house,
then the employee may be liable to pay capital gains tax when the house is
sold. I would hope Digital would pay such a tax, which could easily
run into tens of thousands of pounds/dollars. Perhaps if Digital pays 10%
of a mortgage, it'll want 10% of the proceeds of the sale of the house
too. This would result in a profit to Digital if house prices were rising,
but potentially a big loss if prices were falling.

Craig

    
    being in a CSC I could certainly work from home a majority of the week.
    
    But we still need a lot of interaction with peers to find out the
    latest and talk about customers problems, but I think 3 days at home
    and 2 at work would succeed.
    
    Simon

RE:         <<< Note 1713.8 by SYSTEM::COCKBURN "Craig Cockburn" >>>

>If Digital helps an employee to pay their mortgage, then it will probably 
>be construed as a taxable benefit and the employee will need to pay more
>taxes as a result.

     True, but the tax will never be as much as the amount Digital paid.  So,
there is still a great benefit. 

>Not only that, but if a business operates from a house, then the employee
>may be liable to pay capital gains tax when the house is sold.

     The capital gains tax has little or nothing to do with the fact that
a business was operated there.  If the price the employee got for the house
exceeds the original purchase price by a sufficient amount, and that profit
is not invested in an eligible way within a set period of time, they will 
have to pay the tax.  That is true whether a home office existed or not.

                                       Greg

    re: .10
    
>     The capital gains tax has little or nothing to do with the fact that
>a business was operated there.  If the price the employee got for the house
>exceeds the original purchase price by a sufficient amount, and that profit
>is not invested in an eligible way within a set period of time, they will 
>have to pay the tax.  That is true whether a home office existed or not.
    
    Apples and oranges here.  If you declare part of your house to be an
    office and deduct expenses and/or depreciate that portion of your
    house,  you must pay capital gains tax on the appreciation (if any) of
    the 'office' part of your house, when you sell.  Re-investing the
    profit in a certain time period has nothing to do with this because the
    re-investment portion of the law only applies to the part of your house
    used as your personal residence, not the 'office' part.
    
    The above applies only in the U.S. and state law may further confuse
    things.
    
    Bob
    

RE:  <<< Note 1713.11 by SCAACT::AINSLEY "Less than 150 kts. is TOO slow" >>>
>             -< Office in the home gets messy come tax time... >-
    
     I see your point.  Heck, maybe Digital will buy all of our houses from
us as save us the trouble.

                                     Greg

Hi there,

I've done a lot of research and a lot of information has been sent to be
from various people in Digital.  There is a report I wrote which is in the
DLN catalog which covers everything up to July, 1990.  Since then, things have
changed in many ways.  The best person to contact right now is Grace Boynton
(ASABET::Boynton).  She is looking into some pilot projects inside Digital
the last time I was talking to her.  Also, check out the TELEWORK notes file.
(I thought I also wrote a topic in this NOTES file, but I couldn't find it.

The biggest issues are: Taxes, bandwidth, remote support, and interpersonal
communication.

Taxes:  This issue is improving since many people run their own business out
of their homes.  Therefore, the issue has impact on society far beyond us.
We just need to get an understanding and agreement with the IRS.  No small
feat...

Bandwidth:  Face it, 2.4K baud is slooow, and 9.6K isn't much better compared
to LANs.  You need transparent, ubiquitous access from the home like you're
in your office.  I'm typing this using a terminal emulator on a Mac.  I would
have preferred a Motif Interface like what I have in my office.

Support:  Bottom line, if someone gives me a workstation for my home, I don't
want to play system manager.  There is a big issue of remote support which
has to be addressed over the next few years.

Interpersonal Communication:  If people have *offices* in their homes, that
does not mean that they work at home all the time!  Business meetings will
continue!  The point is that your *office* isn't a cube in a maze but a spare
room in your home.  Office space will still exist, but it will be more focused
on office support space.  There will be conference rooms, project rooms, or
generic spare cubes when you're in the office.  You may still go to the office 
one day a week, but that's a lot better than 5!

Dave

P.S.
Happy New year Al, Craig, Dan and Davo!

>             <<< Note 1713.10 by IMTDEV::BRUNO "Father Gregory" >>>

>>Not only that, but if a business operates from a house, then the employee
>>may be liable to pay capital gains tax when the house is sold.

>     The capital gains tax has little or nothing to do with the fact that
>a business was operated there.  If the price the employee got for the house
>exceeds the original purchase price by a sufficient amount, and that profit
>is not invested in an eligible way within a set period of time, they will 
>have to pay the tax.  That is true whether a home office existed or not.

All profits from the sale of your main dwelling are exempt from capital
gains tax, irrespective of any house price changes. And you don't need
to reinvest the money in a certain timeframe either. However, this
exemption does not necessarily apply if a business is run from a house -
my in laws (in Scotland) had to pay tax when they sold their B&B.

My original statement is still valid in the country I'm writing this from.
The tax situation is of course different in other countries.

Craig (in England)

    
    
    Hi,
    
    	I am a Uk teleworker who has a manager 100+ miles away and a 2 hour
    drive around the worst motorway in the UK, the M25.
    
    Digital pay for a phone line to my house and provide me mwith a modem
    etc.  They also pay me 200 pounds/year for environmental costs.
    
    I am a married man with a small daughter, 5 years old, so ground rules
    have to be laid "Daddies working, leave him alone" which in the main
    works.
    
    We are way behind many companies in this area who have appreciated the
    savings and made use of the increased employee satisfaction, i.e I
    manage when and at what times I work which on average is 43-44 hours 
    against a 'Contracted' 37.5/week.
    
                                 /Martin.
    
    

    The teleworking conference is at RUMOR::TELEWORK. A great many, if not
    all, of the issues discussed in this topic have been or are being
    covered at length in the telework conference. There are also copies of
    and pointers to a lot of research that has been done in the area. I
    recommend the conference to people with an interest in teleworking.

    		Alfred

Re: .14

The paperless office is as effective as the paperless bathroom.  But, one
of the fundemental shifts in the 1980s is the storage of mission-critical
business information on computers.  in 1980, most small companies had
their general ledger on paper.  By 1990 the general ledger was stored
on a floppy disk.

Electronic Data is easier to move than people!  Even though I write this
in my office in Westford, people will read it throughout the world.  People
who read my earlier reply "don't care" that it was written last night at
home.  The difference between the home and office is becoming more 
transparent to other workers.  That results in opportunities to increase
the efficency of the organization.

Small organizations are already taking advantage of work at home.  They
can adapt to the new organization faster than larger organizations.  Some
surveys show that TWENTY FIVE PERCENT of the U.S. workforce work at home
either full or part time.  This includes people who bring work home for 
the evenings, or log into the system from home. ;-) Many
people in Digital already practice work at home on an informal or ad hoc
basis.  What we're talking about is the next step for Digital, a large
pilot program where a large group of people have been provided the tools
and technology to set up offices in their homes.  We have the knowledge,
the people, and the technology.  What is needed is commitment from 
management.

Dave

	Let's not talk theory....let's talk fact.

	Our team is currently doing something like this regularly.

	We have one team member in Seattle ( our "home" is
	the CSC in Colorado ), who operates out of a DEC office
	there.  The only reason she can't work from home is that
	there is no access to the network for her workstation
	at home.

	On any given day, our team probably has one or two people
	who work from home due to family-member illness, appliance
	repair appointments, etc.

	It works for two reasons:

	1) Our manager trusts us to be adults.

	2) We try to live up to his trust.

	Other teams here in the Center treat working from home as
	some sort of terrible exception.  The paternalism inherent
	in this treatment makes me a bit uncomfortable.

	In truth, probably 1/2 of the Center or more could work from
	home.  Individual performance problems are performance
	problems whether they work here or at home.  The need
	for group interaction could be handled by weekly meetings
	or even teleconferencing.

	But, work from home works....and we can prove it !

	Steve H
	Ultrix Networks Group, Colorado

> "paperless society"

    	Well, if the amount of attention paid to the paper I wrote is any
    indication, then many of us have already formed a "paperless society".  ;^)

> The biggest issues are: Taxes, bandwidth, remote support, and interpersonal
> communication.

