Life Times at Best Buy

ROWE vs. Wade: as in wading thru life slogging thru the mire of a dead end career, thigh deep in dissatisfaction, depression, & dissillusionment. Every day to the pointless solitude of my corporate gray cube I go, hoping against hope to find another source of free Sudoku & crosswords to pass the time til the tide of commuting laps against the clock.

Tides & times have passed me by - I can dream only of that elusive & ephemeral dream job that would let me live my life in peace, close to my beloved wife of 30+ years, & oceans away from the increasingly deadly hour-plus commute of doom & the riptides of drowning opportunities.

Enter the tsunami of the ROWE program at Best Buy. The acronym stands for "Results Only Work Environment. This revolutionary outlook on the work-life balance (it is to laugh!) eliminates scheduled hours, cubicles, mandatory meetings, & face time. Employees can work from home, the park, the beach, or in some cases, a deer blind, as long as their work is done & their productivity is high. Gone are the long commutes, gone are the decisions between work & familial responsibilities & time conflicts. In the case of Best Buy, productivity is up, as is job satisfaction.

I have often opined to my bosses that I am a prime candidate for telecommuting. However, my job is such that I cannot currently perform it remotely. Or can I? ROWE makes all things possible. Quite frankly, I have an increasingly difficult time leaving my darling wife each day. I am not a lazy person, I like to work hard, but I cannot shake the feeling that I am missing the biggest part of life by repeating my death drive every Monday thru Friday.

I know that my lack of higher education is coming back to haunt me, like a ghostly pirate stalking the holds of my career caravel. I hear his chains rattle, his cutlass straining to lift itself from its' scabbard of restraint. Unless there is a sea change, it's Davy Jones' locker for my working career. Pink slip at morning, sailor take warning. Oh, to ROWE, ROWE. ROWE my boat to Minnesota...