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Work at Home? Where’s Your Home Office Today…?
By Jeff Zbar | May 4, 2009
I work at home. From a bona fide, tax-deductible and dedicated home office tucked into an erstwhile bedroom, where the closet is used exclusively for office supplies, books, folders, tech-stuff, a file cabinet (similarly used exclusively for, um, files related exclusively to work).
My desk is for business. My computer is for business. My two-line phone with my Plantronics headset both are for business.
Yep. This place passes the IRS’s litmus test for use “dedicated and exclusive” to the pursuit of business.
But I also work from my bed.
And the kitchen table.
And the softball diamond and hockey rink with my wi-fi laptop or simply my BlackBerry Pearl in hand.
Where is YOUR home office today?
Work is a thing, not a place. It’s not about going to the corporate tower, or a telework center, or to that erstwhile bedroom whose use is “dedicated and exclusive” to plying a trade (NOT a hobby) from home.
So when I’m blogging for business from my bed — with the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs on the plasma screen and my son doing homework beside me and my wife knitting beside him — I’m working.
When I’m walking some college campus with my 17-year-old daughter who’s like a kid in a candy store wondering what school she’ll go do, and I answer an email from a New York Times reporter wanting to do a story on how people work remotely in the modern age, I’m working.
When I hold a 30-minute interview with that reporter as we’re driving 450 miles toward home that afternoon, I’m working. When I’m on a cruise and replying via satellite Internet to a client’s request, I’m working
Where is YOUR place of business? The seat of your car, a seat in the bleachers, a perch in your bed?
Work is a task to be done, NOT the place it gets done.
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