Spaces and exchanges

I'm going to talk about the notion "spaces and exchanges" with the theme of telecommuting. It refers to the ability for people to work from home. With just a computer, they achieve the tasks they would have done at the office. There is no doubt that it is related to our notion. In fact, with new technologies, it’s possible to join two different spaces, for example an office and a house, by the exchange of some informations through Internet. Today, I will answer the essential question :"Is telecommuting improving our lives ?". For that I will speak about the advantages and drawbacks of telecommuting in terms of personal, professional and social relationships.

One of the most obvious advantages of telecommuting is the ability for one to work in a non-stressful environment. Thanks to telecommuting, it is possible to work from anywhere you want: most likely one will work from home, in a relaxed environment, but it is possible to bring the idea even further, for instance by working from your garden as we seen in a picture called "Telecommuting". In this image we could see a man in casual clothes who looks like to be on vacation. He is telecommuting thanks to his laptop, he has a flexible schedule and he can work wherever and whenever he wants to. Furthermore, making your own schedule makes also possible for you to pick your kids up at school and be home right in time to get back to work. A flexible schedule also makes it easier for you to manage breaks, so that you don't have to do 5 hours of work straight in a row. All of that contributes to making work less frustrating and stressful. On top of that, telecommuting helps you to build a healthy routine based on a healthier food, no more snacking but more physical activities as sports. Moreover, you can take more time with your children or pets when working from home, and thus enjoy being with them all day long. It also means that you don't have to waste a considerable amount of time in transports, to get to work in the morning and get back home in the evening. This allows you to save your time and energy. Because in the end, telecommuting is all about giving you more time. In a society where time has become the main element that always lacks in our lives. In fact, It enables people to communicate with each other fast and effectively from a distance at a low cost. Telecommuting became mainstream with more than ⅓ of companies in the US that allow their employees to telecommute at least part-time. For example Fuentek, a virtual company founded in 2001 by Laura Schoppe, is a company where employees are required to telecommute. Now it is a multi-million dollar company, with more productive and loyal employees willing to get the job done. Then, besides all of these advantages telecommuting also helps you to save some additional money. All of this points had also been mentioned in the flexjob video that we’ve seen in class.

Now I’m going to talk about the drawbacks of telecommuting. For that we’ll take the example of Harried, someone who telecommuted for 6 weeks but realised that it wasn’t what he wants. In fact staying at home doesn’t affect his productivity but all the distractions drives him crazy, he misses his colleagues and doesn’t know what to do because his boss turned his office into a conference room. Then he wrote a mail that annie responded to by quoting the point of view of Ziona strelitz, a social anthropologist.

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