It's tough to strike a balance between being available and having time to put your head down and do your work. I've always found the most successful system is working from home a day or two each week, but still going to the office a few days so you're more available to your customers and colleagues. The ROWE system where people work when they want and as much as they want seems doomed to fail which is probably why major companies are abandoning that model.

I am in the process of escaping Silicon Valley, been there for 35 years. I am moving back to the Range, working from my bed, and loving every minute of it.

I can see where working at home would be successful when you're working on commission or when you've got an aggressive deadline hanging over your head.

Yes they're working at home. I've always wondered how far from home others were working.

Working from home is a great choice for people that are able to remember that work comes first during the day. Not appointments, laundry, kids or dishes. You are being paid to do a job and have the great benefit of doing it remotely. I've worked from home for 2 years and it is amazing. If I can't sleep, I work (today started at 5am). If it is nice out (short summers!) I work my 8hrs early and then go biking. I am trusted to get my job done and done well - that is what matters.

Sure Best Buy and Yahoo are regressing on telecommuting and it's obvious they're both failing! Bringing workers to their desk every day isn't going to market sales. People no longer want a one or two dimensional store to shop at. Best Buy needs to convert it sotres so it sells a lot of everything. The days of just selling electronics and appliances is a doomed industry now that the web has cornered a large percent of the market! How many camera stores exist other than a few mom and pop stores. People want to pick up their product and other necessities all in one swoop if possible. Expand your products or your fate will be similar to Circuit city!

Ah, yes, "Working" from home. I remember it well when I was a contract computer programer for a large bank in Mnpls where they allowed a number of employees to stay home. I always made the commute in order to get work done. The problem was these folks working from home weren't getting their jobs done and fell behind on their parts of my project. How well I remember the time when I called one of them who was "working" at home. She had forwarded her home phone to her cell. I wasn't supposed to know the difference except it didn't sound like a land line connection and I could hear some noise in the background. "Where are you?" I would finally ask. "Well, right now I'm at Target." This is just one example of many. I ended up making out like a bandit because I was billing at $75/hour, so doing their work meant more billable hours for me! Nevertheless, it put me at risk of having late projects, something I didn't appreciate at all. Yep... my thanks to those "Working" from home! I retired at age 55.

I remember our reps calling from home with a question and hearing the kids screaming in the background.

Worse yet, having employees outsourced to other countries. They aren't even in our "home" country!

Is there the opportunity for goofing when you're working remote? Yes. Do I goof at the office. yes. The problem is the Home part. The employee must acknowledge that this is not "home". You're working. This means that the kids still go to day care. I work remote one or two days a week and helped my supervisor devise protocols that helped measure output and to govern interaction. When your face isn't there, you must take pains to be 'present'. This means greeting your co-workers daily, and participating in online or teleconferencing as much as possible. If you can't be trusted to put forth your best effort in your cube, you got no business working remote. When you are remote, you must put forth a little extra.