I've been working on a company for half a year, as a web developer but also offering consultancy in Android to my colleagues (about 1-2 hours per full-time working day). However, I'm planning to move in the next few months to a new house which is a bit far from my office. Let's say that going there will improve my personal life, but it makes me move from a daily 40 minutes trip (more specifically, 20 going to the office and 20 coming back), spending 40€ a month (Google says it's 53.80 USD) to a 3 hours trip basis (again, 1:30 and 1:30), spending about 200€ (268.99 USD) in gas and public transport if I were to go there every day.
That's why I'm thinking about telecommuting. My daily tasks involve working on my own, and only talking to the designer and other non IT colleagues in really spare moments. The only part that would make a difference between telecommuting and commuting is my Android consultancy, as I generally speak to the colleague face to face, and tend to sit next to him helping him.
This company has already some people in other positions working from home almost every day, but in the IT department, I'd be the first one. Anyway, any task I do in the office can also be done on any computer with Internet connection, and I'd only be losing server access to common data (which I do not use on a daily basis, and could be replaced by sending files through Mega).
However, the real matter here is my coordinator and my boss. My coordinator has sometime made jokes about telecommuting, and he lives half way from this new home (let's say 40 minutes), so he might see this is not a real problem. My boss, on the other side, tends to work from home (but you know, he's the boss), but when he comes to the office he uses to have meetings with us without notice.
I'd love to telecommute my whole week (I find myself comfortable working from home; I did in previous jobs and the situation was quite successful), but I feel there will be problems with this.
So, here are my two questions:
- How (and when) should I ask for telecommuting and successfully achieving it?
- Should I be in a more aggressive position, talking about quitting if I can't telecommute at least half a week? I enjoy my position, but I don't see myself losing 60 hours a month travelling, and I may be able to find another job in a closer city.