Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, September 6, 1994                   TAG: 9409060010
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Paul Dellinger
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VIRTUALLY NOT AN OFFICE

One reason for my not thinking about it sooner, I suppose, is because reporters spend only a portion of their working hours in offices to write their stories. The rest of the time is spent elsewhere gathering information for those stories.

Until last February, the newspaper had an office in Wytheville, close to my home. Much of my coverage area used to include parts of Southwest Virginia west of there, but now my major concentration is immediately east in Pulaski County. We closed the Wytheville office and moved its telephone, answering machine and fax machine to a corner of my home along with a computer work station that could link to Roanoke - not an actual office, but a ``virtual reality'' version of one.

In a way, it was liberating. I could work any hour of the day or night, whenever I felt like it. Early in the mornings, I tended to sit down at the computer in pajamas, unshaven, and start to work before our network got ``crowded.''

Bad idea - for me, anyway. I found myself tending to work too closely to the time when I would have to take off for an assignment, or there would be unanticipated breaking news to which I would have to respond quickly. It didn't take long to learn that it's best to go ahead and dress for work before sitting down to it; otherwise, the time to hit the road suddenly becomes panic time.

I've also decided that working from an ``office'' at home would have been difficult at best when our children still lived with my wife and me (and, for that matter, if my wife didn't work outside the home now). It's hard to separate family and work responsibilities when they're both in the same place. However, the only living ``home'' responsibility we have at present is an aging dachshund, who is perfectly happy sleeping in my lap while I'm at the computer.

There are still minor conflicts. What happens, for instance, when I'm on the business phone and the home phone rings? I guess that's why they invented answering machines. Even when I'm not on the work phone, I will often ignore the home phone during business hours when I'm involved with writing a story or some other work chore. And, when I do give in and rush to answer, I often find that the caller is a phone solicitor with whom I don't really have the time or desire to converse.

Few reporters, photographers, or people in other lines of work manage to keep to a 40-hour work week. And when your work equipment is at home, it's tempting to spend even more extra time on the job. That may seem no problem from the employer's point of view, but it does not tend to endear one to one's spouse, who is generally working beyond her 40 hours, too. The best solution I've found so far is just to keep track of hours worked, try not to over-do it, and allow for family and fun time.

However, to quote Harrison Ford doing Indiana Jones, ``I'm just making this up as I go.'' Mobile or ``virtual'' offices may be a part of all our futures in many occupations, but we will need some fine-tuning to adjust to them.

Paul Dellinger is a staff writer in the New River Valley bureau of the Roanoke Times & World-News.