> Taxes

    	Taxes is one area I don't actually address in the paper, but
    on the other hand, it is clear that the government is interested
    in the notion of teleworking (see the top of page #7 in my paper).

> bandwidth, remote support, 

    	These areas are addressed quite extensively in the paper.  There
    are various alternatives which provide reasonable bandwidth for 
    the teleworker, while also allowing for remote support.  An ISDN 
    bridge for example, would provide reasonable bandwidth (2 x 64 kbps
    plus 1 x 16 kbps) while also allowing a local teleworker's LAN to
    be managed remotely (from a corporate enterprise management station).

>interpersonal communication.

    	The bulk of the paper is devoted to providing a teleworking
    configuration which supports desktop videoconferencing.  The idea
    being that teleworkers would be more productive given an enhanced
    communication system.  There have been a great many advances in this
    field over just the past year or so.  Check out the paper to find
    out more.

    				    -davo

p.s.	I think the paper provides easier reading (hey I even included
    	a cartoon!), but if you'd rather, I can export a text version
    	and post it here instead I suppose.

    You are missing one ingredient that strongly contributes to the "paper
    society", at least at DEC.  That is the use of text processors whose
    output cannot be displayed on a terminal and must be printed out on
    paper.

    I use RUNOFF (well, DSR+); it is good enough for everything I do; I do
    not use DOCUMENT.  I get dozens of memos per week in formats like
    postscript which I can't read at home and which force we to print them
    out.  I talk to people who write memos in such formats, and they simply
    don't care if more paper is required.  One recent explanation I was
    given is that the only tool the person knew how to use produced only
    non-terminal-compatible output. The point isn't whether or not that is
    true; the point is there is no incentive to avoid paper even when that
    is easily possible.

    What has seemed to happen over the years (like 25), is that the text
    preparation tools have kept at least one step ahead of readily
    available (cheap!) terminals.  The result is the continued use of
    paper.

    
    You can use VAX DOCUMENT to create a TXT file by using the MAIL destination
    instead of PS or LNO3.
    
    You can Export to TXT format in DECwrite (using the full menus option
    in V2.0).
    
    When I write something like a paper that I spend a lot of time on, I
    create TXT, PS, and Bookreadcer formats. I usually send people the TXT
    version by mail and give them pointers to the other formats, which may
    include figures you don't get in ASCII files.
    
    -Ross
                                                

 >     You can use VAX DOCUMENT to create a TXT file by using the MAIL destination
 >     instead of PS or LNO3.

    The resulting format is awful: it looks like about 6" of margins
    and 2" of text, with virtually every line ending in a hyphenated
    word. If it were easy to control margins with DOCUMENT, this could
    be addressed, but DOCUMENT "knows better than you do what's good
    for you". Kind of like the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I long
    since have given up on DOCUMENT for text output.
    
 >    You can Export to TXT format in DECwrite (using the full menus option
 >     in V2.0).
      
    I'll admit I haen't tried the V2 output, but with V1 this is only
    good for producing a text file you can then re-edit into
    readability. Finished output it ain't.

    The same kind of problems exist with using DSR+, mainly due to the
    default use of right justification (which looks awful mono-spaced,
    though it can be overridden) and the embedded CRLFs which must be
    removed using TECO or some such before the resulting document is
    suitable for mailing.

    I've taken to using PC-based apps (Grandview or Microsoft Word) to
    produce documents that I want to be able to mail around. That, or
    straight LSE (well, XLSE).

    
    re: .2 - connelly, you can't fool me! You're just afraid you'd have to
    buy a coin operated poison coffee machine for the condo!
    
    	merry new year & happy xmas...

    Re: .23
    
    I do not justify right margins, and the following prevents the extra
    cr-lf problems:
    
    	runoff :== DSRPLUS/AUTO/device=vt100/output=*.mem
    
    I put this is my login.com two years ago when I moved to Colorado and
    haven't had an extra cr-lf since.
    
    Think of the paper I save.

Re: .23

> >     You can use VAX DOCUMENT to create a TXT file by using the MAIL destination
> >     instead of PS or LNO3.

>    The resulting format is awful: it looks like about 6" of margins
>    and 2" of text, with virtually every line ending in a hyphenated
>    word. If it were easy to control margins with DOCUMENT, this could
>    be addressed, but DOCUMENT "knows better than you do what's good
>    for you". Kind of like the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I long
>    since have given up on DOCUMENT for text output.


Use the qualifier /DEVICE=(HOR=0,VERT=0) for the output MAIL or LINE will
get rid of most of the top and side margins using the DOCUMENT command.

Using <TABLE_ATTRIBUTES>(SINGLE_SPACED) will force single spacing on tables 
when output to terminal format.


It is becoming easier to manipulate DOCUMENT output to get what you want.  

It helps if you keep an open mind about tools used in Digital. They are
changing all the time and it doesn't pay to dismiss tools as "useless" because
they don't do what you want them to do at the time you first looked at them.

    	I have since exported both .txt and bookreader (.decw$book &
    .decw$bookshelf) versions of the Teleworking Network Study paper.
    All of these, plus the original postscript format can be found in
    the following directory:

	TOOK::USER$216:[DMCLURE.PUBLIC]TELEWORKING_NETSTUDY.*

    	...all for only three monthly payments of 9.95 - order now!

    				    -davo

    Teleworking and networked resources are essential ingredients of 
    the UK's "People for the 90s" program. Philip Scott and Anita
    Krishnamurthy (DTN 830-4303 or @REO) produced "A Guide to Teleworking"
    in June 1990.
    
    I personally have been teleworking very successfully for the last
    15 months and heartily recommend the approach.
    
    John
    

       One issue hasn't been brought up: forced relocation. With the
    changes this company is going through, many are given the alternative
    of moving to another part of the country or transition. Some of these
    people have homes, family to leave behind not to mention increases
    in cost of living, different ways of life in different areas of the
    country..etc. I believe with the availbility of networks, con-calls
    and other technology that telecommuting is not only an idea whose time
    has come but should be an alternative to these situations and the idea
    of having someone "physically" there at all times is antiquated at
    best. Many field organizations now function inter-state wise at a con-
    call level. Forcing someone from Utah to live in New York city just to
    work is unacceptable.

    .29 :
    >...  the idea of having someone "physically" there at all times is 
    >antiquated at best. 
    
    True only if that someone deals purely in information and never has to
    actually TOUCH anything corporeal in the course of their job.
    
    karl

Another possible issue with telecommuting (which I have done on certain rare
occasions) is that some (if not all) of our current workstations are only FCC
class A compliant.  This may cause interference with transmissions in certain
residential areas, which could jeopardize ones ability to telecommute (when
one is ordered to "fix it" or cease activity by the FCC).

IMHO, the telecommuting thrust has considerable merit in many areas.
How well it may (or may not) be implemented within Digital is certainly a
wide-open topic, however.

-- Russ

Re last few;  But it can work (depending on the job of course);  the tough
battle is to convince the proper people that it works.  I'm located in
Colorado Springs, but the group I work for/with is in Littleton.  I really
didn't want to relocate to Mass. - I like it here in the springs.

But you have to make it happen; you have to get out there and sell the idea,
and then follow through.  A manager that has never done remote management will
probably not even consider remote management as an option.  You've got to make
them aware of what you would like to do, and how as a team you're going to
make it work.

I've been doing this 5 months now, and it seems to be working great.

--Scott

    RE:              <<< Note 1713.34 by BIGJOE::DMCLURE >>>

    >Success for teleworking corporations, on the other hand, will be 
    >measured by the grandeur of their employee home-based offices.  

         Now that seems HIGHLY unlikely.  The corporate facilities are
    still going to be the place where most customers will visit.  They
    will remain the place where the aesthetic bucks are invested.

                                     Greg  

    I would jump at the chance to be able to work from
    home!  And my job is a type that CAN be done from
    a "satellite" location.....
    

re: .35,

>    >Success for teleworking corporations, on the other hand, will be 
>    >measured by the grandeur of their employee home-based offices.  

