Psychologists suggest that to cure cruelty

"A home office allowed me to maintain the career pace I was on," says Colleen Clark, reflecting on three years of telecommuting between Sacramento, California, and Richland, Washington. When Clark and her husband decided to move to California, she looked for a way to keep her job with a public relations company that contracts with the federal government. To that end, she proposed a telecommuting schedule that had her at home in California for three weeks and on location in Washington for one week each month. Her company astounded her and said yes. It hadn't been done before, but now the company is looking into ways to encourage more people to try telecommuting. A home office loft was added to Clark's plans for the new house in Sacramento. Though open to the second floor of the house, the loft was designed to be self-contained and separate from the rest of the house. Extra phone lines were installed during construction. Her employer arranged for her to have remote access to the Local Area Network, processed through an autodial feature with a built-in calling card. Clark's office phone in Richland automatically bounced callers to her Sacramento address. "A lot of callers didn't realize I wasn't on site," she says. Adapting to working at home was "a learning experience," Clark admits. She found that it was important to minimize distractions. "Everything needs to be in the work area," she says, "so that you're not up and down, back and forth." She also came to realize that her work benefited if she followed a routine of getting ready for work as if she were going to a regular workplace. "At first, it seems cool to roll out of bed in your pajamas and sit down to work still bleary-eyed - it's the shortest commute in history; it's really a dream. But I learned that it was important to stick to a professional routine. In this manner, I find it easy to stay focused."

1.