March 18, 2008
Producers of daytime chav-baiting TV programme the Jeremy Kyle show, photographers on weekly breasts-and-bums mag Nuts, and whoever is behind that mysterious everyone-talking-about-nothing website Facebook are sure to be circling Thursday 15 May in huge red ink on their wall calendars.
They will be planning plenty of action that day to capture hugely inflated audiences – for 15 May has been declared National Work from Home Day.
At first, Guru misread the middle two letters of the second word in ‘National Work from Home Day’. It wouldn’t have mattered, as the outcome is likely to be pretty much the same. Perhaps Kleenex salesmen are licking their, er, lips as well.
National Work from Home Day is led by employers including BT and Transport for London, and is approved by organisations such as the TUC, the CBI and the British Chambers of Commerce. Employers and staff across the UK are being encouraged to work from home that day.
“This is not a day off for those participating,” said Work Wise UK chief executive Phil Flaxton, yawning and wiping the sleep from his eyes at 2pm.
“It’s the chance for hard-working, open-minded people to demonstrate that without the stress induced by the workplace environment, with the often long commute many have to endure, people can be even more productive by occasionally working from home.”
Guru believes that the stress induced by the workplace environment – you know, that nagging feeling that as you are being paid for that time, you should maybe stop looking at holiday deals on the internet and do a bit of that thing called work that your boss gave you three weeks previously – can be a good thing. It gets things done. It makes money for the company. And it contributes to the economy. Which, Flaxton may have noticed if he’d got out of bed before the newsagents shut, is very much needed at present.
The day marks the start of Work Wise Week – odd as it’s a Thursday, but then time ceases to have meaning when you spend your time between the toaster, the kettle and the sofa – which will promote the benefits of smarter working.
The bakeries will be full all week. What will Guru do for his daily elevenses?
Comments (1)
Guru
I think working at home has its place, like your boss being flexible when the boiler breaks down or when a chavvy youth has put a football through your window, it's nice to know that you can be at home and work whilst waiting for the repair man (or woman) to arrive.
However at the last company I worked for I constantly saw this flexibility taken advantage of and it's always when you need the expertise of that person the most and it just so happens their phone has died or their internet connection has gone down - rubbish lets face it alot of people treat the odd day working at home as a little day off. They do enough work and send the odd email to look like you're doing something but never actually come up with the goods.
I think it takes a very focused individual to actually work from home and get great results. I actually prefer being in the office enjoying the odd bit of office gossip about the state of Britneys life or the fate of Amy Winehouse -it makes me feel connected to the business and part of the team. It's also soooooo much easier to communicate with people when they're actually sitting behind you and not doing their laundry or taking relationship advice from daytime telly queen Trisha!
I wonder how much real work will actually get done on May 15th?
Kate
Posted by Kate Hart | March 20, 2008 12:15 PM
Posted on March 20, 2008 12:15