@Jeruba: working from home is an excellent thing to ask about, as long as you don’t imply that you expect to work from home on your first day. An organization’s collective attitude towards management and responsiblity can be mirrored in its telecommuting policy.
For instance, some workplaces forbid telecommuting because they only measure butt-in-chair time. This is very bad—it means that the person who shows up at 7:30 AM, plays on the Internet all day, “works” through lunch, and leaves at 6:30 PM will look better than the person who shows up somewhere between 9:07 and 9:18 AM, sometimes takes an extra-long lunch, and leaves by 5:30 PM every night, but stays completely on task and gets a lot of work done.
Other workplaces forbid telecommuting because they cannot competently manage rivalries in the workplace. They don’t tell Ann she can’t telecommute because they don’t trust her; they tell her she can’t telecommute because Bob only gets any work done when the boss checks in on him every hour, and if they tell Ann she can telecommute, they will have to explain to Bob that he can’t. This is a sign of a very unhealthy workplace as well.
One of the objectives of an interview is determining whether it’s a place you want to work for. To be sure, we’re currently in an employer’s market, so it doesn’t help to be too picky, but it’s still important to get an accurate picture of the place you’re hoping to work. That way, you’ll know, if you accept the job, if you’re hoping to be there for years or if you’re planning to stay a year or two while you build your network and look for a better fit.