We Shouldn’t Aspire to Work from Home
12 May, 2008 - General Business - 18 Comments
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And wonderful it was. For a year.
Then I got bored.
You see, when we work from home, we lose the conversations at the water cooler. We lose the commute to work. We lose the friendship with the coffee shop employee or the bagel stand owner. We lose the early morning commute which wakes us up. Maybe we’ll lose the walk through the park, or the walk to the subway that got rid of the bags under our eyes on a fresh, crisp Spring morning. We lose it all, because we have nowhere to go…. unless we class across the hall or down the stairs as a place to go.
We replace it with a reluctance to get out of bed. A reluctance to eat and shower because “we’re not going anywhere”. We lose the self-satisfaction of wearing smart clothes, in favour of our night clothes. We lose the feeling of home that our house had when we worked from an office. You know that feeling each time 5pm rolls around? Right now, you can’t wait to get home to your cat or dog… or partner. When we work from home, that’s gone. They’re there all day long, so you take them for granted.
Suddenly things we took for granted while working at an office are lost and replaced with less interesting, less inspiring and less engaging things. We even begin to miss the 60 year old rapper we laugh and smile at on the subway each morning.Before we know it, we’re craving for our next meeting where we can finally get out of our home and meet somebody. Suddenly we’ll feel like Grandpa Simpson, not wanting to stop talking because we crave physical, real life interaction with other humans. Don’t believe me? I’m 20 and I’m already at that point.
As somebody who has worked from home, full time, for the past three years, I crave the commute to work. I crave the water cooler conversations. I crave the trip to the pub with co-workers every Friday. And I crave the 60 old rapper.
If I could move in to an office tomorrow, I would do so. And I’d make sure my office location allows me to spark a friendship with a coffee shop employee. Allows me to commute via public transport. Allows me to meet other people and spark conversations. Allows me to wake up in a morning before I reach the office. And allows me the freedom to make home feel like home again. Because all these things are often taken for granted and often forgotten, but I value them as some of the most important aspects of life.
Working from home isn’t all we often think it is. Often, it’s lonely, slow, boring and faceless. Unless you’re careful, your 10 second commute from your bedroom to your office will rapidly become a part of your life you wish to see the back of.Do you work from home? If so, do you enjoy it? If you aspire to work from home full time, what is it that motivates you to do so?
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Posted on 12 May, 2008 by Jamie Harrop
Filed Under General Business |
18 Comments »
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Interesting, but I still aspire to work from home. Not so much because I’d prefer a home office per se, but I want the freedom to work on what I want, when I want. That kind of thing tends to mean that you’re on your own, and no one is going to give you an office.
I can understand getting bored working from home, but at least you had the chance to find out that you don’t like it. Now you just need to find alternative ways to replace what you’re missing.
Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..Washing Dishes Is A Waste Of Life?
Hey Hunter,
Thanks for stopping by.
Your last sentence is key, and that’s what I’ll be touching on tomorrow. Today was the ways how it can get bad. Tomorrow is how to avoid it getting bad.
Thanks for the interesting comment, Hunter.
PS. It looks like you’re preparing to do a lot of reading on my blog. I just watched my live stats program as it showed you opening all the links in the “Popular Articles” section.
Uh-oh, I didn’t know I was being tracked!
Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..How To Be A Woman
I see your every move. Muwahahah.
Just have to have the discipline to make sure you get things done at some point during the day. It definitely makes you work harder to get out to network though that is a big minus of it.
Christien’s last blog post..Christien Louviere Is a New Contributor to DailyDOOH
You make it sound so simple, Christien.
Thanks for the comment!
I totally agree with you. Have spent since last August teaching in Liechtenstein. “Easy” job - only a language assistant, and worked 20 hours a week. BUT although I had Mondays off, the rest of my time was all over the place: working some morning, some afternoons, some evenings. I thought I would LOVE not working full time, and also having a more flexible schedule. Instead, I became depressed at the lack of routine, and found it really hard to motivate myself to get out of bed when I didn´t have to. It was also tough working with kids, and not having the interaction of chatting with my colleagues that I experienced in my previous journalism job. Looking forward to going home to SA this week (earlier than my original plan), and can´t wait to get a new job in an office!
Theresa Mallinson’s last blog post..Theresa´s friends
Wow. That lack of routine certainly doesn’t sound nice, Theresa.
It’s strange how we think we will love some things, but when it actually comes to doing them, they suddenly seem very mundane and boring.
Good luck on the trip back to South Africa. I haven’t been, but my next door neighbour is originally from the country and talks highly of it.
I’ve been working from home since October 2006, and I love it. I work for a small software company and we have a phone system that routes to people in a few different locations. We are at least talking to people over the phone, and often we dial into their computers to install/upgrade software.
I establish a division between office hours and out of hours by having desks on opposite sides of the room. During the day my wife and I share the same office and work on one side of the room, using our laptops. By night I go to the other side of the room with my desktop computers and dual monitors. That establishes a good separation between day and night.
Working from home means we are MORE likely to take the dog for a walk when we finish work. If we still worked in an office we might not want to go out for a walk immediately after getting home. And at this time of year (winter for us) we really have to be quick to go out before it gets dark.
Try looking at your working environment to see if it’s as good as it can possibly be. I have a post about this on my site. Take breaks and ensure you don’t eat lunch at your desk. You could try using Skype to talk with people more easily, i.e. not only by meeting up with them. Cheaper and more convenient, especially if you have contacts all over the world.
Hey Ben,
Thanks for the very insightful comment. I appreciate you taking the time to write that.
I’m pleased working from home in going well for you. Some of the points you mentioned actually touched upon what I’ll be writing about today. It’s scheduled to publish in 30 minutes, and discusses how to avoid becoming bored while working at home.
Come and join us at EWIC then Jamie. Plenty to talk about here, and lots of opportunities.
Hey Neil,
Thanks for dropping by.
I’ve looked at the EWIC (Elsie Whitely Innovation Centre, for those readers not from mine and Neil’s home town of Halifax).
I always got the impression it was traditional office space that cost a pretty fortune each week.
But never the less, I’ve tried to get in touch with the owners on several occasions (via email), but I’ve never heard anything back from them.
Expect to receive an email from me soon.
[...] we discussed the reasons why we shouldn’t aspire to work from home. Today, I’m going to share my tips for improving the work from home experience, to avoid your [...]
Hey - you should think about coworking from Old Broadcasting House in Leeds (www.oldbroadcastinghouse.com)…starting at around £65/month for hotdesking.
Hey Imran,
I just knew you would pop on here at some point. I’ve been seeing your name splashed all over the Web over the past 24 hours, and I was going to email you today regarding Old Broadcasting House.
Thanks for stopping by. Expect an email from me soon.
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Wow. You absolutely just summed up my work from home experience. I loved it for about a month, and a year later- I’m going completely insane! I crave the social interaction and end up feeling lonely and almost depressed. Not that it changes anything, but it’s good to know that others out there feel the same way. TRULY, working from home is NOT all it’s cracked up to be.
Hey Amy,
Thanks for stopping by and subscribing.
The good news is there are ways to improve your situation. Depending where you live, you may be able to get a place in a co-working office. This is what I did after writing this post. I pay approximately £60 a month ($120 USD) and I get a pod with a computer, plus a load of meeting space and equipment, and there are several other Web developers and bloggers working in the same office.
It’s the perfect middle-ground between working from home and paying thousands of hard earned coins in office rent.
That, or you could just spend a couple days each week working from a coffee shop.
Hope to see more comments from you in the future!