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Information superhighway is alternate route in snow

By Seattle Times Staff

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But inside, in homes and coffeeshops and anywhere else with Internet service — especially the fast, wireless version known as Wi-Fi — the work of the Puget Sound region went on.

We may have a national reputation for being laid back, but the avidity with which thousands of people jumped online to connect with colleagues and customers indicates that Seattle, at least as much as Chicago, is a city that works.

Consider Emily Rima, who was so determined to get work done that she strapped on her cross-country skis, grabbed her Tablet PC — a machine about the size and weight of a thick pad of paper — and skied from her Madison Park home to Vérité Coffee in Madrona, where she took advantage of the free Wi-Fi access.

"There's so many options, it's like the post office," Rima said. "You make it happen."

Many big employers, including Weyerhaeuser, Washington Mutual and Starbucks, encouraged employees to work from home.

Telecommuting was widespread at Microsoft, where much of the work gets done via e-mail even when it's sunny and 70 degrees. The Redmond campus was open, spokeswoman Tami Bergasse said, though several lobbies and cafeterias were closed and the campus shuttle service was reduced.

"Of course, because of the technology we have today, this has been seamless," said Bergasse from her Sammamish home. She didn't know how many of the company's 27,000 local employees telecommuted yesterday.

Jennifer Wells, who does consulting work for Microsoft, skipped the trip from her Madrona home to Redmond. Instead, she holed up in Vérité with her laptop.

"In the past on a snow day, if I didn't go to work, I didn't get any work done," said Wells, who also had to contend with day care for her 2-1/2-year-old twins being canceled.

"Now, if I don't go into work, it doesn't mean I can't get any work done," she said. "I can work from anywhere."

Bruce Montgomery, chief executive of Corus Pharma, said about a quarter of the Seattle biotech's 70 employees made it to work yesterday; almost everyone else worked from home. They were able to finish gathering data for two of the drug-development company's clinical trials.

"There's a few people here that think they deserve medals for coming in, but I don't think they're going to get them," said Montgomery, who drove in from his Medina home. "We've been able to get what we need done with people at home."

Michael Manning, co-owner of a technology-consulting firm, spent yesterday afternoon working from Herkimer Coffee in Seattle's Phinney Ridge neighborhood. Although there were more Web surfers than normal, Manning said, they didn't seem to be a drag on the coffeeshop's free Wi-Fi network.

"They get a lot more people here because of the free wireless," said Manning, who works outside his Kenmore office two or three days a week anyway.

Sometimes, however, telecommuting just won't do. At Seattle Genetics (which, despite the name, is located in Bothell), most of the 100 or so employees made it to work.

Peggy Pinkston, the biotech company's manager of investor relations, said that while some workers could telecommute, lab workers had to come in to do most of their work.

They had extra incentive: The company is busy preparing for a major investor conference next week.

"I don't know if this slows us down or not," she said. "I hope not."

Seattle Times business reporters Drew DeSilver, Tricia Duryee, Bradley Meacham, Jake Batsell, Brier Dudley, Luke Timmerman and Jane Hodges contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company