>         Now that seems HIGHLY unlikely.  The corporate facilities are
>    still going to be the place where most customers will visit.  They
>    will remain the place where the aesthetic bucks are invested.

    	Of course, there are certain advantages to being located near
    airports and major cities as far as customer visits are concerned.
    Manufacturing is more efficiently handled in a large plant as well.
    As such, there would still be some job functions which would not be
    teleworked (at least not at first).  Given the advances in Electronic
    Data Interchange (EDI) and inter-corporate teleconferencing however,
    someday even the majority of corporate visits could be just as easily
    carried out via videoconferencing as well.  This is already taking
    place with today's technology to a certain extent.

    	As for the traditional customer visit, without the expensive
    corporate facilities to pay for, there would be more money to invest
    in luxurious home-based offices.  Teleworkers who are vested with
    entertaining customers would obviously require their home-based
    office to facilitate such visits.  This translates to a need for a
    large aesthetically appealing home-based office entrance, complete
    with a large driveway with ample parking, a company logo in the front
    yard, an attractive meeting room, etc.

    	Teleworkers who are not charged with entertaining customers would
    probably invest in different sorts of home-based office equipment
    which they need for their work instead.  The point being that instead
    of investing millions of dollars in corporate facilities which nobody
    can live in and for which society has no real use for, corporations
    could use that same money to invest in its employees homes (or at
    least the portions of those homes which are devoted to teleworking
    business functions).

    				   -davo

RE:                  <<< Note 1713.37 by BIGJOE::DMCLURE >>>

>    	As for the traditional customer visit, without the expensive
>    corporate facilities to pay for, there would be more money to invest
>    in luxurious home-based offices.  Teleworkers who are vested with
>    entertaining customers would obviously require their home-based
>    office to facilitate such visits.  This translates to a need for a
>    large aesthetically appealing home-based office entrance, complete
>    with a large driveway with ample parking, a company logo in the front
>    yard, an attractive meeting room, etc.

     Please put a big smiley face somewhere.  This is beyond ridiculous.
The way you are suggesting that things might be, it would cost more than the
old-fashioned "main office" scenario (and without the corporate real estate
tax benefits).

                                       Greg 

re: .38,

>>    	As for the traditional customer visit, without the expensive
>>    corporate facilities to pay for, there would be more money to invest
>>    in luxurious home-based offices.  Teleworkers who are vested with
>>    entertaining customers would obviously require their home-based
>>    office to facilitate such visits.  This translates to a need for a
>>    large aesthetically appealing home-based office entrance, complete
>>    with a large driveway with ample parking, a company logo in the front
>>    yard, an attractive meeting room, etc.

>     Please put a big smiley face somewhere.  This is beyond ridiculous.
> The way you are suggesting that things might be, it would cost more than the
> old-fashioned "main office" scenario (and without the corporate real estate
> tax benefits).

    	I'll tell you what is beyond ridiculous: having to commute an
    average of 50 miles a day on dangerous highways and roadways to and
    from work using expensive imported oil, polluting the environment,
    wasting electricity to heat a house all day long with nobody inside
    it, relying on police and firemen to watch over your house while you
    are at work, having to place small children in day care centers, etc.
    All this just so one can commute from a home which hardly gets lived
    in to a job at a company whose profits must go towards the needless
    purchase, operation and maintenance of expensive corporate office
    facilities that nobody can live in.  And to think that the same
    job could be done just as effectively from home via teleworking.
    This is what I call beyond ridiculous.

    	Nothing personal, but this mindset is a clear indication of
    just how screwed-up our society has become.  If you want to talk
    about the old-fashioned "main office", then let's look a little
    further back in time to the pre-industrial era when people still
    worked predominantly from their homes (or at least within walking
    distance to their homes).  Have you ever been to Sturbridge Village
    in Massachusetts?  How about the Plymouth Plantation?  Would you
    consider a world of similarly small cottage industries all linked
    by telecommunications to be "beyond ridiculous" as well?  If so,
    then I guess some people are simply cut out for the urban blight
    and high crime rates of the big city (the products of industrial
    age centralization) and some aren't.

    	As for tax breaks, these are based purely on what the government
    wants to encourage at the time.  Assuming the government continues
    its current plans to institute teleworking environments (which they
    have been - see my paper for more details on this), then it would
    only follow that corporate tax breaks would eventually be changed
    to provide for teleworking as well.  You might be right about doing
    something like this today, but what about tomorrow?  Proposing such
    an idea to congress would surely help to increase the likelihood
    of such a tax break as well.

				    -davo

    You don't have to go as far as Sturbridge Village or Plymouth
    Plantation?  Maynard will do just fine. It was (is?) a company town.

    re .29 
    
>       One issue hasn't been brought up: forced relocation. With the
>    changes this company is going through, many are given the alternative
>    of moving to another part of the country or transition. Some of these
>    people have homes, family to leave behind not to mention increases
>    in cost of living, different ways of life in different areas of the
>    country..etc. I believe with the availbility of networks, con-calls
>    and other technology that telecommuting is not only an idea whose time
>    has come but should be an alternative to these situations and the idea
>    of having someone "physically" there at all times is antiquated at
>    best. Many field organizations now function inter-state wise at a con-
>    call level. Forcing someone from Utah to live in New York city just to
>    work is unacceptable.
    
     I just heard that the Palo Alto, CA workstation eng. group
     is being consolidated to Maynard, MA.  About 100 people are 
     being told to move it or lose it.
     
     Like you said, and I also wonder how many of our best and brightest 
     will be lost through this? 
    
     Mark

    re:.34, etc.
    
    Dave, are you going to give me the $50k or so it would cost to move to
    a house with a sufficient home office space?  Have you actually
    _priced_ or _bought_ residential real estate in the Northeast?  The
    kind you can actually raise a family in?  I have, and I'm stretched to
    the limit with a small house where I can barely squeeze a clone, and
    the telephone sits balanced on the rim of the garbage pail!
    
    For some people, teleworking is fine.  Let 'em have it.  For most of
    us, we _need_ office space.
    
    And on a "global" basis, all this talk about environmental stuff is
    preposterous.  Suburbanization / exurbanization tends to be horrible on
    the enviornment.  Farms and forests are being leveled in order to lay
    out the acres of Chem-lawn demanded by most exurban townships.  People
    live farther apart, so a little trip to the grocery is ten miles each
    way.  Good old 1920's style urban living, with densely populated cities
    and public transit to centrally-located work facilities, was incredibly
    easier on the environment than today's exurban "teleworker" model.
    
    The god of unintended consequences is laughing very loudly here.

Re:  Ludicrous environmental expense all so your boss can look over your 
shoulder:

Yes.  You just forgot the part about once at work, how you have to move your
office belongings every six months. 

We don't even believe in Teleworking at work.

For the life of me, I don't see how anyone's life is enhanced by moving my
stuff from one end of the floor to the other, but the company sure likes to
spend money on it.

Re: .42 (gotta love your personal name, Fred)

The selling of surburbia to the masses was possibly one of the greatest tragedies
of modern history, primarily because it was full of good intentions.  Land was
cheap, transportation was subsidized and real cheap.  Society's impact on the 
environment was unknown.  The result was a Utopia which everyone loved, but 
couldn't last.

*But* if you take a look at the sucessful housing complexes in the late-80s and
90s, they are much more ecologically sound.  There is less emphasis on lawns
and more on natural surroundings.  Housing units are clustered with open land
shared between units.  The result is a hybrid between the 20s and 50s.

Work at home fits into this new model, even though there has to be a lot of
investment in the infrastructure.  Not only the infamous "data-highways," but
also "Data-service-stations" and "data-neighborhood-garages."  When you drive
home tonight, try to count the components which make today's transportation
infrastructure, then try to find the equilavent for a computer/communication
infrastructure.  There's not much there.

The current infrastructure doesn't support a tele-society.  Fine, back when the
car came out in the 20s, the current infrastructure didn't support a transportation
society.  It took 20-30 years to build the currect infrastructure for the 
automobile, do you think its going to take as long for the computer?

