As many of you know, since the beginning of the year, I've been working part-time at the office of an environmental ad agency. And, as many of you know, I've been struggling with the transition from full-time work-at-homer to part-time office worker/part-time work-at-homer. And, as many of you, I've been struggling with the skyrocketing price I'm paying at the pump － not only shelling out more, but also more frequently now, since I'm driving into downtown three days a week.So, combine all of the above, and it's not surprising I've been thinking about the real costs of my commute － not only to my work freedom and flexibility, but also to my bank account and to the environment.
Of course, I'm not the only one thinking about the commute/gas/global warming connection. Recently, the Washington Posts' On Balance blog featured a post by guest blogger Brian Reid about how telecommuting might lift a big burden off of employees and the planet. In "The Green Argument for Telecommuting," Reid writes:
The folks at undress4success.com, a site focused on working from home, estimates that getting the 40 percent of Americans who could work from home off of the roads and into a home office would save 625 million barrels of oil a year, spare the atmosphere from 100 million tons of carbon dioxide and save us all $43 billion in gas costs. ... Teleworking even one day every two weeks should theoretically cut gas usage by 10 percent, which is hardly marginal.
Maybe I'll forward this information to my environmentally-oriented employer to open negotiations for a two-day in-office workweek ...
3 comments:
Mark's been working from home 2-3 days a week, and we all love it and benefit from it. He actually gains nearly 2 hours in production time everyday since he's not on the road. The best part is that when his workday is over, he simply emerges from his office instead of having to travel 45 minutes to an hour home. He's filling up the Scion once every week to week and a half instead of twice a week. Very, very cool.
Good luck with that!!! Maybe you can go back to no days in the office!!!
Having worked at home for many years, and now working with clients almost exclusively by phone, I am thrilled to be out of the traffic -- environmental benefits are a nice bonus. Here's another easy 10-percenter that employers can (ahem) employ: I used to work in a large corporate office which offered a number of employees the option of working 9 days out of 10. Every other Friday, they were off, and the preceeding Thursday was an 8-hour day, the rest were 9-hour days. The impact on the commute is 10% less, same as working from home one day every two weeks.
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