Should I work from home?

[cubefarmer]

So I work at a HUGE corporation and there is a space issue and now a whole bunch of people are being "invited" to work from home if we want to.

Someone who just got off a 3 month medical leave already said No, because she got sick of being at home and not being around people.

THREE others said No because they are single middle age women who want to be around people and fear sinking into depression at home.

I think the pros outweigh the cons but I don't know. I guess I am surprised by these immediate "No's" that happened. How can they be so sure?

I am thinking about commuting time, cost of gas and tolls, eating lunch at home, getting a bit more sleep, home bathroom - all seem like positives.

Am I romaticizing working from home? We can't work whenever we want. Because of business needs we have to work regular office hours.

[frisbee21]

My DH works from home (for past 10 yrs). Took some getting used to after he worked in a very social office. He'll make lunch dates with other guys who work from home or go downtown to coffee shop to work many mornings. It's a matter of getting out of the house.

I work from home 3 days/week and LOVE IT. Of course I can throw in laundry, meet SAHM friends for lunch, wear PJ's til noon, pick up kids, and sometimes hang with my DH as we're both pounding away on laptops. Flip side is that I look forward to getting to office the other days even though the commute stinks.

Anyway you do do some from home and some from office?

[cubefarmer]

No, we have to give up our cubes - it's the whole reason for moving people home. They need to bring in new people and need the cubes. I would go in once a week for a 2 hour meeting but that's it.

[bookcrazychick]

I worked from home for about 3 years. However, I was self employed. I really can't imagine being able to put in 8 hours a day at home. You have to be EXTREMELY disciplined to get the work done. Or at least that was the case with me. Too many distractions at home. There was always "home" work that needed to be done. I found myself doing household chores and then end up working in the evening on my job. It just felt like I couldn't get away from the "office".

[frisbee21]

I would consider it if you had access to friends/family near home, at least during your "lunch hour". You tend to forget how much people do socialize at work, even if it's just a quick chat here and there.

You can also fall out of the loop. I did for a while and it felt good at first and then I felt left out.

My main reason for staying home some days...I felt like my life was on the road in rush hour.

Good luck in whatever you decide!

[gooddecisions]

I also work for a huge corporation. The same thing happened to me about 9 years ago and I pushed back until they finally kicked me out for good 7 years ago. I too was relunctant for the reasons many people posted. That said:

I don't miss the drama at the office.
I don't miss hearing people's personal problems all day long.
I don't miss noticing who is extremely unproductive while I'm busting my rear.
I don't miss the person in the cube next to me gossiping loudly on personal phone calls all day long.
I don't miss another co-worker printing a tree everyday and then demanding I order the next ream of paper when I hadn't printing anything in 3+ months.
I don't miss seeing what people think is appropriate to wear at work.
I don't miss my dry cleaning bill because I did actually wear work appropriate clothing to work.
I don't miss my fuel bill for my car.
I don't miss having to do laundry and other chores all weekend because I'm not home enough during the week to do a load of laundry and clean up after myself.
I don't miss staying dehydrated all day because I didn't want to walk past the same people 6 times/day to use the office bathroom. (I don't miss having to use a public bathroom everyday either.)
I don't miss sitting in traffic when I could be doing something productive.
I don't miss driving to work during ice storms- or shoveling my car out. I slid into a curb once on the way home from work in an ice storm and caused $1000 in damage- way more than I earn in a day.
I don't miss spending 45 minutes to get ready every morning when I could already be working.
I don't miss having to listen to Christmas music piped in 10 hours/day every day from Thanksgiving to January 1.
I don't miss spending too much in the cafeteria on junk because I didn't have time to go to the grocery store to buy healthy food and pack my lunch.
I don't miss the soda or snack machines that I spent money in everyday because it was convenient.

I could really go on and on. I really thought I was happy before I got to experience working from home. It would be a huge adjustment for me to ever go back to an office environment. I get along so much better with coworkers because I don't know their business. Everything is so much more professional and 1000% more productive. I play sports, meet with the book club and running groups, and make plans with friends to be social and do work at work. Plus, it's so much easier to go to the gym in the morning or at lunch when you don't have to run back to the office cleaned up. For me- it's less stressful, more productive and promotes an overall healthier lifestyle.

[Annie7]

I love wfh. I don't do much housework and I do work more than if I were in the office. However, I can run out and pick up my son from his after school activity, drop him to school if he misses the bus, etc. All the employees in our team, including the boss, wfh and only goes in to the office one day a week. We don't meet the boss face-to-face anyway, he's in an office 4 buildings away. We connect to each other via instant messaging, emails, calls etc. So, I don't miss the interaction at all.

My coworker was worried about distractions 3 years ago when we started doing this. However, now he loves wfh and says he gets more done at home than when he's in the office.

