Up until 5 months ago, I worked from home for 17 years. For a number of reasons, I took a job working in an office and tried to make the best of it. Going into an office everyday was quite tough for me; even though the commute was an easy 30 minute drive each way, that was still an hour out of my day. In order to avoid traffic, I had to wake up at 6 am and got to the office no later than 7:30. I hadn’t used an alarm clock regularly in years, so waking up with an alarm was not pleasant. I’ve written about working from home and 8 years ago, I wrote that I couldn’t work in an office full time!
Some may think that working from home is a luxury or that they couldn’t do it because of all the distractions. For me, it isn’t a luxury, but the only way I can work. I’m more focused at home and more relaxed. There is a sense of freedom for me not being confined to an office. I’m sure working from home causes me to work more, but I’ll take that in exchange for flexibility.
Article after article I read, including this one talks about letting people work from wherever they work best. Unfortuantely not all companies are on board with this. I’m now back in a position that affords me this opportunity and with all the collaboration tools available today such as Slack and Google Hangouts, I can still feel like part of a team.
An underlying issue for many might be control and oversight:
If I only get half as much work done working in an office that might be acceptable because I’m in plain view. If I’m at home, out of view, I might work less hours and get more done, but out of sight. This might bother some folks. I guess the way to measure this is to have all work or most work project based and so, if I have X days/hours to do a project, it ought not matter whether I’m home, at a resort, in an office, or on a plane. As long as the work gets done on time, who cares?
Apparently some people do care; I know that my managers never cared, but some company culture expected people to be in the office.
I seem to work way more productive hours from home than I do from an office. Transit hours turn into work hours, most people I talk to don’t understand this concept. No lunch breaks and 20 other time killing activities (especially status “meeting”) in an office environment are never considered. Of course, “suits” like to believe office interaction leads to productivity. Or…
I feel your pain.
Luckily going into an office on a regular basis is now a thing of the past!