I wonder how varied people’s views are on this. I offer only two responses though I know there can be many different answers, because I want to know what people say about a situation where they “have to choose.” Alternative answers are what comments are for…
Personally I prefer to work at work and live at home, so I’ll work later or come in at the weekend rather than bring stuff home.
I tend to prefer doing my work at work because the setup there is better–at home, I’ve got to deal with a laggy VPN connection, I’m on a mac using windows apps with all sorts of weird keyboard inconsistencies, I don’t have a desk/office setup… it’s better to be at work. If it weren’t for these things, it might be different.
Bring it home, definitely. I can edit footnotes and bibliographies with a movie or music playing in the background. Plus, my armchair is much more comfortable than my office chair (although I understand if some people can’t work in an overly comfy chair).
I never get anything done at home, in any case, and I love the feeling of walking out with nothing in my hands but an empty lunchbox.
That said, I don’t stay late. I am a morning person, and would always prefer working 6-5 than 8-7. This is doubly true now that I have a baby to get home to: he sleeps till 7:00 or 7:30 and I have to be at work by 8:00, so no matter what I am going to miss him in the morning. Might as well leave by 6:00 and maximize time home in the evenings.
I’ll do one or the other depending on the work in question.
But if I had to choose, I’d prefer to work at home. If I’m going to be working extended hours I’d rather do it in a more comfortable environment. Productivity’s going to be low in either case, so you might as well enjoy yourself.
I work from home 4 days a week so odds are good if I’m working late it’s at home but for some tasks I actually prefer going to the office. Not for family interruption reasons but I’ve found that for implementations it’s smoother if the coordinating people are in one location. I find it easier to have most people in one rooms so I can keep track of who is doing what when the firestorm hits. If the team is geographically diverse a conference call will work too.
I encourage the techs to work whereever they feel most productive though. There’s no reason for them to be sitting around waiting to see which group the fireball will hit as long as they’re within the reach of a phone call if they are the one I need.
never bring work home, but all my equipment is at the office and I can’t work at home.
Depends on the work, but as a rule I don’t bring it home. The kids can wait an extra day or two to get their papers back. I’m not grading on what is supposed to be my time.
Both. I’m always working late . . . and always bringing work home.
I work at home.
I prefer to work at work, but since the arrival of the dog, I try not to stay too late on the 3x/wk that I do not have a dog walker. I am not so very efficient at home these days. Too often I am say that I going to log back in to do work, but I don’t do as much as I think I will, if anything at all. I used to be a powerhouse, but now by the time I feed and walk the dog the ‘urgency’ of my work has gone until I am back in the office.
Most of these answers are meaningless without knowing what type of job a person has (i.e., broadly speaking, whether they are paid to do what they are told to do or whether they are responsible for achieving a certain result and must exercise their judgement in how to do that).
In any event, I have a job of the latter type, and I do both, often on the same day, often every day of the week.
I don’t see how the question could even be asked in the former case. (In that case, the answer can only be “ask your boss.”)
To my mind it pretty clearly presupposes the latter.
Most of the time I come home, eat with the family, put the kid to bed, and go back to the office.
Well, I was trying to be delicate.
I try to stay late if I can. Bringing work home usually does nothing besides put mileage on it; I never seem to actually do it from the house unless its absolutely critical.
I have a job that can’t be done at home, and for that I’m forever grateful. I need that psychological distance between “work life” and “home life”.
When I was a first level manager (really more of a supervisor) I would try to bring some work home like the schedule, so I could do it there uninterupted after my son went to bed. Occasionally I would go in early, but that didn’t always work, especially when my husband was working graveyard shifts.
Now I can’t bring home work even if I try. My patients are pretty much legally required to stay where they are.
I can’t bring my work home with me. I doubt the FDA would approve my kitchen as a good area for blood product manufacturing.
That said, I chose the “keep it at work” option because that’s the option I prefer for my husband. On the days he works from home he tends to be a little grumpy, thinking about work stuff all day, unable to drop it in the evening and relax. Even when he works late at work, he gets home and is usually able to decompress a lot faster and enjoy part of the evening.
I perfer to keep it at work and come home later. But of course sometimes I have to bring it home. It also depend on the kind of work involved. A major brief which I am drafting will see me stay at work, if its just a few emails that need sending out, well I can do that from my home laptop.