Dave

re: .42,    

>    Dave, are you going to give me the $50k or so it would cost to move to
>    a house with a sufficient home office space?  Have you actually
>    _priced_ or _bought_ residential real estate in the Northeast?  The
>    kind you can actually raise a family in?  I have, and I'm stretched to
>    the limit with a small house where I can barely squeeze a clone, and
>    the telephone sits balanced on the rim of the garbage pail!

    	Who said anything about the Northeast?  The beauty of telecommuting
    is that it doesn't really matter where you live anymore!  Have you
    priced houses in South Dakota lately?  You can get a ranch house on
    100 acres of land for around $140,000 (just one example I happen to
    know of).

>    For some people, teleworking is fine.  Let 'em have it.  For most of
>    us, we _need_ office space.

    	I agree in general, but I think we might all be surprised to learn
    exactly what the percentages of "us" to "them" might be.  I would expect
    your "them" column would grow considerably once the idea catches on a
    bit and people learn more about how teleworking works.  In my paper,
    I estimated that out of 5000 knowledge-based workers in five facilities,
    2000 volunteered to telework.  This would allow for two of the five
    facilities to be consolidated saving millions of dollars.  Of course,
    I was pulling numbers out of the air here - a real survey will be needed
    for a real teleworking project of this magnitude.
 
>    And on a "global" basis, all this talk about environmental stuff is
>    preposterous.  Suburbanization / exurbanization tends to be horrible on
>    the enviornment.  Farms and forests are being leveled in order to lay
>    out the acres of Chem-lawn demanded by most exurban townships.  People
>    live farther apart, so a little trip to the grocery is ten miles each
>    way.  Good old 1920's style urban living, with densely populated cities
>    and public transit to centrally-located work facilities, was incredibly
>    easier on the environment than today's exurban "teleworker" model.

    	This is where I begin to lose you.  Teleworking has nothing to do
    with deforestation and overpopulation (which have the greatest influence
    on the environmental problems you mentioned).  Please explain how
    closing a facility and working from home (the same home - possibly
    with an addition built on to act as a home-based office) would have
    a negative impact on the environment.  Especially when the facility
    you close can then be sold to someone else who was about to bulldoze
    a park to build their own facility.  Be sure to explain how reductions
    in stress, traffic, pollution, and other effects of commuting, as well
    as the elimination of unnecessary heating and electricity usage caused
    by millions of unoccupied homes during the day each day, etc., all
    lead to the destruction of the environment.

    	There are plenty of homes today out in ghost towns and boonies of
    the middle and far west which can be upgraded to home-based offices
    for teleworkers without having to level farms and forests as you
    mentioned.  When was the last time you really explored these remote
    regions?  There are many places which were once bustling communities
    prior to the industrial revolution (which drew people back to the
    cities) that are now simply wastelands (homes to field mice perhaps
    - some environment).  I am from Iowa - a state which has consistently
    *lost* population every year for who knows how long as young people
    like myself and my wife have had to move back east to find work.

	I am not talking about clearing yet another New England forest
    to build these theoretical telecommuting homes.  Instead, I'm talking
    about the opportunity which exists to repopulate vast regions of unused
    land which already have a basic infrastructure (highways, telephone lines,
    etc. - not the stereotypical "Green Acres" you see on TV).  There are
    small towns all over the country which have been virtually abandoned
    over the years.  Ever hear the song "Allentown" about an old steel
    mill town in Pennsylvania?  Well, there are literally hundreds of
    Allentowns all over the U.S. (and I suspect the case is not limited
    to the U.S. either).  These are towns which can be potentially revived
    and which employees can live and work from at a much more afordable
    level via teleworking.

    				   -davo

p.s.	The god of intended consequences strikes back!

    Let's suppose my employers offered me the chance of teleworking. I
    haven't got room at home to do this, so I'll probably have to move
    to a larger place. I assume that the company will help me do this,
    since it's saving them money, and that they will help with the higher
    mortgage as well as the cost of the move itself.
    
    What now happens if the company wants to downsize, and I'm among the
    ones to go? Or if I want to move to another company which cannot let me
    telework? I could well be stuck with a house, the payments on which I
    cannot meet without the teleworking $$.
    
    A lot of people are concerned about being over-extended at the moment.
    They'd be reluctant to put themselves in the situation I describe
    above. 
    
    	Andrew.

    I guess I must be missing something here.... It seems a good deal of the
    discussion is centering around receiving compensation for the home
    "office". Frankly, I think the only compensation should be for telephone
    hookup and perhaps a furniture allowance, nothing more. Everything else 
    should be considered a cost (theoretically ;-)) I would absorb. DEC
    does not pay for my car to get here, my lunches, my clothes, etc. Those
    are costs which I cover out of my salary as I see fit.  If I could work
    at home, the savings, both tangible and not, which I would incur would
    more than compensate for re-arranging my house a little.
    Perhaps the keyword is voluntary--those who could do it without
    hardship should be allowed to, those who cannot would not be forced into
    it. It's just another new idea for a new world. I hope it's being
    considered as a cost-cutting alternative to just letting folks go.
    
    Lynn

Re: .46.

>    Let's suppose my employers offered me the chance of teleworking. I
>    haven't got room at home to do this, so I'll probably have to move
>    to a larger place. I assume that the company will help me do this,
>    since it's saving them money, and that they will help with the higher
>    mortgage as well as the cost of the move itself.
    
>    What now happens if the company wants to downsize, and I'm among the
>    ones to go?

The intent here is not to overextend the financial ability of an employee.
Offers to telecommute should be voluntary, in other words, you can say "No."
Personally, I wouldn't move into a new place if it costs a lot more just
because I could work at home.  If I can't afford a place on my own I wouldn't
move in.  If anything, your scenario argues for the point that Digital SHOULD
NOT provide financial assistance to telecommuters for housing.

But then, if your office is at home, there are significant tax writeoffs.
You may have to struggle with the IRS, (i.e., Audit) proving to them that 
you need the deductions, though.

There are savings in transportation, wear and tear (of yourself and your car)
If telecommuting catches on, maybe society can move towards a one-car family
instead of today's two-car family.  How much money could be saved if you
only needed one car between a professional couple?  Overall, I doubt if 
Digital would give stipends to telecommuters except for rare occurances,
but that should stop people from telecommuting!  There are many benefits
without it.

Dave

re: .46,
    
>    What now happens if the company wants to downsize, and I'm among the
>    ones to go?

    	The teleworking proposal I am working on involves the consolidation
    of entire facilities.  In so doing, the project *is* the downsizing.
    The project would ultimately only make sense if it was done in a way
    to save megabucks for the corporation in terms of the capital and
    operating expenses involved in running traditional corporate facilites.

>    Or if I want to move to another company which cannot let me
>    telework?    I could well be stuck with a house, the payments on which I
>    cannot meet without the teleworking $$.

    	Keep in mind that most teleworkers would not require anything too
    out of the ordinary for their home-based offices.  Even a one-bedroom
    apartment has enough space for a terminal (on a rolling stand) and
    modem.  Today's workstations and/or PCs aren't much larger than that.
    The new AT&T videophone isn't much larger than a regular telephone,
    and a Desktop videophone application would instead be contained right
    inside the workstation or PC (only requiring the addition of a small
    video camera and possibly a video compression/decompression (codec)
    unit).

    	On the other hand, it might not be a bad idea to take some of
    the theoretical money from such a facilities consolidation and use
    it towards the purchase of regional teleworking sites for employees.
    These sites could be treated as DEC property and could be maintained
    by DEC on a permanent basis allowing for very high speed fiber optic
    network connections to be installed.  Such high speed connections could
    be configured to run the new FDDI-based Desktop videoconferencing system
    currently under development at DEC (see "Desktop Meeting", by Larry
    and Ricky Palmer, LAN Magazine, November 1991 (pp. 111-119).

    	These distributed audio visual offices (or DAVOs ;^) could be used
    to provide enhanced communications services for local teleworking
    employees who could time-share such sites.  In such a case, a teleworker
    might work at home using either ISDN, or Plain Old Telephone Service
    (POTS) via conventional modem connections most of the time for lower
    speed data transmission and videoconferencing.  On a periodic basis,
    these teleworkers could then share the use of a local DAVO where they
    would arrange to participate in higher speed videoconferences with
    their entire virtual team, as well as carry out large-scale file
    transfers, or other tasks requiring higher speed networking.  These
    DAVOs might consist of converted Inns, ski lodges, or condos, in a
    variety of styles whereby certain areas could be installed with
    communal office spaces, meeting rooms, and kitchen facilities,
    while the other areas would remain as sleeping quarters (with
    high-speed network connections available throughout).

