Working from home hasn’t been too bad, but I like separating work from home. My commute is 4.6 miles.
My view at work is better (overlooking the Mississippi River – bald eagles are not rare), and the machine is a bit better than what I have at home. Plus free coffee, tea, and pop.
Brian
I’ve enjoyed reading all your thoughts. I work in a creative field. I’ve worked from home for a month. So far, I’m enjoying it. No 90-minute round-trip commute. An extra hour of sleep. My office at work is in a 1950s-era building in an area that hasn’t been renovated since the 1980s. My department has no windows, bad lighting and bad air circulation. At home, I have fresh air and loads of sunlight. My wife is retired and is good company. I’ve encouraged her to practice her guitar while I’m working. It’s a nice background. At work I often sit at my desk doing computer work for hours at a time. At home I’m more inclined to finish a task, stand up and take a break, perhaps even a short walk outside. What’s not to like?
Well, there are the twice-a-day teleconferences, usually at times in which I am most consumed with meeting a deadline. They’re not intended to check up on all of us, but a way to keep us in touch with each other. There are only seven of us, and the single guys probably feel really isolated. And one guy has two small children who are always doing what small children do. I don’t see how he gets anything done. I do miss the occasional good-nurtured chats between us at the office though.
I also maintain office hours. I log into the network at 8:30 or 9 and most often log out at 5 or 5:30. I “leave the office.” If given the choice - and I might push the issue - I would like to work from home perhaps three days a week and work at the office the other two. I’ve more than proven I can do my job from home, and I’d like to continue doing so.
I’m having issues with my VPN - I think it’s waaayyyy slowing down my work system, whereas at work it was usually fine. I have my personal Surface available for certain sites I need to access, but it’d be nice to go back to my two-monitor set up, rather than the three monitors, two keyboards, etc I have now. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to get the curser from my laptop to the Surface… :smack:
There are some benefits in staying home, as I can go directly from my computer to making lunch, making dinner, going for a walk, washing a few dishes, etc. Sometimes I skip my lunch break and take a quick shower in the middle of the day, rather than my usual nights. But I do miss our really nice office set up, and now I’m going through my OWN coffee and toilet paper…