Working at home has its advantages, not the least appealing of which is to be able to enjoy the local traffic reports for their entertainment value rather than as strategic intelligence. I often don't get around to shaving until after my daily workout in the late afternoon, and blue jeans are about as dressy as my work attire gets. I can take the dog for a jog around the pond when things get stressful, or get a haircut when there's no one ahead of me. And there are of course the untold benefits that accrue to one's marriage. So why am I considering renting an office? Because, to put it mildly, there are so many interruptions each day that I have been unable to get anything done. Yesterday, for instance, I was unable to do any income-producing work from about 11 a.m., when the weekly Rick's Picks Q&A session ended, until around 5:30 p.m., when the Comcast repairman finally gave up after working on my phones for three hours. Regarding the actual problem that had brought him to my home, we never settled on a fix. He thinks that a wireless telephone headset in my office has been feeding AC current into my household phone system, screwing things up the way that neurological problems screw up one's body and mind -- in countless and bizarre ways. Dell Is Trouble My big mistake was to think that I could use a chunk of yesterday's down time to resolve a Dell-related technical issue. Dell hold times have been averaging more than 30 minutes for me lately, and that's only to get through to the first of a chain of humans and additional voice menus that will usually stretch the call to more than an hour. Remind me not to try again with
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