    	In addition to providing temporary worksites for virtual teams,
    these sites would also provide temporary homes for employees who
    might need to periodically set up and begin working overnight
    on temporary projects in person while retaining ownership of their
    permanent residences elsewhere.  A global network of such sites would
    provide for a much more flexible workforce that could quickly form
    virtual teams necessary for large scale system integration projects.

    	     (guess I'll have to think of a new nickname now...)

    I wouldn't consider recommending teleworking to anyone with dependents
    at home.  Unfortunately, some number of people are likely to think of
    this proposal as an opportunity to reduce their dependent care costs or
    provide services they have been paying for.  While many people can
    probably balance the company's work and their home-work, why create
    such a headache?  
    
    After the children are gone and before the parents move in, teleworking
    makes a lot of sense.  Fewer interruptions at home than in the office. 
    But there are exceptions.  And we should be aware of them.
    
    Dick

    I for one would like to work from home.  I have a spare room I
    can use and it would be great.  I have recommended it to my
    manager.  I think it is the wave of future.
    
    Why would someone have to go out and buy a home?  They can work from
    their residents, be it a appartment or home.  DEC would supply the
    phones and terminals.  You can write off your room as a tax deduction.
    
    If you quit, return your equipment to DEC.  Simple.
    
    DEC saves on having large buildings to support.
    
    Bob

    
    Resist the urge to "write off" a room, or portion, of your house for
    tax purposes. There are hoops to jump through regarding the IRS.
    However after jumping through these hoops, the biggest surprise
    comes when you sell your house.... The "write off"'s you took must
    now be applied as a deduction (depreciation) of your home's base.
    What this means is that your capital gains tax, upon selling your
    house, will be higher as a result of business use. And as you close
    on your house sale, guess who will be very interested.... Right,
    the IRS. Talk to a good tax advisor before using the "benefit" of
    a home office.
    
    				cheers,
    				Fred Deady

    I'd work at home as much as possible, for many reasons. But one of the
    reasons I'd be able to do so is that my home space is my own - it
    doesn't belong to a family. So I can spread work stuff as far over the
    place as I want/need.
    
    However, many people who'd like to work from home live in places with
    little or no spare space. I know that a terminal and a phone don't take
    up much room, but once you start adding in the manuals, books and files
    that many of us are used to having around us when we work, the house
    needs an extra room.
    
    A recent reply said that teleworking might not be suitable for people
    with families. However, I think that such people might be among those
    most eager to work from home.
    
    I'm not disputing for a moment that teleworking is a great idea for
    some people doing particular jobs. I'm just wondering where the most
    appropriate boundaries for its implementation lie.
    
    	Andrew.

re: .50,

>    After the children are gone and before the parents move in, teleworking
>    makes a lot of sense.

    	Issues of having children and parents around the house are all
    currently based on the "nuclear family" living arrangement, which in
    itself, is a direct product of the industrial revolution.  Prior to
    the industrial revolution, extended families all living in larger
    households were the norm.  As the industrial revolution drew people
    from the farms and smaller towns to the big cities in search of work,
    households became smaller out of necessity and lifestyles changed to
    accomodate the higher costs of city living.  The information revolution
    promises to reverse this trend, not only allowing people to move back
    out of the cities, but also to move back into larger homes which can
    once again support the notion of an extended family.

    	In an extended family situation, child care and elder care
    can both be managed to a certain degree by teleworkers.  Family
    elders can conceiveably provide a large percentage of child care
    (for children who aren't in school), while the family workers are
    busy teleworking from their home-based offices.  Such an arrangement
    would allow family elders the opportunity to relive their childhood
    by spending time with the family youngsters (whose main problems
    stem more from a lack of quality attention more than anything else).
    Meanwhile, the able-bodied teleworker(s) (typically the parent(s))
    would be on hand to help out with heavy duty tasks, as well as
    in the case of an emergency.  It is also conceiveable to consider
    hiring a "nanny" for situations which require more attention, and
    a live-in nanny is also easier to accomodate in a larger household.

    				   -davo

    re:.54
    Teleworking as a tool to radically reshape family life is cute, but
    hardly something I'd go shouting about in public... unless I wanted to
    cause opposition to arise from various quarters! (That's politics.)
    
    re:.earlier
    Somebody's vision of teleworking from, say, South Dakota is a very
    radical one.  It implies exactly zero physical contact with the office
    on a regular basis.  (Or some occasional flights, hardly cheap.)  And
    it implies that only one breadwinner counts, or both telework.  And it
    implies that somebody _wants_ to live in the boonies.  I'd rather live
    closer in to downtown Boston save the commute out here to the 495 belt!
    And the telecomm infrastructures are pretty primitive in most of the
    boonies:  Long distance calling isn't free.
    
    More typically, we're talking about working a few days a week from 
    home.  I have no problem with supporting that option.  But I remain
    convinced that unintended consequences will follow, just as they did
    with suburbia.  And while Dave is right that a few late-'80s
    developments are better than many older ones, they're few and far
    between, and in most places, banned by large-lot zoning codes.  I
    argued that one in the MASSACHUSETTS conference for a while!  And
    they're also mostly upper-class only.

    a few questions that I still don't understand...
    
       Just what is an employer buying when he hires a teleworker?  
    
       What kinds of services does such an employee provide?  
    
       What additional costs are there for managing a teleworker?  
    
       Can the teleworker be hired also without physical presence?
    
    It appears to me that we still have an oversimplified view of what
    teleworking is.  It will fit a few person-job situations, but there are
    a lot of counterindications as well.  Let's not let our enthusiasm run
    away from reality!
    
    fwiw,
    
    Dick

Has anyone heard the Bell commercials (lobbying) for data services?  They 
feature the voice of a male and female doctor advising a third surgeon during 
a stomach operation.  Then the voice-over says the amazing thing is, "one 
doctor is in New York, one doctor is in LA, and the operation is taking place 
in Houston."

Yeah, I loved it, next piece is going to go like this:

Houston: "Ok, we're to the most critical stage now, what next?"

New York: "Thats my area of expertize, wel... ....." 
          picture flickers and then the screen goes blank.
          audio is lost.
          seems AT&T dropped the connection

Houston: "What the $%@#$@" 

San Francisco: "Don't worry, I can handle thi.........."
                ditto

Houston: "AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"


(-;

    It is coming, so we had better be ready for it.  Companys are
    cutting back on people now and the next step is physical area
    required to do work.
    
    It is cheaper for them to do it from a persons residents.  They will
    just hire people that can do it from home.  Those that can not may
    find they are transistioned.
    
    Oh that can not happen you say.  Don't believe it.
    Life goes on with or without the players.  You have to decide if
    you are a player.
    
    Bob

    I am a Mechanical Designer doing Unigraphics II (mechanical CAD). 
    Over the past year....
    
    - All of the work has been *painfully* spelled out on paper. 
    - I have had little or no need for human interface, and even then,
      it could be handled by phone.
    - My boss knows how much work to expect. It's very easy to estimate.
      I can't fool anybody as to how much should get done.
    - As far as security goes, I could run standalone and hand-deliver
      the data if necessary once a week.
    
    Sooo....what am I doing, fighting horrible weather today
    (ice/rain) to get here and home without putting my car in
    a ditch, when it really isn't necessary.
    
    Sign me up.
    
    Mark

    In the area of community relations, part of being a "good corporate
    citizen" (and often a legislated or locally defined requirement) is a
    plan to reduce traffic and commute congestion.  Plans may include
    carpool programs, work-at-home and flexible scheduling.  
    
    Meeting the goals (in the Bay Area, a quasi-governmental group, the Golden
    Triangle, is working to help companies and transportation agencies meet
    aggressive traffic /smog reduction goals) may include a variety of
    solutions.  
    
