Out of Office

September 12, 1983

In October 1982, Katherine Ackerman left her job as a Chicago Tribune research librarian and, shortly after her baby was born, set herself up as a freelance researcher, operating entirely from home via her IBM personal computer. “One of the best things about working at home like this is if the baby does something cute I have the freedom to

drop everything and take his picture,” she said, her son’s screams echoing in the background. “Which I do a lot.” As the personal-computer age dawned, “telecommuting” began to seem feasible, promising “to change the daily lives of millions of Americans as radically as the automobile.” But experts such as New York University business professor Margrethe Olson (rightly) foresaw a major obstacle: the large, unhurriable portion of corporate America that would resist. “Culture changes more slowly than technology,” she said. And office culture remained stubbornly resistant to change—until recently, when it no longer had a choice in the matter.