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October 15, 2004
Working at Home is Now Mainstream
Just pay attention when you visit your local parade of homes this year. Home offices are now standard features in many new homes. Once destined to set up shop in the basement, dining room, kitchen, etc., home offices are now just part of the floor plan.
StartupJournal tells us that this was not always the case, however.
"(M)any white-collar telecommuters and self-employed professionals used to go to great lengths to hide the fact that they worked from home. They would change the word apartment to suite in their address. They borrowed conference rooms from friends for meetings with clients. They even had other people leave the outgoing message on their answering machine to give the impression of having a secretary. A barking dog, a honking car or a crying child while they were on the phone would leave them wide-eyed and white-knuckled until they were sure no one had noticed."
But, now working at home is common. In fact, it could even be considered chic.
"These days, however, 25 million people in the U.S., or 19% of those in nonagricultural jobs, work from home at least occasionally, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The practice has become socially acceptable and even desirable."
The big caution as we've talked about more than once before at this site: set boundaries between work and non-work in the home!
Posted October 15, 2004 06:00 AM
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While looking for my first job in Nashville, my soon-to-be-father in law was gracious enough to let me stay in his house. They had an extra bed room up stairs, and it saved me from the commute to see his daughter (his advice and resume tips didn’t hurt either). It took four months to find a job, and I became used to having all of the office supplies at my tips. He had a computer network with two computers, ports for a laptop, and high speed internet. He had a Xerox copier, fax, color and laser printers, and all of the paperclips and types of paper that you could ever dream of. We had a protocol that when he was working, he shut the office door. We were quiet and so was the washer and drier. It was an average bonus room over their garage with brown carpet and 1970’s furniture and home to his publishing/couching business for 10 years. I believe he had rented space before in an office building somewhere in Hendersonville sometime before. He moved home in a bootstrapping effort.
Two years later I don’t believe that we have to be as quiet while he works. The furniture has been replaced with a new wraparound-theater-leather couch. The barren walls have been covered with a wall of electronics. A 55” bigscreen surrounded in a built in cherry cabinet is accented by indirect lighting from a now recessed ceiling. The office furniture has been replaced with a built in desk. Matching cabinets surround the area with the same soft-lighting glow. All of the wood matches and the countertops are made of solid green granite. The once linen closet in the room is now home to a full service bar. The room is complete with a wine chiller, same counter tops, familiar soft lighting, and a newly installed sink. It is never short on supply of Dewars or Capitans.
The brown carpet has been replaced with light hardwoods. There is a cheery ribbon with matching Celtic knots winding in design throughout the floors. The line delineates “play” from “work.” That line is blurred when you see him move from his desk, to the bar, back to the couch with his newly acquired scotch. All the while he never misses a beat on his coaching conference call.
I know for what the room cost he could have rented office space for years. I think you will be hard pressed to embarrass him about working out of his house though. I think he likes the commute and dress code (bathrobes on Friday). After hours office parties are great too.
I liked the concept of the office so much, that we added an additional room to the requirements of the condo that we recently bought. We now have two desks and sit back to back late Friday nights and Saturday mornings. We don’t work from home yet, but one day we will…
Posted by: Daniel B. Rose at October 15, 2004 08:34 AM
at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. He consults with a variety of businesses on start-up and growth related issues, and with larger corporations on re-establishing entrepreneurial cultures within their organizations. Dr. Cornwall's current research interests include entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurial ethics. He has authored or co-authored four books.