    

    Re: 60
    
    It is coming, so we had better be ready for it.
    
    Arrrrrrrhhhhhhh; does this mean I have to provide sales support
    using my PRO350 and a DF03 modem :-)
    
    Karen
    

    
    Find this long string interesting, especially the focus on "this is
    what's coming".
    
    Been here for 4 years as far as I'm concerned, & many others in the UK
    & Europe. I'm a European "manager" -- read IC, with pan-European
    marketing responsibilities. My straight line is to Geneva (800 miles
    from where I'm entering this), my dotted line is to Valbonne (900 miles
    away). My office is in the UK -- in whichever facility I'm nearest too,
    or from home if that's most effective. I have a permanent desk to catch
    the hard copy mail -- that's in the facility nearest my home, & en
    route home from Heathrow so that I collect the mail on the way home
    form the airport.
    
    At home, I have an ancient Vaxmate with some good software to run my
    activities -- wp, graphics, database, spreadsheets -- all the usual
    stuff, but my choice of packages. I know them all, & they all produce
    output that can be read by any customer (& some Deccie's) in electronic
    or hard copy form. 
    
    I use WPS/plus for DOS as the terminal emulator via modem for office
    links for email. I'm on the terminal for a couple of hours most
    evenings, & at weekends -- I prefer to spread my workload across seven
    days, rather than not able to cope in 5 -- I'm on the road at least 3
    days in 5, & it's too easy to build up backlogs of unanswered mail,
    unfinished tasks.
    
    If I need contact with co-workers I usually have to visit different
    offices anyway, so whether I leave from home or another DEC facility is
    immaterial.
    
    Of course we all have different roles & different work environments. 
    For me, the peace of working flat out on a customer presentation in
    my study beats working in an open plan office with distractions all
    around ... but your mileage will almost cetainly vary
    
    BTW, if any of the tinware fails I have to bring it in to the office
    before a support person will fix it..... the software I fix for myself.
    
    
    Colin
    presentation    

    I've worked from home on & off for over 10 years.  I had a job in ML
    as a liaison to SP, WM, NI & MR.  Often i'd drive that route from
    home, and update my group from the VT52 in my spare room.  Long
    before the rest of the group started using computers, i'd have to
    call the secretary to make copies of my printouts and distribute
    them.  Helped a lot during a few instances (broken bones, flu,
    recovering from surgery) when i was able to maintain contact with
    my peers and the job without leaving home.
    
    Now i'm able to support our 2nd shift operation from here, and also
    read up on problems and fixes in notes.  Several times i've been able
    to do extended research on a problem just by being able to analyze
    failures as they occur, day or night.  One time i remember getting
    a phone call early in the AM from my supervisor, frantically looking
    for hardware for a field trip that day.  I was able to find the source
    for a part and have it delivered to his desk before i was able to
    drive (45 min) to Maynard.  A few times we have been short on
    conference rooms, and have held meetings at my house, with a termina
    logged in, so we were virtually at work...mwr

    Teleworking is okay as long as the people can and do work.
    The majority of the notes so far mention only the benefits.
    
    Everyone glossed over the "challenge" of remote system
    management for the teleworkers.  I've had to drive an hour to do 
    a "house call" for a teleworker's system management task, a backup, or a 
    node address change?  I've been sent to people's homes to fix little 
    problems like the ones listed above.  There are a lot of people out there 
    who have a hard time configuring a simple PC, doing any system management 
    duties, backing up files, or doing new product installs.  Maybe some
    non-teleworker could use that workstation more productively back at the
    Digital site.              
    
    A number of you glossed over the fact that a lot of projects today require  
    that documentation, text and diagrams, are done with window software, and it
    doesn't run on the VT52s or VT100 mentioned in previous notes.    If your 
    project is using Document or DECwrite, they'll want you to do the same. 
    DECdesign and Rally require RDB.   Are you going to have a copy of that
    test RDB database that is stored on some disk farm on a RD54 at home?
    
    I realize that there a big project and little ones, but I've heard the
    days of the one man or woman program are over.  If you are working at
    home or living in another state, the rest of the project will have to 
    set up a lot of conference calls.  You'll miss out and the project will
    miss your contribution to the spontaneous meetings.
    
    Just some food for thought!

    
    
    
    	I've been using a workstation at home for awhile now with DECnet
    	in an supportted manner.
    
    	I use a US Robotics 9600 baud modem ( not Digitals' it doesn't 
    	recognize my dial tone ). I dial into a DECserver 200 ( We haven't
    	been able to make it work on any other terminal server ) Connect
    	to my system at the site run a .COM file which drops me back to my 
    	workstation and brings my site system up as a router. I can then
    	pop up multiple windows on the workstation setting host to any
    	system I need. Editing on the site system is a pain it's about on 
    	par with a 1200 baud modem so I copy any files I'm working on to my 
    	workstation and edit them locally then copy them back to the site
    	system when I'm done. 
    
    	Copying a file that's several hundred blocks big can take up to
    	several minutes so I just pop upstairs for a Coke or look for a 
    	better station on the radio...
    
    	Again what we do here is unsupportted and it's a bitch to set-up.
    	I don't know what we did to the site system inorder for it to work
    	the way we wanted but it *does* work. All of us with stuff at home
    	know both the hardware and software, I used to be a system manager, my
    	wife is, and the other people are engineers who are also backup system
    	managers so we're independant enough to be able to solve any
    	problems that pop up by ourselves.
    
    	Your apt to spend a while longer working on something at home when
    	you don't have to face a half hour to hour drive into the facility
    	during a weekend or after a regular work day and in this time of
    	"Build the product faster and with higher quality than ever before" 
    	every little bit helps.
    
    	As for how we were able to get the extra equipment to bring home you'd
    	be suprised how much wheeling and dealing you can do between groups
    	for old VS2000s, RD53s and TK50 parts. A part here a part there and
    	before you know it you've got a system. Just check DIAL...
    
    							Mike
    							----	 	 
    	

    	Mike is right.  Local editing of files is the only way to work
    in my opinion.  This includes even in the office environment (I am
    a strong proponent of local stand-alone systems for editing of
    files at work too).

    	The role of teleworker is not for just anyone.  There are
    issues regarding support and management which will require teleworkers
    to be somewhat self-sufficient, as well as self-managed to a certain
    degree.  Some of this need can be met with newer technologies (ISDN
    LAN connections to work, lower cost video-conferencing, etc.), but
    teleworking will still require a certain degree of technical expertise.
    However, many people are already self sufficient at work now.  In the
    various groups I have worked with/for over the years most people I
    know either manage their own workstations in their offices, or boot
    into an LAVC (the server for which is itself managed by someone in
    their office).  Everyone typically has an account on a larger cluster
    for mail, mass storage and such, but most everything else is done locally.

        With systems becoming smaller they will need to become easier to
    use.  If employees of a computer company can't figure out how to use a
    computer product, then who can?  Ease of use issues should challenge us
    to make higher quality products.  In other words, if people can't work
    from home because they can't figure out how to run the equipment, then
    maybe that is a sign that either the equipment (or perhaps the employee)
    needs improvement.

    	My main impetus behind this proposal is not so much because I
    have some great desire to work from home.  I don't.  I dislike my
    35 minute commute each way, but I think I enjoy the camaraderie of
    working at a site with associates as much as anyone else.  Instead,
    I view teleworking as a sacrifice which I am prepared to make to
    save money for digital and perhaps my own (if not someone else's)
    job.  Recall the increasingly competitive market we work in today.
    In either scenario, we are looking at the likeihood of consolidating
    another 10 facilities (displacing another 20000 employees) or so
    (wild guess).  Now consider the remaining alternatives: either all
    20000 employees get canned, or we set up volunteers who can telework
    with offices at home so that some percentage of these 20000 people
    remain DEC employees.  If, for example, 15000 volunteers could be
    relocated as teleworkers, then 15000 of the original 20000 jobs
    might be saved.  This could allow DEC to weather the storm of the
    remaining recession while retaining the majority of its expertise.
    Think about it...

