Today is a special day, a day full of mystery and wonderment, specifically the mystery of how the hell you're supposed to get to work. Today, is tube strike day.

All over the capital this morning, commuters queued for buses, arranged group cycle routes, or just walked in the rain, grimly determined to make it into the office at whatever cost. As the old saying goes "when the going gets tough, the tough get going". Well, I am neither tough nor particularly determined, so I'm working from home.

That's one of the joys of working in IT these days; remote desktop and VPN software give us the freedom to work from anywhere, at anytime, and wearing anything. Instant messaging puts us in immediate contact with our colleagues - even when we're all in the same office. And conference calling and screen sharing services (WebEx or GoToMeeting, for example) allow us to keep up with meetings from miles away.

So I'm sitting with a cup of hot tea in my bedroom, in my dressing gown - or rather, I would be if the letting agent wasn't coming by to take some pictures (they aren't after that sort of pictures). I'm feeling refreshed for that extra blissful hour in bed, and rattling through the day's work tasks without fear of interruption, all whilst getting some washing done.

This is the true power of telecommuting, running errands that your working hours ordinarily would make difficult. As a further example, I managed to finally get to the charity shop while it was open to drop in some clothes. That was what I would call a level 2 telecommuting activity. Level 1 is a small errand requiring minimal supervision (like washing), level 2 is a quick trip out (no more than half an hour) and level 3 involves thinking "screw it, the boss isn't here".

I'm not writing about this in order to brag, but to suggest how things might be. What if we could all work from home now and then? Get away from the stress of commuting? If we didn't have to worry about those household tasks we just can't fit in? If we could catch up on all the things Sky+ has recorded that we're never particularly in the mood to watch?

There are so many jobs that could be done from home from time to time, so why don't we give the workers that opportunity? We could save the country untold time, money, and shut Bob Crow the hell up.