Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Working from Home: Why It Sucks

geeksinboston.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 105 posts

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#21

Post by statictype »

bdfh42 wrote: post #3

Not my experience - I love working from home. Going to work is just a matter of crossing the yard to get to my office. Almost no meetings, no office politics - bliss. My only real complaint is that no-one ever reads past the first paragraph of any email. Sometimes emails have to be longer than that, so every now and again, I have to hop on a plane and go and explain to someone what all those second paragraphs said.

I guess it's ok if you have some allocated office space so you're not literally working from your home.

I've worked from home before and I can pretty much relate to what the article says. It's nice to do once in a while, but I much prefer to actually go to the office.

The key to working from home is to have a clear separation between your office and the rest of your life. It's ok if it crosses over (after all, that's the advantage of not having to work at an office), but they shouldn't be intertwined.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#22

Post by matt1 »

"check company IRC, say good morning, make sure nothing’s on fire yet" etc etc

The thing I get from this whole post is that the author lacks passion for his work. His tone makes his work sound like some terrible chore that he's forced to do. Don't get me wrong: a "good job" every now and then is always nice, but not receiving it shouldn't be the primary reason you shouldn't work from home.

If you're the type of person that gets bored easily or needs lots of external feedback in order to motivate yourself, working from home/starting your own business is going to be very difficult.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#23

Post by mrtron »

statictype wrote: post #21
bdfh42 wrote: post #3

Not my experience - I love working from home. Going to work is just a matter of crossing the yard to get to my office. Almost no meetings, no office politics - bliss. My only real complaint is that no-one ever reads past the first paragraph of any email. Sometimes emails have to be longer than that, so every now and again, I have to hop on a plane and go and explain to someone what all those second paragraphs said.

I guess it's ok if you have some allocated office space so you're not literally working from your home. I've worked from home before and I can pretty much relate to what the article says. It's nice to do once in a while, but I much prefer to actually go to the office. The key to working from home is to have a clear separation between your office and the rest of your life. It's ok if it crosses over (after all, that's…

I live in a condo and work from home and the separation is very difficult. Especially when I was contracting and trying to work every waking hour.

However, I still really enjoyed the flexibility of it and still had enough social interaction to keep me sane.

Now that I am only working on a startup, it is so relaxing :) Maybe because I am enjoying the process and work instead of just trying to put in hours.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#24

Post by ojbyrne »

tptacek wrote: post #17
bdfh42 wrote: post #3

Not my experience - I love working from home. Going to work is just a matter of crossing the yard to get to my office. Almost no meetings, no office politics - bliss. My only real complaint is that no-one ever reads past the first paragraph of any email. Sometimes emails have to be longer than that, so every now and again, I have to hop on a plane and go and explain to someone what all those second paragraphs said.

Most important "business" lesson I ever learned: never write a "document" in an email message; write it in Word and attach it instead, to activate the pointy-haired neurotransmitters.

Much as it's probably true, I absolutely hate that. Somebody once showed me a diagram demonstrating the increased efficiency gained by using a wiki instead of email - but the entire gain would have been nullified if they assumed that rather than entering stuff directly into the wiki, people would upload word documents to the wiki (which the pointy-hairs invariably do).

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#25

Post by BigZaphod »

wallflower wrote: post #14
metatronscube wrote: post #5

I would LOVE to work from home, I could do so much more with my day If I was working from home (more productive stuff) and leave my work knowing I was actually able to get something finished for a change even lunch with my dog is a better prospect that lunch with some of the people I work with at the moment. Not to mention that my home office is better equipped, quieter and I cant tell you how much better I would fee…

I agree. I've asked several times over the years to be allowed to work from home one day a week. Always denied. People who list complaints about working from home don't know how good they have it - they have freedom to work the way they want. Working from home takes discipline and should be seen as a privilege, not as an entitlement. A big drawback I can see of working from home is that, regardless of where you are,…

"People who list complaints about working from home don't know how good they have it"

I work from home, but I put in my years in soulless cube farms - as did everyone I know (besides farmers) that work from home now and I know how nice it can be by comparison. That said, working from home is not a holy grail. It has it's downsides - like everything else. It's unfair to say that those of us who work from home somehow don't have valid complaints about it.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#26

Post by BigZaphod »

jcromartie wrote: post #13
alexk wrote: post #11

I do agree, I'm working from home for 6 months, and being lonely is the hardest part. My dream for now is to work in a small office as a part of a small, talented and concentrated team.

