Working from home vs in the office

[sizzlinkola]

I work for a tech startup in NYC and I'm considering working from home as it's an option for me. My boss is completely fine with it and encourages me to work from home if I'm more productive. I've worked from home before and I'm equally productive as I am in the office, probably more since people can't distract me.

There's free food every day, which I eat breakfast, lunch and snack before leaving. So all I have to worry about is dinner every weekday and meals on the weekend. Thus, I reduce my expenses for groceries.

If I work from home, I would save an hour daily of getting ready + commute time, including 30-45 min of extra sleep. There's no commute cost as my work pays for it.

I'm pursuing early retirement, so I greatly value the free food as I can save more money. The tradeoff is time.

What would you do?

 

[pb4uski]

I would gladly buy my own breakfast and lunch at home in exchange for not commuting.

 

[mountainsoft]

If you have the focus and dedication to work from home, I say go for it. I have been working from home over 25 years and love it. In my case, I run my own business, so I don't have a boss hounding me or deadlines to meet. On the opposite side, there's no one else to help if I run into problems, or supervisors making sure I get my work done. If you're not motivated, it's easy to fall behind.

There's nothing that signals when I should stop working, so I tend to work a lot more hours each day than my old 9-5 job (albeit broken up into small segments throughout the day). I'm never really "off the clock", still working in some capacity in the evenings, weekends, and holidays.

It is also very easy to get distracted at home. You may be working one minute, then decide to take a quick break to visit the ER forum. Or you may take a break to watch a TV show, or go eat a snack.

Will you be able to handle the isolation of being home alone all day? Will you miss socializing with coworkers, or just the freedom of leaving the house each day? At times, working from home can make you feel trapped. If you have kids, will you miss "grown up" talk?

For me the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

 

[DrRoy]

No contest. I'd stay home.

 

[bingybear]

My last two work experiences were on the right coast where I worked remotely. There are several downsides.

The project direction can change and they just forget to inform your (out of sight)

they may expect work for longer since you don't have to commute.

most of my jobs were not 8 and skate.. they expected lots more... but it may be worth it in a start up.

My view is it can work well, but you can have some missed steps because you don't see the group and project dynamics. You may not catch catch the project changed direction for a few days.

 

[Ronstar]

I'd work from home. And I did 50% of the time for years. A lot more productivity at home. And I was already at home when I quit work. No going out in the cold and snow. The No commute days were great.

IMO, Time > Money. So it's better to save time than money. You can always save/ make more money. Our time is limited.

 

[Philliefan33]

Is it an option for you to do a blend, as in two days onsite/three at home? That might be a good set up, allowing you some face to face time with coworkers but most of the week without a commute.

I worked in a lab so had to me onsite. But towards the end of my career I negotiated to be able to work from home on Fridays (analyzing data, writing reports, planning). I was more productive at home, especially writing, because there were no interruptions.

 

[Lewis Clark]

I've worked from home for almost 15 years. If you have the discipline to get the work done while working at home, then I would recommend considering working from home.

There is one disadvantage of being a telecommuter that is potentially significant. There is usually benefit of face time with colleagues and bosses, and working from home will take away this opportunity for face time. Often, people that are out of sight are often out of mind, and this may limit some future opportunities for you. Only you can evaluate how significant this might be in your situation.

 

[RunningBum]

I'd work from home most days, but it doesn't matter what I'd do. What do you want to do? The free food favors the office. Do you mind the commute? Do you like working at home better, or do you like the office atmosphere? Do you want more free time? Where are you more productive? Are you on a team where face to face collaboration is more effective, or is your work mostly independent of others? Those are the important questions that only you can answer.

Lewis Clark's point above is a good one. I worked from home for 10 years and definitely saw this.

Start ups grow. The free food might not last, but so might the telecommuting opportunity.

 

[scrabbler1]

One big step toward my eventual ER was to switch from working full-time to working part-time and mostly from home. This began back in 2001 and lasted for 2 years when the company suddenly ended its open-ended telecommuting in 2003. I could still work part-time, I just had to fulfill my weekly hours worked only from the office.


I really liked the mostly telecommuting gig. The commute was the main reason I nearly left the company in 2001. It had become more tiring and sometimes sickening over the years, and it got worse when the company relocated from lower Manhattan to Jersey City, New Jersey in May of 2001 (4 months before the 9/11 attacks). I was able to regain some control over my personal life which included starting up some new hobbies and resurrecting some old ones.


The deal I made with my division's management allowed me some flexibility in the hours I worked. About 1/3 of my 20 hours were fulfilled on the one day I was at the office. The rest were about evenly split between weekday hours my coworkers knew I would be online and available and some "anytime" hours of my choosing. That second type of hours were sometimes in the evening, which worked out well for everyone because one of my main tasks was maintaining my programs for the division. It was always better to take those programs down at night when nobody was around to try to run them.


I went out of my way to not abuse the deal I had. If my workload, which had been reduced when I began this part-time, telecommuting deal, was light, I'd use some PTO to fill in the idle hours. It didn't happen often, but it wasn't a rare event, either.


I didn't have DSL at the time, only dial-up, so I needed to get a second phone line so I could be reached by phone. They later gave me a VPN connection which I could use with any ISP instead of having to call into their computer system directly.


I wasn't a big socializer with my coworkers, and have always been a loner, so working at home alone in my nice, quiet apartment, was great.


When they ended this great deal in 2003, I knew this would be by ultimate undoing. The hated commute had returned, even 3 days a week. It caused me to really ramp up my ER efforts. Five years later, to the exact day the telecommuting ended (10/31), I ERed. I hated the commute so much more by 2008 that in my exit interview, I told the HR rep that if they had offered me my old deal back, I would have turned it down because once a week was too much.


