I have been working 1 to 2 days at home for about 7 years now. Its very productive but you need to schedule your time, including breaks. I think taking breaks keeps you more productive. I like to take at least one walk outside or i get a bit of cabin fever.  I started out with just one day. Its important to really show you are getting stuff done as you don't get the visibility. I also feel that working a bit earlier or staying later helps you get more flexibility in your day and better respond to work too. I tend to always check in late at night too. Hope that helps.

  I have been downsized from my 11 yr job for about a year now. I have tried various things and found that I am now competing with the younger people for the same jobs. Age discrimination is very much a problem. You really have to work to overcome that perception especially when the person who is interviewing you is 20-30 years your junior!

I have settled into home employment and I can say now after about 6 months that I ABSOLUTELY love it! I have my own VIRTUAL Business Services web site and I also do some odd jobs on the side. I will not be a GATES Millionaire from any of this and at my age, I am not trying to be.

One of the side jobs I found on the internet was ChaCha. I can do this at home, on the internet, as much as I want or as little as I want. No one to notify if I am going out of town and need time off. You are your own boss, so you get what you put into it. It is a text messaging service staffed by thousands of online guides answering incoming text questions. They vary from weather, sports scores, directions, prices, movies, trivia and just people chatting on their phones via text messages. The service to them is free. There have been several articles in the papers lately regarding the company: ABC news, New York Times.

If you are looking for a job to do at home and you have internet and are good at researching things on the web and you like people...this may be a job to earn a little extra money.

The web address is: www.chacha.com

click on how to become a guide in the bottom right hand corner of home page and go from their. If you decide this is something you would like to pursue, I would be grateful to have you on my team and you can use me as a referral at the appropriate place on the application by inputting my email address:  arneyl@yahoo.com

Please contact me and I will help you through the testing process; yes they test you to see if this is for you but NO BIG DEAL! I am 59 and I had no problem passing it.

Good luck in your job pursuits and God Bless!

Does your workplace provide a virtual private network (VPN), which provides secure access to their network?  Or, when working at home, do you take home projects (on a memory stick) and use your own personal computer, or perhaps a laptop belonging to your workplace?  I’m just trying to get a feel for how you telecommute from home.

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I VPN from home occasionally in the evenings...usually to keep ahead of things.  Whenever we had bad snow storms come through my city, or if I feel under the weather (no pun intended), I’d stay at home for the entire day and work via VPN, which is totally acceptable with my workplace. 

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I do plan to bring up to management exactly what you are asking about...telecommuting from home one day each week (due to the rise in gas prices).  It seems quite reasonable, and I'm sure others are thinking the same thing.

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I personally find that I am much more productive working at home via the workplace.  I do have many more distractions at work versus home. :/  I guess it all depends on the dynamics of each. :P