>I am increasing working with folks who work at home or at least work outside of our office. If someone works in the office, you have a general sense of when things are going well and how fast an assignment is getting completed.
>
>It's different when someone works outside the office. Communications are much less frequent and there is not any of the "hanging around the water cooler" chatter that gives you a sense of where things are.

I worked at home for most of a year. I came into the office one day a week and didn't get a darn thing done. < g > Otherwise I worked through PCAnywhere (WinXP has remote desktop now) and since I was doing a lot of new development, on my local machine's hard drive.

If they needed reports printed the PCA things would print to the in-office printer. I had a fax machine if they needed me to look at hardcopy.

We all used instant messaging. I'm pretty sure I was "right there" when an IM came up more often than the people in the office.

Like Bonnie, I was far more productive.

BTW, I like the term "teleworking" rather than "telecommuting" since it puts the emphasis on the work and not how it gets there.