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Working from Home: Why It Sucks

geeksinboston.com

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Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#51

Post by Chocobean »

PStamatiou wrote: post #10

That article essentially says it sucks to work from home because you don't get out and get social interaction. Um, does it assume people work from 8am to midnight or something. I work from home. I get lunch with friends. I get dinner with colleagues. I go outside. I'd trade a 6 figure salary for just barely scraping by/starting-up and working from home any day .

Correct. The blogger essentially works the entire day because he seems to be goofing off for most of it. The result is that he feels tired from being minimally working all day and getting nothing done.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#52

Post by Danmatt »

Office is better in my view - you can talk to real humans and get honest feedback + there's still a connection (wrongly) between working at home and slacking.

Once a week + the weekend is definitely enough for me.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#53

Post by gojomo »

cschneid wrote: post #44
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.

In a few years, $100K systems will be $1K; a few years after that, $100.

And some of the people here could help make it happen. (What if digital picture frames or pocket-size projectors had auto-focus, auto-pan cameras, and however many you positioned in a single room auto-configured themselves for optimal telepresence effect? Etc.)

So it's a valid suggestion from a speculative perspective, even if we know a single home worker isn't likely to buy one of these top-end systems today.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#54

Post by briancooley »

I worked from home for a little over 2 years. I have a lot of positive things to say about it. While my experience was generally positive, there were a few drawbacks.

The most bothersome drawback to me was that I felt judged by a different standard than those in the office. If I had an unproductive week, it was assumed that I was goofing off, while the same standard wasn't held for those that worked in the office, presumably because their butts were in chairs.

For the last four months of those two years, my wife was at home raising a newborn. It was nearly impossible for me to concentrate. I won't work from home again until my child is out of the house or until I build a detached office.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#55

Post by ojbyrne »

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.

I wish it actually worked that way in the real world, but it doesn't. Yes, you can quit and do a startup, but then you end up with pointy-haired VCs instead of pointy-haired bosses.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#56

Post by Xichekolas »

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.

A fine solution in a start-up or when you are in charge, but not so easy to accomplish in a large organization, where the pointy-hairs tend to accumulate.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#57

Post by shimon »

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.

Ironically, it seems you've not read past the headline of the article.

I continue to work from home because I think that, for me, it's a net win. This article is intended to point out its downsides, not to suggest it's a bad idea overall for everyone. I'm looking forward to writing about the positive aspects of working from home in a few days.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#58

Post by bbuffone »

It's called human interaction - most people need this to survive. When sheltered from the world like a person with Agoraphobia, it becomes hard to relate to people no matter how much email or twittering you do.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#59

Post by ingenium »

tptacek wrote: post #42
graemep wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As an MBA (and hacker), I can say that I would absolutely prefer a PDF to a word document. If you really want to make comments, just made a comment in the PDF. Adobe Reader, though I prefer not to use it, lets you easily make comments, and this is the program most people will be using.

Re: Working from Home: Why It Sucks

#60

Post by tptacek »

ingenium wrote: post #59
tptacek wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As an MBA (and hacker), I can say that I would absolutely prefer a PDF to a word document. If you really want to make comments, just made a comment in the PDF. Adobe Reader, though I prefer not to use it, lets you easily make comments, and this is the program most people will be using.

I think the m-team types understand "Track Changes" better than they understand comments in PDFs, but if your team prefers PDF, more power to them. I'd obviously rather generate a PDF than a Word Doc, and I'd rather generate a wiki page than a PDF, and an email than a wiki page. But life's pretty short.
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