Home Office

The Jain family was always a little bit isolated from others in their small suburban neighborhood, but they say that separateness never really mattered to them until this summer. That was when Ramesh Jain, a 61-year-old real-estate broker, decided to shift his home office from one part of his house to an addition he had recently built and to put a small wooden sign next to the door. The sign was only one square foot, but to his neighbors it loomed large. "It was probably a mistake to bother, but we decided to ask the zoning board for a variance to put the sign there," he said.

While many businesspeople worry about computers and the year 2000, Gretchen Edwards gets anxious about people in the year 2015 and beyond. Edwards, who is the head of Interior Design Inc., based in Telford, says that while people are living longer, they will not necessarily live better. Getting around becomes more difficult, and not enough homes and buildings are constructed with that in mind. After studying nursing and then art and design, Edwards married and raised a family.

Is the trend toward home offices overblown? Are rooms dedicated entirely to work the biggest waste of space since the advent of the living room? You decide. In its first-ever look at home-based businesses, the Labor Department has found that about 6 percent of all households - 6.1 million, to be exact - operated businesses out of their residences last year. But running a business out of your house is one thing; working at home is something else. For example, the Labor Department said the workweek of self-employed people averages only about 23 hours.

For most Americans, the home office has become a necessity. However, many apparently can't afford the kinds of work space they want or need. "Cost does seem to be an overwhelming issue," said Charles Ansert, vice president of Spector Development Co. in Swedesboro, "especially when you consider that many people are working at home just to pay the mortgage. " According to a 1997 study by Emerging Technologies Research Group in Washington, 52 million Americans work at home in some capacity, and more than 11 million telecommute from a home office at least one day per month.

Wear pajamas. Kick back on a recliner during conference calls. Play with the dogs on your break. These are some of the options for the work-at-home crowd, whose growing numbers have pushed the home-office concept well beyond the kitchen table of yesteryear. More than 8 million Americans work from home, according to telecommuting trade associations, and the numbers are growing. Some say as many as 30 million full- and part-time businesses operate from home. Add to that people who do at least some work at home, and there's a whole lotta e-mailing going on. This growing market demands a more sophisticated home work space.

Picture this: You are a computer consultant who spends your days sitting in front of a computer, logged on to the Internet, talking to your clients on the phone, and using electronic databases to crunch numbers. You are a one-person operation. You are your own boss. You own your business. And you work out of your home. Sounds familiar enough. So, where's the catch? It is this: Working out of your home is illegal in Gloucester Township. With more people telecommuting and operating small consulting-type businesses from their homes, borough officials believe this prohibition is out of step with work trends.

After starting her first year on the Board of Commissioners last year, Carolyn Parker said she needed to set up a home office to help her do the job. She was reimbursed by taxpayers for a fax machine, a printer, a portable phone, an answering machine, and a file cabinet, among other items, through her township expense account. Parker's was the highest total expense reimbursement last year for a commissioner in Haverford, the only municipality in Delaware County that offers such an account.

Some folks have a short commute - about 10 seconds. That's how long it takes me to carry a mug of coffee from the kitchen to the office, a 13-foot-long slab of desktop that sprawls along my bedroom windows. Thirteen feet: Sounds like a surplus. In truth, I'm getting crowded out by papers, files, slides, stray Lego pieces, three towers of books, one stubborn nest of electrical cords, and a computer, printer, fax and phone. Worse, blinds block my view all day because of the melting southern sun. Not very well planned, was it?

If you are thinking about updating your kitchen, adding a bathroom or carving a home office out of unused space, ask yourself this question first: How much of what you spend will be recouped when you sell your house? If you are planning never to move, then you can be as extravagant as you can afford and as outlandish as your tastes dictate. But despite recent statistics that show Americans are staying put longer than they used to - an average of 12 years, compared with seven in 1993 - most homeowners will trade up or trade down at some point in their lives.

The chairwoman of the township's Planning Board denied yesterday that she violated ethical standards by working out of her home while the board revised a municipal ordinance regulating home offices. With Township Committee elections less than three weeks away, the local governing body is asking a state agency to determine whether Nancy Myers, a Democratic candidate for one of two open committee seats, should be penalized. Two Republican committee members and a Cinnaminson resident say they believe there is a conflict of interest.