You’re not the only one. I miss the human interaction, particularly when I’m stuck on a project and need to bounce ideas off someone. From a technical standpoint, I hate being connected by only the Internet, and I especially hate not having access to all those years and years of paper files when I need background information.
And while it’s great being able work, say, four hours in the morning, take the afternoon off, and then work after dinner, there’s something to be said for the enforced discipline of a set schedule – particularly if one is prone to procrastination.
I sure wish that more employers would figure out that working conditions do matter.
I once worked in a place where I was the first employee. We had a small office, and I had a office with a window and a door that closed. I talked to the powers-that-be on more than one occasion and explained to them how important it was as a programmer to be able to have quiet working conditions and a door that closed and all that.
A year later we expanded. They got an office that was basically one big room. They built out cubes. Everyone - coders, marketing, project managers, and the fookin’ receptionist - was in one big room. Receptionist, marketing people, and project managers are on the phone just about all day as part of their jobs. There was absolutely no silence in that office, ever. I’d always suspected they weren’t really serious about being a software company, and this (among other things, like not hiring programmers. At a software company. Seriously - we had maybe 20 people at the height of the business, and 3 of them were full-time programmers. WTF?) reinforced it. I quit a few months after the move, and a year later they were out of business.
I’ll amen this one. I have a nice work office, and in my case, I need to be away from the majority of the call center. However, they’ve got me sharing an office with the town crier. I cannot have a private conversation in here, because she will spread the news as far as she can. Someone comes in here to talk to me, and she will interrupt and stick her nose in the conversation. I have to leave my own office to have a private conversation. When someone comes in to talk to her, I put on my headphones and try to ignore the conversation. If this one problem could be cleared up, I would be the happiest person on the planet.