Ironically, some years later, I learned that the company reinstated some telecommuting privileges to all employees, although not to the extent I had.

 

[pb4uski]

Another idea... perhaps do a little of both... mostly from home but a day in the office every so often for face time.

 

[Music Lover]

Another idea... perhaps do a little of both... mostly from home but a day in the office every so often for face time.

I never worked at home but know people that did. Most of them went in to the office once a week or so even if it wasn't necessary to get the face time.

 

[pb4uski]

^^^ I worked from home for 13 years but got plenty of face time when meeting colleagues at client locations or firm training/conferences or those occasional times that I did spend time in the office.

 

[Aerides]

How old are you and how many years do you have left in your career? If it's on the low side, you can ignore most of these replies as they are from the perspective of finishing your working years - that last 5 or 10 years where you have already "maxed out" and not looking to advance.

If you want to advance still, get promoted, get the big raises, the cool assignments, etc., then stick to in-person if that's the norm in your workplace, at least 3 days per week.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I still feel like I benefit from at least 2 days a week in the office, but my commute is only about 1:00-1:20 total both ways, and I often need to track down certain people and work through or demonstrate a problem face-to-face, or ask them if they can do something right then and there. Calling around isn't quite as effective. But I do really value being able to WFH two days a week, sometimes three.

 

[JoeWras]

As a colleague working from the office, I found it frustrating when my work-from-home colleagues were actually working-from-shopping-child-chores.

Needed an answer or quick meeting? Couldn't get it most of the time.

That's not working.

To OP, not saying you will do this. Just saying if you work from home, be available just as if you were in the office.

 

[MRG]

I quit my j*b a year early because of w*rking from home. Maybe it's a good place?

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

As a colleague working from the office, I found it frustrating when my work-from-home colleagues were actually working-from-shopping-child-chores.

Needed an answer or quick meeting? Couldn't get it most of the time.

That's not working.

To OP, not saying you will do this. Just saying if you work from home, be available just as if you were in the office.

+1. For that reason I purposefully respond a lot faster when I telework; if I'm in the office, and I'm in the middle of something, I don't feel the need to respond to IMs or emails immediately. But if I'm teleworking, I'm trying to avoid the perception you mention, of not really working. And I do sometimes run laundry while I work from home, but honestly I try to hurry, and in the end I spend a LOT less time doing chores like that than I do away from my desk at the office for various reasons (aforementioned face time, break room, meetings, etc.).

 

[street]

I have no advise for you but just a comment about working from home. I have never had to deal with commute issues like most of you had to deal with. I could walk or drive to work and be there in less then 5 minutes.

I don't know how productive I would be working from home or motivated. For me I would be more focused being in an office and contending to business in a business atmosphere. I would get very lazy I would bet. JM2¢

 

[SumDay]

I telecommuted for ~14 years, full time. I'm an introvert, so spending hours each day on global conference calls took care of any human interaction requirements I had. I was always very attentive to instant messages, emails and calls. I had cordless phones I could take outside when the dog was doing his thing. I made it a point to be highly accessible. But I also mastered the art of throwing stuff in the crockpot when I was on a conference call.

I found I lost weight when I moved to this telecommuting job, as no one was sending me emails telling me there were donuts, or leftover cake or client meal leftovers in the break room. I just couldn't refuse those.

Could you go in one day a week and get your office food fix, and schmooze some too?

Groceries are cheap. Get yourself in a routine of yogurt & fruit for lunch, and something easy for breakfast and then make dinner your splurge of the day.

Telecommuting was a dream come true for my situation.

 

[tmm99]

Knowing myself, I would go to work because I'm not an extravert to start with, and I could use the social aspect of being at work, but as I worked in IT, and saw people wearing headphones working (hint "Don't bug me right now, I'm coding!", it may be easier to focus at home. You can eat cheaply if you're at home, so I wouldn't fret too much on the free food aspect. If you don't think you'll miss the social aspect of work, I'd seriously consider working from home.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

That was one nice thing about the USA vs Canada and the UK., at least when I was w*orking. I spent 30 years in the USA and out of those 30 years I spent about 18 of them w*rking from home and almost 10 of those years retired. I left to visit company sites (local and somewhat remote) or to go to the airport, again to visit company sites all over the world. So I really did not know any better. One nice perk also was a company car or car allowance.

 

[RunningBum]

+1. For that reason I purposefully respond a lot faster when I telework; if I'm in the office, and I'm in the middle of something, I don't feel the need to respond to IMs or emails immediately. But if I'm teleworking, I'm trying to avoid the perception you mention, of not really working. And I do sometimes run laundry while I work from home, but honestly I try to hurry, and in the end I spend a LOT less time doing chores like that than I do away from my desk at the office for various reasons (aforementioned face time, break room, meetings, etc.).

That's what I would do too. I'd also do things like check email almost as soon as I got up and try to respond if it was a quickie, then take a breakfast break. I'd also check email once or twice most evenings. Some people would rather not, to better separate work from home life, and I wasn't trying to give the impression that I was working the whole time, but it did show that I wasn't just 9 to 5. A bit part of my job was product support, and I could get cases from 2nd level support from all over the world at any time. If I could ask for follow up info during their shift they might have it for me in my morning, which saved a day's turnaround if I was just on 9 to 5.

 

[Bir48die]

I've done both. Agree that you need to be a self starter and internally motivated. Working in shorts or sweats was awesome. Could pick up the kids at middle school down the road. I will say there are things you miss like being in "the know" about things just by being in the office. Plus you miss some of the day to day contact with co-workers. The freedom and not having people know when you come and go is such a plus. Also there are the busybodies that want to get in your stuff at the office

 

[CaliKid]

Home.

Only advantage to work is building the comradery amongst co-workers which could help for building career capital. Otherwise, home!