I’m that guy. (Well I’m a girl) I’ve been working from home my entire post-college life, almost 20 years now.
I can’t imagine working in an office, of course. Like, just the idea of having 5 days a week of clothes and shoes sounds daunting!
But the few years when I still lived with my parents and worked from home, and my dad retired and was there all day…that was the worst. I up and bought myself a whole HOUSE just to get some peace in my office!
It’s fine if you’re working from home in a lovely home office you set up for yourself but yeah, not having a dedicated space would suck and having people around DEFINITELY sucks!!
When I had a real job (working for a big database company that rhymes with “Snoracle,” as a tech writer) I worked from home for the last few years before I left to become a full-time writer. I loved it. I had a laptop but I hooked it up to a real monitor and keyboard, so it was basically like having a desktop. I designated a room as an office and put a desk in there. It worked out great. I don’t need a lot of in-person social interaction, and in any case most of my team members were spread out all over the world so it wouldn’t have been practical.
At this point if my writing gig ever didn’t work out, I would definitely look for another telecommuting position. Oddly, I can’t work at other non-work places, like coffee shops or the library. I find them too distracting.
I did it for a while. I thought I would love it, but I absolutely hated it for some of the reasons people have said and others:
Other people think that because you are at home, you can run whatever errands: dry cleaning, grocery shopping, just run the sweeper a bit, take and pick up kids from schools, etc.
Even if you have a separate office, it is hard to say that you are “off the clock.” Even if you are having trouble sleeping at 3am on a Sunday morning, it can creep in the back of your mind that you could go into your “office” and get some work done.
Little human interaction. I like the arriving at work, pouring a cup of coffee, talking about the game last night, hearing people bitching about their spouse, going to lunch with co-workers, etc.
It’s really up to the individual. I was miserable. My wife absolutely loves it. (Which is also another reason for me now to not work from home…I would be around her 24/7 which is a taxing thing even for people who dearly love each other. Spousal murder is a crime in some states)
I’ve been doing a lot of working from home lately. Mostly legal research, which I can do online; and for the rare occasions when I have to go to the local law library, nobody cares how I dress or what time I get there. Sounds good, right?
But the lack of human interaction around the break room coffee pot and water cooler bothers me, I find. At the end of the business day, still at home, I find myself, more often than not, leaving the house, and wandering down to the local sports bar. There, I can talk with other people about topics other than work. If I was in an office all day, I’d look forward to going home; but having been at home all day, I look forward to getting out for a couple of hours.
I absolutely LOVE working from home. I work 3rd shift for a large telecom company, so even back when I was working out of the office I was working alone. (I’m the only one on 3rd shift for my group and even the folks on days are spread out around the country).
A few months back they moved our desks to another part of the building. Much smaller cubes, which would really suck if I actually had to go in there. I went in to pack up my stuff before the move, but still haven’t been back to unpack it.
At my office I had 3 19" monitors. Here at home I have a 23" monitor dedicated to my work laptop, and 2 42" TV/monitors that I can toggle between the laptop and my home PC. So when things are busy I can have all 3 connected to the laptop, and when it’s slow I can use my desktop for internet reading and video watching.
Once my shift is over the laptop gets put to sleep and I don’t wake it up again until the start of my next shift.
And like Inigo Montoya said, I don’t have to wear pants.
I’ve done office work, field work and work from home all in the same job and the work performed at home was by far, more productive. I would plan my day at the office and move on to the field. Afterward, paperwork completed at home which was free from distractions. I was single at the time which was the key to productivity.
I have the flexibility to do it but rarely do. Circumstances have to be right.
There are certain tasks that I sometimes do that suit it. When no-one is at home, all is quiet and I need the peace and thinking time to scribble and play with ideas or designs then having the dining table to myself and can gaze at the goldfinches in the garden then I’ll work from home. Or if I have a lot of pretty mechanical data entry donkey work that just need a good few hours effort then being able to work completely undisturbed unless I choose it is a good thing. Sometimes on those tasks you just need to get into a zone and home working can help that.
So I do do it but would not welcome it as a regular part of my job, I quite like to intellectual stimulation of people coming to me with problems and I’d miss that if I were too often out of the office.
When I worked from home (for about 10 years) I was very good at ending my day, the computer was turned off and that was that. But I missed the human interaction, the connection to the business, and never was good at presenting myself as an exceptional worker (or doing exceptional work) when I was sitting home alone for the whole day.
