If you moved to another part of the country, you’d be disappointed and maybe shocked when you went to get your car washed. If you want hand washing and vacuuming done for you, you’re looking at $40 to $60. Instead, many folks in other places rely on those dreadful do-it-yourself places or drive through the inadequate little washes at gas stations.

But in Los Angeles, motorists get a great deal. For $10 or $12 or so, workers will vacuum your car, towel dry the outside and wipe down the interior.

Everyone knows the secret of what makes this possible. Many of L.A.’s car washes hire immigrants, many of them presumably illegal, and pay them little or let them work for tips only.

The effort that began last week to unionize the car wash workers will, if successful, break that relationship. Owners of car washes, if forced to pay sharply higher wages, likely will dismiss most of the workers, buy more automatic car-wash equipment and charge higher prices. In short, L.A.’s car wash industry will look like it does most everywhere else.

I doubt that the intended result of the union effort is wiping out many of the car-wash jobs, but that will be the likely outcome.

And for motorists, the likely result will involve learning how to work a hand-held wand or saying, “I’ll take the $60 hand wash, please.”

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Back when the Internet was taking off, in what seems like the last geologic era, I recall joyful colleagues occasionally saying, “Great. Now we can work at home.”

It’s true that the Internet grants us freedom to stay at home and still get some work done when the kids are sick or it’s an 18 Sigalert morning. But is it really a good thing to work at home as a routine, day in and day out, not just when you’re waiting for the plumber to show up sometime between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.?

I’ve never thought so. I’m skeptical that spending a lot of time away from the office is good. Communication is the big deficit. When you work from home a lot, you miss the brainstorming sessions that pop up spontaneously and the little question at the coffee machine that unexpectedly gives you the answer to a big problem. Only in the office can you read the boss’ body language or get a non-verbal clue that someone’s having a really bad day. An office that communicates constantly works best.

I’ve assumed that view was a lonely one. So I was interested to see a pair of surveys put out this month by Office Team, a staffing service in Menlo Park, that says I’ve got company. In one survey, 48 percent of workers nearly half said their jobs would be more difficult if they did not work in the same office as their supervisors. In the other, 58 percent of managers more than half said it is important that all staff members work in the same location.

Again, communication is a big reason. One executive with Office Team said those who work outside the office “must go the extra mile to make sure they keep the lines of communication open.”

It’s great to work at home if you need to quietly focus on a project or when you’re struck by a muse in the middle of the night. But you surrender valuable communication if you work from home as a routine.

Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at

[email protected]

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