Who says that people can't adjust their behavior when the price of gas goes up?

. . . . Opting to let employees work from home as fuel prices have risen, Florida's Kissimmee Utility Authority managed to retrieve the experience and skills of a veteran employee in the billing department who quit last year.

She now telecommutes from a new home 746 miles away.

"I love it. I'm saving gas by not having to go out to do another job," said the employee, Debbie Brandt, from her home in Forest, Virginia.

The utility's customer service workers who have take up telecommuting have proven more productive at home, handling more calls than they did when working in the office, said Jef Gray, Kissimmee's vice president of information technology.

"Here come higher fuel prices again, and again we've got folks who want to work from home and say, 'It would help me with the cost,'" he said. "It's telecommuting to the rescue. Everybody wins."

The practice of telecommuting has taken off in recent years as advances in telecommunications have enabled employees to work efficiently at home on computers and telephones. . . . .