"With reference to our conversation yesterday, regarding my working from home on Friday 25th November, I have reflected on the situation and would like to respond.

To summarise, you pointed out that I should have tried to travel to work in the snow and if I'd decided I didn't want to travel, I should have taken a day's leave.

I find this to be unreasonable. I shall elaborate below.

• On the day in question, the Met Office had issued a severe weather warning in the South West and advised people not to travel unless absolutely necessary due to dangerous driving conditions.
  
  
• Faced with a 50 mile round trip on roads whose conditions were, at that time, unknown, I felt daunted at the prospect of driving to and from work.
  
  
• Since I had my laptop at home and was able to connect to work remotely via dialup, I decided that this would be a practical solution as I am not a keen driver, particularly when driving conditions are bad.
  
  
• Knowing that my colleagues in the Applications Support Team had set a precedent by working from home occasionally, when the situation merited it, I assumed that this would be acceptable under the circumstances. I had not been told of any departmental policy on this matter.
  
  
• I dialled in to the network at around 9am to find that there were very few people in the office. I sent an instant message to [colleague], explaining that I intended to work from home. He agreed that it was a sensible idea. I sent you an email requesting this, but did not realise you were not in the office - I did not receive an out of office reply.
  
  
• I was dialled in to the network for the majority of the day, writing programs for the [insert project name] project.
  
  
• The nature of my work as a software developer, unlike that of the Helpdesk Analysts, means that I work primarily alone, particularly when writing programs. I receive very few telephone calls in the course of my working day and in fact, there were no voicemail messages waiting for me when I returned to the office on Monday.
  
  
• Whilst at home, I was contactable via email, instant messaging and mobile telephone. I had several instant messaging conversations during the course of the day with colleagues.
  
  
• One of these conversations related to a problem at [manufacturing site] which threatened production. I was able to assist in the resolution of this problem remotely by liaising with [colleague] via instant messaging. I was able to react in exactly the same way as I would have if I had been present at the [IT department] office.
  
  
• Unlike some of my colleagues whose arrival at work was significantly delayed by the weather conditions, I was able to work a full day from 9am through to 5.30pm, with no time wasted for travel.

For these reasons, I can conclude that I was equally as productive working from home as I would have been at the [IT department] office. In fact, on this particularly day, I was probably more productive than I would have been had I attempted to travel to the office, as I did not waste any time travelling. I would also have found it extremely stressful to be forced to drive in conditions which, I later found out via colleagues, were treacherous and would have spent the day worrying if I'd make it home in one piece.

I do find it rather puzzling that I was essentially reprimanded (albeit in a light-hearted way) for taking what I believed were sensible, practical steps under the circumstances. I stand by my decision to work from home on that day and hope that I would be permitted to do so from time to time in the future if the circumstances merit it."

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What I actually said:

"Oh... okay"