I now work every day in an office, but do have a laptop so I can work at home if I need to.
Your problem isn’t with “working from home”, at least not per se. Your problem is that you don’t have a decent home office. I understand that if you didn’t have “work from home” imposed on you, that would not be an issue, but it’s a bit like saying you detest having a job that requires you to use a computer when the real reason is that your computer is 12 years old and is crashprone and full of malware.
To answer your titular question, no, I’m not among those who hate working from home. My laptop has two external monitors and a nice 17" built-in TFT for a total of three screens; it has an external keyboard with fantastic key responsiveness and texture and I use a mouse and I have a fast ethernet network connection. It’s a room apart from the living room and kitchen and up the stairs and away from all that, pretty insulated and private from the domesticities. And I don’t have to contend with typical office stuff that I don’t care for.
I’m not saying you could effortlessly have the same situation, but I am saying that your existing situation isn’t a direct consequence of working from home. It can be quite nice under ideal circumstances.
I am a consultant. I had two employees for most of last year and I realized I hated going to the office every day so I down sized and its just me again. I still have the office which is nice since I can use it for mail and I’ve got a 60" monitor there that makes large spread sheets and CAD work nice so I go in when I’ve got a big project that will be easier at work then at home.
After years of working from home, I love having the TV on while I work. My last office job as a peeon was two years ago and I made it three months. They bitched about me playing video games during conference calls and watching Dodgers games while typing reports. My work quality remained identical but moving from working at home with that company to working at the office caused a lot of problems. I thought it would be different as the boss and to a certain extent it was no one bitched when they came into my office and found me watching baseball but getting dressed and going to the office sucked, I got less done due to the socializing, making and taking lunch was annoying, and I didn’t get to spend the day petting my dogs.
I’ve got one more year on the lease and I want to keep the office for my once monthly use but my wife keeps reminding me I’m wasting money and I’d be even happier working from home if I had all of my nice office stuff.
I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t have a proper home office. There are distractions (those aren’t absent in the office, just different).
My current main squeeze client (where I have a desk) is a 90 min round trip, often more. I like not spending that time. Also not putting on a suit and primping my beard. I basically arrive 2 hours after I wake up, whereas I can get started much earlier if I’m not commuting. That leaves more time for other stuff.
I simply don’t (that will be “didn’t” after 48 more days at the office) have the discipline to work at home; all the things I like to play with are at home. And this is even though I hate commuting.
My office is also weird. There are 10 of us and it would be zero problem for everyone to work from home 2-3 days per week but the bosses simply won’t consider it. And it’s a university environment, too, where you’d think a little employment progressivism would creep in.
I like working from home. If I have a complaint about it (that hasn’t already been mentioned), it’s that I hate the style of office work that has evolved from everyone working remotely. There’s no more people getting together to plan something out and then work on it. Now it’s all a constant stream of noise from emails, tele/videoconference invites, and Slack messages to a hive mind of people scattered about.
I don’t really care about “distractions”. I constantly do work with the tv in the background, take conference calls while walking my kid to school, clean dishes or vacuum the floor while listening to a Webex, whatever. That’s a feature IMHO.
Honestly, the worst thing I can think of is having to sit in some fucking cube 9 hours a day putting in “face time” because some moronic middle manager wants to feel important.
I did it and it’s OK. What is really bad is the fad for the open office. All you get is a table , no privacy at all but it’s dirt cheap so bean counters love it.
Irony: I am a bean counter, got moved from home office to the work office and now have a stall in an ‘open office’ concept. And I don’t love it. Regrettably, I don’t count the beans that determine the office furniture & layout. So I have nice earbuds and work in my own headspace.
I did and do most of my research work from home in the living room with a pad of paper and a pencil. Kids running around never bothered me. In fact, I liked it that way. Now my wife worked from home for about ten years as a free-lance translator, after having worked in offices as an employee. By that time our nest was empty and she made one of their rooms into an office. When she was in the office, she was offline and not to be disturbed. When she was out of the office, she could be disturbed as usual. It worked well and I know she preferred it. Her previous employer had had a dress code which she didn’t appreciate especially in the middle of winter and also a policy that her desk must be completely clear of paper before she left at night.
Regrettably, I don’t count the beans that determine the office furniture & layout. So I have nice earbuds and work in my own headspace.