Working from Home

[Julia]

Yahoo seem to be going against the trend by forcing their staff back into the office, rather than allowing them to work from home.

Have you, or do you work from home? Self employed, or still part of an organisation?

What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of both situations?

I worked from home for about 12 years and found it terrific. No office politics, except for the obligatory meetings and conferences, independence of hours worked, and the capacity to do the job my own way as long as the results were achieved.

I know other people feel they'd get sidetracked and that they need the sense of being 'at work' to do their best.

What is your preference and is it an option for you if you work for an employer?

 

[chops_a_must]

I like to do both.

I have maybe 1 or 2 days a month working from home.

Given my work revolves around writing, I prefer to do the bulk of this at home. I'm 3-4 x more productive.

I would do more if I was allowed.

It annoys me that despite producing on these days, that I'm still viewed with apprehension if I have a valid reason for working from home - and have demonstrated that I actually am.

I can muck around all day, and as long as I'm actually at work, no-one seems to care.

The again, some of my boss's favourites seem to have heaps of days working from home, and produce nothing.

Ahh, office politics.

I find it odd.

 

[tinhat]

I was working from home for about ten years freelance programming and sysadmin and it has spoilt me. I am not working at the moment, but I find it difficult to work in an office now because I find I need complete silence to concentrate having become so use to working in silence. I can only have meetings in offices now - I can't handle all the other distractions.

 

[MrBurns]

I was working from home for about ten years freelance programming and sysadmin and it has spoilt me. I am not working at the moment, but I find it difficult to work in an office now because I find I need complete silence to concentrate having become so use to working in silence. I can only have meetings in offices now - I can't handle all the other distractions.

Programming ? .NET ?

 

[skc]

I work from home and love it for all the usual reasons. Independence, flexibility, close to family, save commute times etc.

But I think the merits of working from home really depends on the nature of work.

I don't know what kind of work these Yahoo employees do, but if they require interaction with other co-worker, working from home is a huge inconvenient to those who are at the office. I've been there and it is quite inefficient. If I am the boss I certainly wouldn't be promoting it.

So any work that requires collaboration, interaction, ideas exchange... remote working is terrible.

Only truely output-based, independent work (like trading) is suited to working from home.

 

[CanOz]

I'm also working from home again and i really enjoy it. I like setting my own hours, not too many meetings and when i have them they're Skype calls anyway...

Disadvantages are that sometimes when the wife is around it s a little distracting, i tend to fuss after her a bit, so its my fault more than hers. She just minds her own business...

I like the fact that i can have lie down after lunch for a few minutes..sometimes i just read for half an hour, occasionally I'll fall asleep, its very stress free.

I'll do everything i can to be successful in my own business so i can maintain my freedom now...

CanOz

 

[Porper]

I have worked from home for the past 3 years or so and now find it great.

I say "now" because initially I found it difficult to be disciplined and tended to find other things to do. This results in trying to do all the work in one go which isn't a great idea. You definitely have to be disciplined...then there is nothing better.

 

[craft]

I have personally found this blurring of personal and work a double edged sword. Maybe because I have crap discipline, but sometimes I’m too hooked on family life and ignore investing and sometimes I’m too hooked on investing and the family has too sort me out.

I built a second office external to the house so that when I am getting out of balance I can implement the discipline of going too and leaving ‘work’. When I’m being more naturally balanced I just use the internal office and blur it all together which is great, but every now and then I need the action of going too and leaving the external office.

The balance thing should probably be able to be managed with time management – but I found that doesn’t work too well for me; however the physical action of going to and leaving an external office does the trick – just a quirk that works for me I guess.

 

[DocK]

I do at least half of my work at home - having MYOB in the cloud, and being able to email back and forth between work and home makes this possible - wouldn't have worked several years ago. For a working mother it's great to have the flexibility to still attend various school events and catch up at night if need be. I look after the admin and finance side of our business and much prefer to work from home when I can. You just can't beat being able to run the washing machine, the dryer, the dishwasher, the slow cooker, the irobot vacuum cleaner and the watering system, while doing the bank recs and chasing overdue debtors - gotta love technology!

I do have to agree with Tinhat though - I do find the noise of our machinery and the annoying radio station my husband prefers very irritating when I do go to work at our factory - I much prefer the relative silence of home (neighbour's dog permitting) or my own choice of music. It's also nice to be able to work in my PJs if the mood takes me - not having to "dress" for the office is a definate bonus.

The downside is the lack of human interaction. I used to work for a large organisation and I do miss the banter/gossip/socialising - but not the commute, inflexible hours and the inevitable office idiot that drives everyone nuts

 

[Julia]

Thanks for the responses. Could we perhaps also hear from people who do not work from home?

If you could, would you prefer that? Or do you enjoy the actual physical work environment and the constant company of others?

Although Craft has said

I have personally found this blurring of personal and work a double edged sword. Maybe because I have crap discipline,

I'd have thought most of us who enjoy working alone are pretty strongly motivated and self disciplined (probably you are doing yourself a disservice with your comment Craft).

Can you say where this self discipline comes from? is it innate, in that you apply a similar approach to everything in your life, such as diet and exercise? Or is it purely work related and based on the need or desire to make money?

 

[qldfrog]

I have my own contracting consulting business and I really like working for home:
you need discipline and a work where you are actually supposed to produce some output:
if your jobs consists in having meetings to plan other meetings and having a talkfest, this is not for you.
But whether I produce code,(IT) or reports and governance, working from home is saving hours in the car and in my case allowing flexibility, shorter but more intense actual work sessions.
No BHP style crappy clean desk policy: you focus on doing the work, not pleasing the latest fad from the latest and soon dumped boss, not much involvment in the office policy drama-> all for the best

You still need a bit of face to face interaction to feel the mood on a project, be a social animal and not an hermit and having some white board brain dump session with like minded colleagues
Technology is really helping a lot nowadays:
google drive and google chat/call for coms and data exchange.
As an added bonus, being born as a non english speaker , no misunderstanding is possible: there is a written trace for future reference of all discussions which are factual and concise
All the best for work efficiency;

On the negative, you have to trust the people: some people are just w..king around, and it leads to gain weight for me:
no more cycling to commute, too easy access to the fridge

 

[Tink]

I prefer work away from home, shut the door and ciao bella.
The interaction of people, change of scenery, and prefer it that way.

 

[MrBurns]

I worked from home a couple of times once so successfully I retired
It really depends on the industry and the individual