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Bringing it All Back Home

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Peter Whalley
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Abstract:

Not so long ago I interviewed a computer engineer in her home. Surrounded with toys and a napping baby—the interview time had been chosen carefully—she talked about how she worked as an independent contractor for a large electronics company. Connected by high-speed broadband, two telephone lines, and a cell phone, she felt fully integrated into the work, exchanging electronic files with her colleagues and having telephone conversations with customers two continents and umpteen time zones away. She told me she often worked late after the baby was in bed and during the baby's afternoon nap before she went to pick her older child up from school. Despite these odd working times, however, she was convinced that none of the company's customers and only some of her work colleagues knew that she worked at home. She was very contented with the arrangement.

Type
Review Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 163 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © Business Ethics Quarterly 2007

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References

Notes

1. For more on these interviews with technical professionals with flexible working arrangement, see Peter, Meiksins and Peter, Whalley, Putting Work in its Place: A Quiet Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002).Google Scholar

2. Vega cites the potential for catastrophic weather events that prevent commuting as one such case; though electronic communication systems are even more vulnerable than roads in the case of such crisis, as Katrina has recently taught us.

3. Robert, Putnam. Bowling Alone (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).Google Scholar

4. Vega suggests that the strength of legal protections against employer's encroachment on their workers’ time and privacy may be one reason why telework has been more successful in Europe than in the US.