    				   -davo

>Now consider the remaining alternatives: either all
>    20000 employees get canned, or we set up volunteers who can telework
>    with offices at home so that some percentage of these 20000 people
>    remain DEC employees.  If, for example, 15000 volunteers could be
>    relocated as teleworkers, then 15000 of the original 20000 jobs
>    might be saved.  This could allow DEC to weather the storm of the
>    remaining recession while retaining the majority of its expertise.
>    Think about it...
    Wrong approach, imo. DEC should take the approach to cut *all*
    unnecessary headcount whether they work at home or in a facility.
    If the headcount is needed, keep them, if not, and they cannot
    perform where needed, let them go. The emphasis should not be
    on getting to a certain level of expenditure, and saving jobs, but
    to structure the workforce to get the job done. If expenses further
    drop due to remaining headcount working at home, all the better.
    Teleworking should not be a tool to save jobs we don't need in the
    first place.
    
    John

re: .69,

>    Wrong approach, imo. DEC should take the approach to cut *all*
>    unnecessary headcount whether they work at home or in a facility.

    	Ok, but what's wrong with this picture?  Do you know what this
    sort of efficiency ultimately does to human beings?  Certainly some
    downsizing is necessary, and much downsizing has already occurred, but
    an attempt to "cut *all* unnecessary headcount" (were it even possible)
    would likely result in a Draconian work environment (not to mention
    society) in which morale, as well as humanity is reduced to nothing.
    If you had your wish, we would even make Data General look like Heaven.

>    If the headcount is needed, keep them, if not, and they cannot
>    perform where needed, let them go.

    	Easy to say if you are not also one of "them" who might get the axe.
    By the way, what is *your* job function?  >:-)

>    The emphasis should not be
>    on getting to a certain level of expenditure, and saving jobs, but
>    to structure the workforce to get the job done.

    	You act as though a plan which also happens to save jobs is
    somehow inherently flawed.  Does the medicine always have to taste
    bad to to be good?  Teleworking is a good idea not just because
    it can potentially reduce expenditures and save jobs, but primarily
    because it is *the* working style which will be necessary for future
    corporate survival in the information age.  Therefore, teleworking
    is also the way to structure the workforce to get the job done (maybe
    the fact that the jobs it could save might increase employee morale
    and boost customer confidence is just a nice side effect?).

>    If expenses further
>    drop due to remaining headcount working at home, all the better.

    	I wouldn't be suggesting the idea if I didn't think it could
    save the company money.

>    Teleworking should not be a tool to save jobs we don't need in the
>    first place.
    
    	Ideally perhaps, but "we" live in a political world in which those
    who are let go are also sometimes the ones needed to do the work.
    If this were not true, then why are we now beginning the fourth round
    of what would appear to be an endless spiral of such cuts?  Obviously,
    not all of the people who DEC needs to be let go are being let go, and
    some of the people being let go could actually be used elsewhere to
    staff new potential projects.  Also obvious is the fact that cutting
    jobs alone is not the answer to DEC's problems.  Innovation is the only
    thing that is going to pull DEC out of it's slump.  Terminating
    employees is not innovative.  Teleworking is innovative.

    	Teleworking would not only provide a low-cost workforce, but it
    would also provide a distributed workforce which would lend itself
    well to overnight virtual team creation.  Virtual teams will be
    increasingly needed to focus large numbers of employees on temporary
    projects in a rapid deployment style.  Teleworkers, due to their
    inherently distributed nature, would serve as ideal candidates for
    virtual teams.  Without such rapid deployment capability, large
    service contracts will continue to go to consulting firms who are
    better able to provide the necessary manpower on demand.  DEC is in
    a good position to utilize the enhanced communications capabilities
    of it's existing worldwide network to meet these needs.  Instead of
    destroying what is left of DEC's virtual manpower potential, we should
    be innovating a new rapid deployment manpower network of teleworkers.

    				    -davo

    I have been teleworking here in the UK for a while. Just after
    Christmas my major customer gave me a dial-in account, so I telework
    there as well. No more 5am starts....teleworking IS the way to go.
    
    RE: a few replies back. I am intrigued by the workstation solution,
        could someone send me a technical overview (kit, software,
        procedures, etc) ?
    
    thanks
    
    dave
    

re .70
>    	Ok, but what's wrong with this picture?  Do you know what this
>    sort of efficiency ultimately does to human beings?  Certainly some
>    downsizing is necessary, and much downsizing has already occurred, but
>    an attempt to "cut *all* unnecessary headcount" (were it even possible)
>    would likely result in a Draconian work environment (not to mention
>    society) in which morale, as well as humanity is reduced to nothing.
>    If you had your wish, we would even make Data General look like Heaven.
    Maybe my wording was a bit too harse.
    I feel if jobs are being cut because they are not needed, then they
    are not needed. It doesn't matter if they are not needed from home
    or not needed from a facility.
    I realize that the system is flawed in who is let go and who stays.
    That perhaps is the first issue to be addressed. To continue to
    do that, and then find solutions (like teleworking) to keep the
    people who are being let go when they shouldn't be is not the
    correct path to take. Like many other solutions chosen in DEC, it
    targets a symptom, not a cause.

>    	Easy to say if you are not also one of "them" who might get the axe.
    Of course, but would you prefer the opposite? ("If headcount is not
    needed, find a way to keep them anyway")?

>>    The emphasis should not be
>>    on getting to a certain level of expenditure, and saving jobs, but
>>    to structure the workforce to get the job done.

>    	You act as though a plan which also happens to save jobs is
>    somehow inherently flawed.
    If it saves jobs that shouldn't be done, yes. It disguises the
    problem, and takes away from the real solution.
    
>Teleworking is a good idea not just because
>    it can potentially reduce expenditures and save jobs, but primarily
>    because it is *the* working style which will be necessary for future
>    corporate survival in the information age.
    I agree completely. But if DEC has people doing the wrong thing in
    big expensive facilities, will having them do that at home make DEC
    strong again?
    
    >  Therefore, teleworking
>    is also the way to structure the workforce to get the job done...
    Yes, once we learn how to get the job done. You don't start by
    just cutting expenses. The two operations are distinct, although
    have similar ends. First structure the organization so we are
    doing what we are supposed to do, then if we can save money after
    we're on track, by all means.

>>    Teleworking should not be a tool to save jobs we don't need in the
>>    first place.
    
>    	Ideally perhaps, but "we" live in a political world in which those
>    who are let go are also sometimes the ones needed to do the work....
    I'm sure. However that doesn't justify living with it, or instituting
    programs because of personnel mismanagement. Fix the problem at
    hand first.
    
    >  Innovation is the only
>    thing that is going to pull DEC out of it's slump.  Terminating
>    employees is not innovative.  Teleworking is innovative.
    DEC isn't doing what it should be doing. It doesn't matter where
    we do it. Doing it at home will only prolong the demise.

>    	Teleworking would not only provide a low-cost workforce, but it
>    would also provide a distributed workforce which would lend itself
>    well to overnight virtual team creation.  Virtual teams will be
>    increasingly needed to focus large numbers of employees on temporary
>    projects in a rapid deployment style....
    I think you're taking it a step further. People still live generally
    close to where they work. Sending them home by itself makes them
    no more accessible to the customer base. If you're talking about
    relocating half of New England's DEC population, that's another issue.
    
    John

VNS TECHNOLOGY WATCH:                           [Mike Taylor, VNS Correspondent]
=====================                           [Littleton, MA, USA            ]

               Telecommuting Project Keeps HP Execs In-House

    Faced with the danger of losing key sales executives to a long two
    way commute, HP's Western region sales center manager Barry Ross,
    responded by offering some mangers the chance to work at home four
    days a week. In addition to discouraging valuable personnel from
    heading out the door, Ross said he expects the telecommuting project
    to result in productivity gains  and cost savings in the hundred of
    thousands of dollars.

    HP's worldwide human resources committee signed off on the project
    last month, and six to 10 salespeople will participate in a pilot this
    year. As much as 50% of the Western region's telesales force will
    eventually participate, and the idea is very likely to spread to other
    divisions, Ross said,m adding, "There isn't a person here who isn't
    excited about this."  Based on an internal study, Ross said he expects
    telecommuting to induce salespeople to stay four or five years in
    their jobs, compared with the current three years average. This will
    mean significant savings on the cost of training new employees, which
    comes to $60,000 to $80,000 per person for the first year of
    employment.

