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I'd hate to work from home , I just don't find it as a benefit. Home is home. The office is where the work happens. I like to keep these things separated..

blackguardx 10y ago
Office space is cheaper per sq ft that residential in most US cities. If I was a long term remote worker, I would rent a small office somewhere. It is also easier to deduct off your taxes that way.
girzel 10y ago
I run my own small company (just a few of us, in different places), and after a couple of years of working from home, I had to rent a little office space. Too much rolling out of bed and sitting down to the computer. Too much realizing I was still in my bathrobe at 2pm. A tidy, quiet little office space felt like a godsend afterwards. Of course, it was still only me :)
mdip 10y ago
You're not an outlier. I know several software developers who feel exactly the same way. I would have probably been one of them but after doing it for ten years or so, I love working at home and have found ways to adjust to the things I don't like about it. But your attitude is shared by a lot of people, it's just not necessarily talked about all that often and it falls into the often ignored category of "there are real downsides to working from home" that seems to be pervasive in the world where "working at home" is seen by some as "not working at all" or as this article states "a job perk" rather than a set of trade-offs that have positives and negatives for both the employer and employee. Personally, I will probably never take a job that isn't work-at-home, again, if I have any say in the matter. While there were substantial down-sides (almost all of which I wasn't prepared for in the beginning) there's substanial up-sides. And I'm one of those folks who elects to ignore the "work-life" separation boundary entirely. I accept that as a work-from-home employee, I can basically be seen as someone "working all of the time" and I allow myself to work when inspiration hits even if it isn't during "normal business hours". On the flip-side of that, my kids will tell you that "Daddy's always here". I get to be here for my family at all times. My dad was a traveling sales-man and pilot when I was growing up. He was gone most of the time[0]. I can work 50 hours during the week and have it feel like 30 to my family and 40 to me. I can get in the middle of an emotional problem one of my daughters is facing when it happens because I'm in the home all day -- provided I'm not in a teleconference. I'm home to see my kids when school lets out. At the same time, I might be working at 8:00 or 9:00 PM when they're settling in for bed. Or taking a conference call with a group team on the other side of the world at 2:00 AM. There is no office where work happens for me and that can positively suck at times. [0] I deeply respect and look up to my dad -- he was there as much as he could be and had to work the hours he worked in order to provide for our family. He grew up in a two bedroom home with 6 siblings and never had a bedroom or even a bed to sleep on when he was a kid. He also "made it to all of the important things" and actually got his pilot license to reduce the amount of over-night travel he had to do.
Anasufovic 10y ago
I think the model of working remotely from distributed coworking spaces would be a decent one. If employers started subsidizing them you can only image how many quality places would pop up.

blackguardx 10y ago

Office space is cheaper per sq ft that residential in most US cities. If I was a long term remote worker, I would rent a small office somewhere. It is also easier to deduct off your taxes that way.

girzel 10y ago

I run my own small company (just a few of us, in different places), and after a couple of years of working from home, I had to rent a little office space. Too much rolling out of bed and sitting down to the computer. Too much realizing I was still in my bathrobe at 2pm. A tidy, quiet little office space felt like a godsend afterwards. Of course, it was still only me :)

mdip 10y ago

You're not an outlier. I know several software developers who feel exactly the same way. I would have probably been one of them but after doing it for ten years or so, I love working at home and have found ways to adjust to the things I don't like about it. But your attitude is shared by a lot of people, it's just not necessarily talked about all that often and it falls into the often ignored category of "there are real downsides to working from home" that seems to be pervasive in the world where "working at home" is seen by some as "not working at all" or as this article states "a job perk" rather than a set of trade-offs that have positives and negatives for both the employer and employee. Personally, I will probably never take a job that isn't work-at-home, again, if I have any say in the matter. While there were substantial down-sides (almost all of which I wasn't prepared for in the beginning) there's substanial up-sides. And I'm one of those folks who elects to ignore the "work-life" separation boundary entirely. I accept that as a work-from-home employee, I can basically be seen as someone "working all of the time" and I allow myself to work when inspiration hits even if it isn't during "normal business hours". On the flip-side of that, my kids will tell you that "Daddy's always here". I get to be here for my family at all times. My dad was a traveling sales-man and pilot when I was growing up. He was gone most of the time[0]. I can work 50 hours during the week and have it feel like 30 to my family and 40 to me. I can get in the middle of an emotional problem one of my daughters is facing when it happens because I'm in the home all day -- provided I'm not in a teleconference. I'm home to see my kids when school lets out. At the same time, I might be working at 8:00 or 9:00 PM when they're settling in for bed. Or taking a conference call with a group team on the other side of the world at 2:00 AM. There is no office where work happens for me and that can positively suck at times. [0] I deeply respect and look up to my dad -- he was there as much as he could be and had to work the hours he worked in order to provide for our family. He grew up in a two bedroom home with 6 siblings and never had a bedroom or even a bed to sleep on when he was a kid. He also "made it to all of the important things" and actually got his pilot license to reduce the amount of over-night travel he had to do.

Anasufovic 10y ago

I think the model of working remotely from distributed coworking spaces would be a decent one. If employers started subsidizing them you can only image how many quality places would pop up.