Common Sense - and the Problem with Not Having Any

OK - so here's a hypothetical situation to ponder...

Say someone - we'll call her Ms. M, commutes to work and, round trip, it takes about 3 hours. Let's also say that 90% of her work can be done online, especially if no one else is in the office.

Let's finally say that, when at home, Ms. M generally gets more work done because 1) commuting time 2) working lunches 3) no distractions.

Now, let's say that Ms. M's new boss has put a kaybosh on working from home - even if NO ONE else is there. Why, you might ask, would someone insist on this, given the reasons above?

Perhaps the reason is, "because your job was presented to you as an office job when you accepted the terms of employment, so you must be in the office."

So, say Ms. M posits that, if it's an office job, she has full permission to leave her laptop at work and turn off her Blackberry when she leaves the office. Sounds reasonable right?

You'd think.

Lack of productivity + failure to take work/life into account = disgruntled employee.

Luckily for someone, in the immortal words of a Ketchup Advisory Board commercial: "By her bumper stickers she doesn't appear to be someone who owns a gun...."

Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it to.