The biggest drawback will be if I have to go back to regular office presence

[Epiphany]

Your company should really look into alternate means of allocating space to employees. As a designer a huge trend coming to market the last couple years for large corporations is the reallocation of space to allow for those employees who are only at the office some of the time and don't need a full "cube." It involves shared open conferencing areas to have meetings, touchdown stations to make a call and work on laptop, informal networking areas, etc. Steelcase gave a great seminar on this last year. By using these techniques you change the corporation into those who require full time space, those who require part time space, private vs. open, etc. This way you aren't forced into either work from home or office 100%. Maybe you can pass on this concept to higher ups?

[Deleted]

DD quit her cube farm job about five years ago in favor of working from home. She loves it, and so do the kids. The only drawback for her is that her work can come in at any time, like evenings or weekends. When it comes in, there's a notation about when it's needed, so sometimes she has to drop everything and get right to it, although that doesn't happen often. She can still schedule days off or vacations, though.

She's still driving the same car that she had then but has only put less than 20K miles on it in five years.

One thing that drives her nuts is that when people find out that she works from home, they take it as "you're home all day" so can be called on to do any number of things that can't be done by other moms who work from a cube.

[JustLurkin]

Feb 14, 2011 20:54:52 GMT -5 cubefarmer said:

I think the pros outweigh the cons but I don't know. I guess I am surprised by these immediate "No's" that happened. How can they be so sure?

I keep my home life out of the office and keep my work life out of my home. Not everyone feels that way, more power to 'em!

[binl1908]

I've been working exclusively at home for nearly 17 yrs. My company was bought out by a company on the other coast and I refused to relocate, so they offered me the telecommute option. I do agree with most of the other posters in that I really do enjoy both the time savings (no more commute !) and the economic advantages (no commute ! no buying lunch, no work clothes). It has worked out well for me as I was not much of an office socialite myself, preferring time with my local friends and family.

One thing that should also be considered is growth opportunities. You can't really manage a team well if you never see them. I gave up the management track and stayed technical. That requires me to constantly keep myself up to date on new technologies so that I am selected to work on new projects as they come open. If you try to stay under the radar and get only the necessary work done for too long, then you will be forgotten and considered expendable in the long run.....

[thyme4change]

I would be concerned about missing out on meetings and impromptu meetings - do you know how much I learn while I'm standing at the microwave? I would say that 75% of my interaction with management is when I pass them in the hall to go to the bathroom or heading out for the evening. We discuss all sorts of stuff - but nothing they would call me on the phone for, or call a meeting for - just "chatting." I'm in a different state from my boss - but without the touch points of casual interaction, I would lose effectiveness in my job.

I guess you have to evaluate your job and your company - but I see this as the slow road to extinction.

[travelnut11]

I've worked from home for the last 8 years and love it! I don't think I can ever go back to the office but I'm a programmer with the guy of work that doesn't require a ton of collaboration or face time and when we communicate it's via e-mail, Webex, IM, etc. The time savings is huge (no commute) and I love being able to take a couple of minutes to throw in a load of laundry or run to the grocery store or gym. Of course, the single best thing is not having to pretend to look busy when I'm not. If I'm busy I work my full 8 hours per day but if I'm not I'm free to do other things. It's great and my work has not suffered in the slightest.

I think it really depends on the individual's job and personality whether or not it will work for them. Can you give it a try on a temporary basis?

[cubefarmer]

Well, I told them I would work from home. We will have these centralized areas where work at home people can come in and work when they want - first come first served. We can come back into the office to a cube if we decide we don't like it - if there is space. Space comes and goes. It seems like in December we had a lot of open cubes, but they don't hire perm or contractors in December at all. But I guess we are now back in expansion mode. This is a huge place - 18 floors, 1000's of people and we aren't even the main office - just part of one division.

[Deleted]

I would love to work from home. In my current position about 90-95% of my work comes in through email and I complete it using company applications, so I could EASILY work from home at least 3 times a week, if not every day. The only issue is that this is an entry level job and the next step up will most likely require that I am in the office every day. With the baby coming in August, I have seriously been considering asking my boss for a modified work schedule - either a 10x4 workweek or one day of working from home, possibly on a weekend day in lieu of coming in one day of the workweek.

[RoadToRiches]

Ahhh this is right up my alley. So let me give you some advice and what I have learned.
I work for huge company too. Long story short, I was presented with opportunity to work from home. I did that for about 2 years and wanted to go back to the office.

All the reasons that people list when you ask them if you should do it, miss one HUGE point. YOUR CAREER.

Yes, not spending money on gas, not dealing with office politics, etc, etc...it's all nice and dandy. You wake up, go to your home office room and start working. You are always home, maybe watch some TV while you are working? Great huh?

But what people forget is, that when you work from home, you are not included in MANY things. I don't care what anyone will tell me. Working from home and not being in face to face environment with your peers can take a huge hit on your career. Unless, in your company, you can do same thing over and over and over and over for years and years and years.. not moving up in your career, then, go ahead and work from home.

It's just not the same when you have a meeting and you need to call in instead of being physically there. It's not the same to communicate over email or a phone instead of face to face. It's not the same when you need to collaborate with your peers. It's not even remotely the same if you working towards promotion and you are pretty much invisible to your peers because you are "working" from home.

