Deathwing
<Bronze Donator>
Driving in bad weather is a good reason to work from home, particularly because it's out of your control. Shoveling is insulting because you're going to have to do it eventually. We have the typical flexibilities regarding work hours and such. He could have shoveled his driveway, showed up at 10, worked until 5, and there would have been no problem. The point is that if you're able to be in the office to facilitate better collaboration, then you should. We have absolutely no problem with people working from home outside of regular work hours to make up sick time or whatever.I think working from home is perfect for shit like not wanting to shovel a driveway or deal with driving in snow or whatever. You can't really treat a modern workplace like some sort of assembly line where if Joe doesn't show up to label the jars or whatever then it messes everyone up. If some developer doesn't come in to the office to write code, who gives a shit. If he commits he commits.
Me personally, I'm both more and less efficient from home. When I actually have real and interesting work to do, I'll do work on it from the minute I get up until I can't keep my eyes open any more from home. Of course on the flip side, if it's during a lull that all of us IT people have, I fuck off with ferocity when I'm at home. Some of the best MMO gaming of my life got done on telecommute days.
It is a mixed bag though. I think your company has to wholeheartedly embrace it and not give a fuck about it for it to work. Trying to work somewhere where people are skeptical about it just makes it not worth it. People also have to be good at it too. I've worked with too many people who can't figure out how to dial in to a conference bridge, join a webex or respond to IMs. They're the ones who really screw the whole thing up for everyone else.
This same employee uses up all his sick time halfway through the year, complains about having to use vacation time for sick time, and then acts like we're treating him unfairly. Bitch, I didn't make you live 45 minutes away with a 300ft(his words) driveway and not buy a snowblower.