    Each Telecommuting salesperson home office is equipped with a 386 HP
    Vectra personal computers running a sales software package from Brock
    Control Systems. Equipment for each salesperson comes to approximately
    $5,000, including the PC, software, two phone lines and a fax modem.
    Salespeople maintain customer account profiles on the PC and at night
    send updates on accounts, including new orders, in batch mode over
    dial-uip lines to an HP 9000 minicomputer.  Salespeople, who sell the
    full range of HP products, also access the minicomputer to exchange
    electronic mail, callup the latest prices and availability  of
    product and put together quotations for customers, Ross said.
    {ComputerWorld, January 20,1992}
    

    Wow!  If I use HP computers like they themselves do, I gan garner
    productivity gains and cost savings?!?  Just by hooking up a couple of
    computers to each other!?!
    
    They MUST have the best networking solutions in the world.  How can I
    contact them so that I can do that, too?
    
    Signed,
    J. Random Market Potential

re: .72,

>    Maybe my wording was a bit too harse.

    	Well, I wouldn't say that wording was "harse" exactly...  ;^)

>    I feel if jobs are being cut because they are not needed, then they
>    are not needed. It doesn't matter if they are not needed from home
>    or not needed from a facility...

    	Are you going to tell Al Root from Ohio that he's not needed?
    How about everyone else who says goodbye in here?  None of them are
    needed either?  At one point or another, every one of these people
    were considered "needed" by someone here at DEC or presumably they
    never would have been here at all.  When better times return I would
    imagine that most (if not all) of these people will once again be
    "needed" by DEC, but by then it will be too late to try and woo them
    back.  They won't bother because they will know that the "DEC Culture"
    they once endured mediocre salaries for no longer exists.

    	In the meantime, DEC can't afford their services, but instead
    of attempting to try and reduce the cost of their services, you would
    rather have DEC simply terminate these people.  Why???  Are we [DEC]
    not above that?  Has DEC become just another has been computer company?
    I'm really beginning to wonder...

>    ...To continue to
>    do that, and then find solutions (like teleworking) to keep the
>    people who are being let go when they shouldn't be is not the
>    correct path to take. Like many other solutions chosen in DEC, it
>    targets a symptom, not a cause.

    	Rescuing people from a burning building doesn't put out the
    fire, nor does it necessarily address the true cause of the fire.
    Such an effort does save lives however.  Here we have a building which
    (metaphorically speaking anyway) used to pride itself in fire safety,
    and which is now burning.  Despite ongoing firefighting efforts,
    the fire rages on and people can be heard screaming from the windows
    above.  Don't you think it's a little early to be probing for the
    actual cause of the fire?  If rescue operations aren't initiated soon,
    many more people stand to lose their live[lihood]s.  This proposal
    is a rescue operation.  If it were thought that there were arsonists
    who started the fire that were among those people trapped in the
    building, would that mean we shouldn't bother trying to rescue anyone?

>>    	Easy to say if you are not also one of "them" who might get the axe.
>    Of course, but would you prefer the opposite? ("If headcount is not
>    needed, find a way to keep them anyway")?

    	Yes.  It doesn't make sense to begin the investigation into
    the cause of the fire until the fire has safely been extinguished.
    In the meantime, the top priority should be focused on rescuing
    those who can still be rescued, and the very next priority should
    be on fighting the fire.

>    If it saves jobs that shouldn't be done, yes. It disguises the
>    problem, and takes away from the real solution.
 
    	Obviously, the real solution is to put out the fire.  In the
    meantime however, people are being burned alive.  I'll admit that
    the teleworking solution is merely a stopgap measure in certain
    cases, but it might at least buy DEC enough time to ride out the
    recession.  When the recovery begins, many of the very people being
    let go today will suddenly be "needed" again.  Why wait until then
    to discover how we could have avoided so many unnecessary terminations?
   
>>Teleworking is a good idea not just because
>>    it can potentially reduce expenditures and save jobs, but primarily
>>    because it is *the* working style which will be necessary for future
>>    corporate survival in the information age.
>    I agree completely. But if DEC has people doing the wrong thing in
>    big expensive facilities, will having them do that at home make DEC
>    strong again?

    	If it buys DEC the time it needs to weather the recession
    without terminating the careers of needed (but unaffordable)
    employees, then yes!  Not only would DEC retain a stronger, more
    experienced work force, but DEC would also be viewed as the hero
    which saved their lives!  What better ways can you think of to
    create a loyal work force?
    
>>    Therefore, teleworking
>>    is also the way to structure the workforce to get the job done...
>    Yes, once we learn how to get the job done. You don't start by
>    just cutting expenses. The two operations are distinct, although
>    have similar ends. First structure the organization so we are
>    doing what we are supposed to do, then if we can save money after
>    we're on track, by all means.

    	On the contrary, the first priority should be to rescue the
    [remaining] survivors from the burning building.  Later, after the
    fire has been extinguished we can concentrate on sorting out who or
    what was responsible for starting the fire and take appropriate actions.

    				   -davo

    Here (at least) a significant amount of what we do is no different than
    any other body shop providing a warm body to a paying customer, so this
    isn't a unique situation...
    
    Every morning I get up and spend significant time getting ready to "go
    to work" - NO jumping into comfortable jeans and flannel shirt, instead
    "business attire".
    
    Then instead of sauntering into my home "office" I get in my DECmobile
    and drive 25 miles to downtown Minneapolis which takes anywhere from 45
    minutes to 2.5 hours depending on traffic and weather.  I park in the
    basement of the building where I work - at $11.50/day!  When the day is
    over I reverse the process...
    
    I work in a room with a desk, phone, and standalone VS3100 (which
    belongs to Digital).  Instead of a wall full of manuals I have a CD
    reader and CDs.  For backups I have a local tape drive, and
    automatically backup the software under development to a customer
    system nightly.  I am plugged into the customer's Ethernet which
    provides access to a laser printer - 6 FLOORS BELOW ME!  
    
    I have met with the "customer - project sponsor" 3 times in the past 7
    months, have spoken to him by telephone at most a half dozen times, and
    send both him and Digital a status report approximately weekly.  Other
    than the approximately 2-3 weeks of initial work with the users to find
    out the scope and particulars of the assignment (which was then
    documented and distributed to the users), a meeting for review and
    agreement, occasional demonstrations and such, I do not interact with
    these people more than a day a MONTH!  
    
    I go into the Digital office very rarely, only for necessary meetings
    or to pick up mail (approximately once every 2 months - we are strongly
    encouraged to maximize the revenue generating experience). Very
    occasionally I speak by telephone with my immediate supervisor, or
    obtain specific assistance for a problem by telephone from a co-worker
    or the CSC.
    
    I suspect this experience is echoed to a greater or lesser extent by
    any number of people in the field.  And, I suspect that MORE rather
    than fewer hours would be expended on useful work if fewer were
    expended on the trappings of being on-site and travel to and from the
    site.  Personally, I a whole lot rather spend that time doing
    something that would benefit me psychologically and physically, and
    clear my head for the days' tasks (like a short walk, bike ride or
    such), than sitting in a car breathing smog, stuck in traffic, with my
    behind spreading and blood pressure rising!  So why am I here?  Because
    - "Its the way we've always done it!"
    
    The only problem I see in my case is the need for a fast, simple,
    flexible, consistent, high-speed, data transmission capability (sounds
    a lot like Ethernet don't it?).  If I can seamlessly send and receive
    mail from Digital and the customer, move files, savesets, kits, etc,
    from one system to another, etc., I can do virtually anything from home
    that I can do now.
    
    Certainly, the same cannot be said of a multi-person project.  But,
    even there, there are significant periods when people are working
    individually on analysis, design, documentation, implementation,
    individual testing, etc., when people could easily work at home.

    We have an outside contract programmer finishing up some work for us.
    He lives in Rhode Island.  We are in New Hampshire.  He does it
    from there.