The idea of "co-working" is gaining steam in many cities. You could certainly start up a group in your area if there isn't one. Basically you just get together with other people who work remotely, but perhaps in somewhat the same vein (web apps, a certain language, whatever), and you can form a team that you can bounce ideas off of and get support from. It could even just be occasional or for lunch every day or somet…

"Co-working" has kept me sane over the years. :) There's not too many locally who do this, but the ones I know drop by the same coffee shops on occasion and we run into each other. It's a welcome break from the loneliness of being alone all day. (Although I have a newborn at home now and have essentially become a stay-at-home dad in addition to working from home. You want stress, give that a try. :))

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#27

Post by graemep »

tptacek wrote: post #17
bdfh42 wrote: post #3

Not my experience - I love working from home. Going to work is just a matter of crossing the yard to get to my office. Almost no meetings, no office politics - bliss. My only real complaint is that no-one ever reads past the first paragraph of any email. Sometimes emails have to be longer than that, so every now and again, I have to hop on a plane and go and explain to someone what all those second paragraphs said.

Most important "business" lesson I ever learned: never write a "document" in an email message; write it in Word and attach it instead, to activate the pointy-haired neurotransmitters.

Even better, send a PDF. It looks "professional" and will get that much more attention.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#28

Post by BigZaphod »

metatronscube wrote: post #5

I would LOVE to work from home, I could do so much more with my day If I was working from home (more productive stuff) and leave my work knowing I was actually able to get something finished for a change even lunch with my dog is a better prospect that lunch with some of the people I work with at the moment. Not to mention that my home office is better equipped, quieter and I cant tell you how much better I would fee…

If you're married, working from home suddenly means you apparently have time to do the dishes, laundry, take care of the kid(s), let the dog out, run "quick" errands, etc. One of the tougher things about working from home is dealing with all the other people who don't. :)

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#29

Post by jimbokun »

matt1 wrote: post #22

"check company IRC, say good morning, make sure nothing’s on fire yet" etc etc The thing I get from this whole post is that the author lacks passion for his work. His tone makes his work sound like some terrible chore that he's forced to do. Don't get me wrong: a "good job" every now and then is always nice, but not receiving it shouldn't be the primary reason you shouldn't work from home. If you're the type of perso…

"If you're the type of person that gets bored easily or needs lots of external feedback in order to motivate yourself, working from home/starting your own business is going to be very difficult."

If you are the kind of person who is NOT motivated by external feedback, how are you going to be successful in business when so much of succeeding in business is responding to the external feedback you receive from customers? Not all of this comes from face to face interaction, true, but it would probably help to have such interaction with customers on occasion. Probably much of how your customers perceive and interact with your product, and how they perceive your company, will only be apparent from body language cues.

This is not to argue against working from home, but to argue that external feedback is almost always important.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#30

Post by wallflower »

BigZaphod wrote: post #25
wallflower wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I've asked several times over the years to be allowed to work from home one day a week. Always denied. People who list complaints about working from home don't know how good they have it - they have freedom to work the way they want. Working from home takes discipline and should be seen as a privilege, not as an entitlement. A big drawback I can see of working from home is that, regardless of where you are,…

"People who list complaints about working from home don't know how good they have it" I work from home, but I put in my years in soulless cube farms - as did everyone I know (besides farmers) that work from home now and I know how nice it can be by comparison. That said, working from home is not a holy grail. It has it's downsides - like everything else. It's unfair to say that those of us who work from home somehow…

Fair enough. Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. Did you buy a nice (Polycom) speaker phone or headset for call-in meetings?
Post reply on HN