Believe me when I tell you this. Your career WILL suffer. Now, what you consider suffer, it's all up to you. If you are the type of a person that really just want to come in and do what you do everyday and basically being a "doer", then hey, work from home because you are not really reaching out to excel anyways. (Doing same thing for years is not excelling in my book) But if you are seeking for promotion, do not work from home.

I have seen some great great minds and people getting stuck while working from home. I been there too. Ever since I got back to the office, I can't believe how much my career was hurt just because I was working from home and was invisible face to face. All the reasons that gooddecisions listed, I am now happy to have them back and be in normal flow of things. Not to mention, my daily commute is about 70 miles round trip.

I will never work from home for a company unless they are 100% virtual. Otherwise, nothing can beat being there in person.

Remember, out of sight, out of mind.

Working from home has lots of PERSONAL perks, but it's bad for your CAREER

[RoadToRiches]

Feb 14, 2011 23:18:20 GMT -5 gooddecisions said:

I also work for a huge corporation. The same thing happened to me about 9 years ago and I pushed back until they finally kicked me out for good 7 years ago. I too was relunctant for the reasons many people posted. That said:

I don't miss the drama at the office.
I don't miss hearing people's personal problems all day long.
I don't miss noticing who is extremely unproductive while I'm busting my rear.
I don't miss the person in the cube next to me gossiping loudly on personal phone calls all day long.
I don't miss another co-worker printing a tree everyday and then demanding I order the next ream of paper when I hadn't printing anything in 3+ months.
I don't miss seeing what people think is appropriate to wear at work.
I don't miss my dry cleaning bill because I did actually wear work appropriate clothing to work.
I don't miss my fuel bill for my car.
I don't miss having to do laundry and other chores all weekend because I'm not home enough during the week to do a load of laundry and clean up after myself.
I don't miss staying dehydrated all day because I didn't want to walk past the same people 6 times/day to use the office bathroom. (I don't miss having to use a public bathroom everyday either.)
I don't miss sitting in traffic when I could be doing something productive.
I don't miss driving to work during ice storms- or shoveling my car out. I slid into a curb once on the way home from work in an ice storm and caused $1000 in damage- way more than I earn in a day.
I don't miss spending 45 minutes to get ready every morning when I could already be working.
I don't miss having to listen to Christmas music piped in 10 hours/day every day from Thanksgiving to January 1.
I don't miss spending too much in the cafeteria on junk because I didn't have time to go to the grocery store to buy healthy food and pack my lunch.
I don't miss the soda or snack machines that I spent money in everyday because it was convenient.

I could really go on and on. I really thought I was happy before I got to experience working from home. It would be a huge adjustment for me to ever go back to an office environment. I get along so much better with coworkers because I don't know their business. Everything is so much more professional and 1000% more productive. I play sports, meet with the book club and running groups, and make plans with friends to be social and do work at work. Plus, it's so much easier to go to the gym in the morning or at lunch when you don't have to run back to the office cleaned up. For me- it's less stressful, more productive and promotes an overall healthier lifestyle.

...and none of the reasons you posted says anything about how did working from home improved your career? Did it? 7 years working from home, did you get promoted? Do you see your career excel? Did others get promoted in that 7 years period? Or have you been doing same thing for past 7 years?

[gooddecisions]

"...and none of the reasons you posted says anything about how did working from home improved your career? Did it? 7 years working from home, did you get promoted? Do you see your career excel? Did others get promoted in that 7 years period? Or have you been doing same thing for past 7 years?"

Great question, the OP didn't ask that so I didn't go into it. I was a consultant when I started working from home (an instructor, an analyst, then senior analyst in the years prior to that) and two years into it I was promoted to a senior consultant and assigned to the largest projects in the company. Then two years ago I was promoted to a manager. I'm likely under-paid, but that probably has more to do with being at the same company I started with out of college and nothing to do with working from home.

My department, business partners and direct reports are geographically dispersed so face time is not possible even if we weren't telecommuters. It really helps working for a company that values results and understands there are more efficient ways to achieve optimal results. It also helps that the corporation is huge with a world-wide presence, thus employees are located in cities throughout the world. For the work I do, 99.9% of meetings have to be conducted via the phone or web session regardless of whether you're working from home or in a company building. When I did work in the office, my day was spent on back to back conference calls. Of the 20 or so people I have reported to over the years, not one has lived in the same city as me and I have yet to have a direct report in the same city as me.

As I said, I was forced out kicking and screaming because I couldn't let go of pre-conceived notions about working from home. It's not for everyone and not all corporations are going to be as supportive even if the arrangement was at your employer's request. It sounds like the OP has an area in the office to work from if preferred, so can back off gradually. I also have space just a few miles up the street, but I have found no value in working from that space- thus only go in every couple of months to keep my building access.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are also a lot less issues with discrimination/harrassment since often nobody knows anything about each other's race, creed, age or appearance.

[gooddecisions]

To be successful, your corporation also has to value a mobile workforce-- which yes, could lead to outsourcing.