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April 9, 2010

Strange But True!

Q. An estimated 20 percent of employees work at least some of their time at home, generating a whole new lingo. You hip?

A. The granddaddy of this new vocabulary is “telecommuting,” coined during the 1970s OPEC oil embargo, says Paul McFedries in IEEE Spectrum magazine. “Closet telecommuters” or “guerrilla telecommuters” have only their bosses' permission to work at home. Perhaps managers' greatest fear about the “office-free” lifestyle is that “teleworkers” may be “teleloafing,” but generally people put in longer hours at home than at the office, the “teleworkaholic syndrome.” Or they may feel lonely and isolated, prone to “watercooler withdrawal.”


 
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