The Pleasure of Life Working from home Chuck Hansen I work from home about 60 percent of the time. That may sound like a great thing to you, but I'm here to tell you: you're right. It is great. But there are some wrinkles to working at home that you have to get used to. Probably the biggest adjustment for me was that I suddenly was spending way more time with my wife Stacy than I would have expected, or than Stacy would accept. About three weeks after I began telecommuting, Stacy decided it was time she got back into the working world. She found a position working on a microgreens farm in Powhatan, but I think she would have taken a job breaking rocks or laying railroad track if that's what it took. I knew something was up when we were watching the show "Dirty Jobs" one night and she started mumbling things like, "That doesn't look so bad…" OK, honesty check: Stacy may have been influenced in her decision to go back to work by my new "work-at-home dress code." When she married me in 1994, I was a public information officer at the Virginia Department of Transportation, who rose every morning at 6 a.m., showered, shaved, donned a business suit (complete with wingtips, white shirt and, ugh, a tie) and drove off into the sunrise to my job, returning 8.5 hours later in approximately the same condition. Then, in 1998, when I was working for Reynolds Metals Company, the dress code migrated to business casual Fridays, involving Dockers and loafers. Come 2004, my current company instituted blue-jeans Fridays, followed in 2006 by shorts-on-Fridays-in-thesummer (I LOVE my job). Then I began telecommuting, and with that change I adopted the dress code of Monkey Island at the Richmond Metropolitan Zoo. When I get up in the morning now days, I stumble down to the kitchen in boxers, a stained t-shirt and fuzzy slippers, scratching my three-day beard and rubbing my baggy eyes, oily hair styled in the latest "lightningstrike" fashion, with only a one-in-three chance that I've darkened the shower floor in the last 24 hours. Stacy makes a special effort to get a look at me first thing in the morning, because it's the best I'm going to look all day. Stacy is off to work early, so I usually walk our daughter Madison to the bus stop. I don't walk Daniel, because outside of our home Daniel has adopted a strict "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding the existence of his parents. Now, please don't think I walk down to the bus stop in my just-rolled-outof bed condition - I'm not an animal, after all! I put on pants, a hat, and if absolutely necessary, shoes. Sometimes I even wash my face. I honestly believe that the other parents at the bus stop think maybe I lost my job months ago, and now I'm lying about working at home, and possibly that I've become a crack head. From time to time I'll see another parent kneeling in front of Madison murmuring quietly, "Now you can tell me the truth, sweetie: Is everything OK at home?" So far, though, Social Services hasn't called on us, and until recently, I have continued to enjoy working from home. A reorganization at my company, however, has paired me with a different division with different needs, and now I will have to go into the office more often. To tell you the truth, though, I am looking forward to rejoining my colleagues in the office. I just hope they don't have a problem with my new, Monkey Island sensibilities. By the way, do you know where I can get wingtip slippers?