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Working from Home: Why It Sucks

geeksinboston.com

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Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#41

Post by bocalogic »

BigZaphod wrote: post #28
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. :)

you need a work space and the understanding that no one can disturb you when the door is closed or your headphones are on.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#42

Post by tptacek »

graemep wrote: post #27
tptacek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Careful! I thought so too, but MBA's get pissed when you send things they can't edit, because then they have to use email to submit comments back to you.

PDFs are a really valuable tool when you don't want people to modify your document, and you have the political capital to refuse changes.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#43

Post by giles_bowkett »

Xichekolas wrote: post #35
ojbyrne wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Just need to write something that automatically converts word docs into new wiki pages. Then the pointy-hairs can upload all they want and everyone else gets some sanity. Don't even try to make the conversion full featured, just rip it plain text. When the boss asks why his charts and headers don't convert over, show him how easy it is to fix that in the wiki. By getting his feet wet this way, eventually he might not…

no, just fire the pointy-hairs. if somebody is uploading word docs to a wiki then they're not qualified to work with you. don't waste your time.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#44

Post by cschneid »

gravitycop wrote: post #4

You don’t get rich feedback when communicating over a phone, email, or text chat. Then don't use those. Use immersive telepresence, instead. http://www.hp.com/halo/introducing.html

You're advocating a $100k+ teleconference room to people who work from home?

The tech is awesome, and I've used HP Halo rooms, but they really aren't meant for home deployment. There's just too much physical setup needed (aligning cameras, tvs, etc) that I doubt it'll ever work for that purpose.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#45

Post by giles_bowkett »

I work from home and it's awesome. It fucks with your sleep schedule but other than that it's great. I do go into the client office a lot more than I thought I would, though. And when I say working from home I mean working from cafes. Working from home in the literal sense sometimes gets annoying because my neighbors have noisy kids. I've learned how to say "Grandma, look at me!" in Spanish. And about a thousand ways to say "shut up" or "don't do that" in Spanish as well.

The kids make me wish I had a flamethrower, but so do people who talk in the office, and the kids are at least cuter than the office people. Except some of the chicks. I sure hope they don't read that. Anyway, working from home is basically awesome, but yeah, you do need human contact, and context for conversation.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#46

Post by nir »

nolanbrown23 wrote: post #33

Like everything, working from home needs balance. Not just work/non-work time balance, but physical balance with a private office in your home and regular contact with the outside world. If you don't have a second bedroom for an office and you live alone, working from home is going to blow. When I started working from home, the first thing I did was go out looking for a co-working studio in my city. I knew that I was…

(Off topic :)) Do you find you're truly productive working so many hours a day? (I assume it's coding work?)

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#47

Post by tptacek »

giles_bowkett wrote: post #43
Xichekolas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just need to write something that automatically converts word docs into new wiki pages. Then the pointy-hairs can upload all they want and everyone else gets some sanity. Don't even try to make the conversion full featured, just rip it plain text. When the boss asks why his charts and headers don't convert over, show him how easy it is to fix that in the wiki. By getting his feet wet this way, eventually he might not…

no, just fire the pointy-hairs. if somebody is uploading word docs to a wiki then they're not qualified to work with you. don't waste your time.

Pick your battles.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#48

Post by modoc »

It depends 100% on the person. For some people working from home has significant downsides and/or isn't an effective way for them to work. For others, like me, it's almost all upside and allows me to be much more productive than being in an office.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#49

Post by BinaryPie »

I've worked from home in the past. The last stint was for about 8 months. I really enjoyed the freedom. But towards the end even with a live in girlfriend I still got a little depressed.

The problem is mostly assuredly the lack of human contact. Not physically seeing people every day got to be a little rough. I'd force myself to go out on weekends and be social but it still felt fake.

The other big problem was that since I lived in the PNW and winter was setting in. It would be dark when I got up, and dark when I shut down for the day. This mean I never really saw the sunshine. I wouldn't really leave my house for days at a time. This got to be an issue. I felt trapped, even worse than that corp job I took while in college.

Now I live in San Francisco. The startup I work for has an office. I see sun almost every day. Hell I walk 2 miles to and then 2 miles from work every day. Its great! I think the human contact combined with the daily walk has increased both my energy level and my moral.

As a caveat to this. I still prefer to work from home at least one day a week. As the break from the daily in office distractions (meetings, troubleshooting, lunch, etc..) is nice.

So I think proper life balance is in order when working from home. If almost a daily regiment that forces one to go stop working and go have meaningful human interaction.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#50

Post by Chocobean »

chez17 wrote: post #31

I hate articles like this. All the statements in the last couple paragraphs that start with "You start to fell..." or "You don't get..." should have the "You" replaced with an "I". I totally understand that someone why someone who works from home gets lonely, but that doesn't mean everybody who does gets lonely. It takes the right kind of person. This is my qualm with articles like this. People present their opinion…

agreed. I wonder why some people write that way. It's very difficult to write in second person successfully, because as soon as one presents information that is inconsistent with how the actual reader feels, the rest of the argument is nullified. Yes, it sounded silly when the writer tried to speak for me, in particular, when he knows nothing about me.
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