

The Dangers of Working From Home - ajv
http://sunshineny.com/working-from-home/is-working-from-home-worth-it

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hkuo
If these are the only dangers from working from home, I would take that over
the dangers from working in an office. I haven't even given those dangers much
thought, but I'll start with a few.

1) Commute - wasted time and energy sitting in traffic, plus added stress
depending on amount of traffic. (not to mention all that gasoline!)

2) The walk-by - trying to get work done when anyone can just saunter over and
ask you a question, or just shoot the sh*t.

3) Noise and smells - people playing music randomly, loud conversations,
YouTube videos, someone eating a smelly burrito, chinese food

4) The cold starter - someone has a cold but feels fine or wants to show they
got guts, spreads the cold to 50% of the office.

5) Constant trivialities - walkby hellos, lunch anyone?, who's driving?,
peeing next to someone in the bathroom stall

Anything else to add?

~~~
edw519
_Anything else to add?_

Yea, plenty.

\- I impose discipline upon others. Since you can't just poke your head in
with an "idea", you have to think about it first (imagine that). If your email
doesn't include enough data for me, I say so and hit "reply". Same for phone
calls and voice mails. Signal to noise ratio increases dramatically.

\- My performance metric is WorkCompleted / WorkPlanned because that's all
people can witness. Not 101 other meaningless metrics like number of sessions
running, time spent on internet, time spent BSing, time spent on cell phone,
time spent at lunch, shirt color, or droplets of sweat on forehead.

\- Wake up at xx:34 a.m. Start work at xx:37 a.m. (if I want to).

\- Wake up in the middle of the night with an idea. Log in and work on it
immediately.

\- No meaningless team building, HR, or mandatory meetings.

\- I eat what I want, when I want, where I want. No more vending machine or
carryout crap.

\- Headphones or speakers? Oh wait, never mind.

\- Casual dress, gym shorts, or warmups. Again, never mind.

\- Cats often make better companions than cubicle mates.

\- I hate shaving.

~~~
wlievens
Oh my, you couldn't be more correct.

I've got one more to add: people going in and out and in and out for their
smokes. Plus the smell they bring in. Quit already!

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hexis
This does a better job of illustrating the problems of credibility on a
corporate blog. I mean, really, this company is selling you office space and
is blogging about the downsides of working at home? I bet I could find lots of
blog posts about the downsides of cooking at home on lots of restaurant blogs.

~~~
gcheong
The HR dept. at the last company I worked at used a similar pitch based on a
"research document" in an attempt to sell the programmers on how much better
bench seating in an open floor plan vs cubicles would be for productivity.

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mark_l_watson
A sensationalist article title, for sure. My answers to the three "dangers"
listed in the article:

No separation between home and work: in the late afternoon I shut down my
computer and have a glass of wine and snacks with my wife. Work day is
officially over.

The prevalence of distractions: earphones.

Lack of human interaction: I broke up my work day today by spending 90 minutes
at our local shooting range with my wife and three friends. On Mondays and
Thursdays I go on 2 to 3 hour hikes with several people. (Anyway, human
contact is probably over rated :-)

The bottom line is that people should do whatever works for them. One caveat
about working at home: you either really have to love your work or to have a
strong work ethic.

~~~
mattm
I like the lack of human interaction. After working from home for a while, I
found myself going regularly to hobbies in the evening to get human
interaction. I much prefer this way.

~~~
derefr
Indeed. It's a general question of what you'd rather do: spend all day doing
grudging, necessary work with alongside people who happen to do the same kind
of grudging, necessary work as you do, then go home and "unwind" by spending
time alone—or do all your grudging necessities on your own, and then unwind by
spending time having fun alongside people _who like having the same kind of
fun_? One social group seems much more likely to promote emotional health
(though both can be intellectually stimlating.)

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gcheong
The no separation between home and work in my case is more of a mental thing
than a physical one. If I'm caught up in a problem, I tend to obsess on it no
matter where I am and my ability to get away from a problem seems to be more
about having satisfied my brain that I have some kind of solution or approach
to it worked out than my physical location.

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bmj
I just don't buy the "you won't be distracted in the office" argument. I work
from home ~12 hours a week, and I find being in the office _more_ distracting
because people are constantly badgering me with questions. And I see plenty of
other people wasting time talking around the proverbial water cooler.

Working from home requires discipline, especially when it comes to unplugging
from work. When working from home, I try to provide a schedule of availability
to my co-workers, so there's no expectation that I'm going to answer an email
at 6:30 PM while I'm eating with my family. There are also days, however, that
because of family schedules, that I work from, say, 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM, and
folks know they can contact me 'til that point.

~~~
Goronmon
I'm not sure why people asking questions in the office is considered a bad
thing. Sure, if they are inane questions not related to stuff you or they are
working on, then yes, that could get really annoying. But if people are asking
questions that help them get work done or to clarify some aspect of something
they are working on, isn't that kind of a good thing?

By working from home and avoiding distractions caused by other people's
questions, it seems like you trading other people's productivity (you are
making it harder for them to get answers to their questions) in order to boost
your own.

~~~
bmj
I'm not saying that people asking work-related questions is a Bad
Thing(TM)--I'm saying the assertion that you can easily get into a
distraction-free groove in the office is not necessarily true. It might be
true in the case of a small start-up, but I've never found it to be the case
in my experience (and I've never worked in an office with more than 40 or 50
people).

At home, I can close to the door to our "office" and everyone knows that I am
not to be disturbed. At the office, I'm in an open cube plan, so short of
doing some sort of jwz-style camo netting, it's harder to convey "leave me
alone."

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jemfinch
Wait, a company selling/leasing office space writes an article about how
people shouldn't work from home?

Yawn.

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ippisl
What: Journal of Applied Psychology article about teleworking and professional
isolation ...

Bottom line: The authors surveyed 261 professional-level teleworkers at a
large corporation (80,000 workers) to study the effects of professional
isolation, which is defined as a state of mind that one is out of touch with
others in the workplace, on job performance and turnover intentions.
Professional isolation led to lower job performance and lower turnover
intentions. The effect on turnover intentions was contrary to expectations.
The authors argue that this unexpected effect may be due to professionally
isolated teleworkers losing faith in their skills and knowledge and their
ability to find alternative employment. Another possible explanation may be
that teleworkers face family or dual-career constraints due to which they
telecommute as a way to maintain their job. Or it may be that those who
telecommute enjoy its benefits more fully, so that despite professional
isolation, they don’t seek employment elsewhere. The authors report other
findings too. For instance, professional isolation led to even lower job
performance for those who spent greater time teleworking and lesser time
interacting face-to-face. In other words, the negative effect of professional
isolation on job performance reduced for those who teleworked less as well as
for those who engaged in extensive face-to-face. To reduce professional
isolation, the authors make several suggestions. One of the suggestions is to
include structuring activities between coworkers to ensure sufficient levels
of task and social exchanges, so as to build and strengthen interpersonal
connections while achieving work objectives.

Source: <http://www.leadingvirtually.com/?p=157> , which is a great blog on
all aspects of remote work.

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lsemel
There are plenty of distractions in an office as well -- chitchat, meetings,
poor environment not under your control (e.g. too hot or too cold) and noise.
You do need to be disciplined because there's none of the peer pressure that
arises from being around other people who are busy working. Additionally, I'd
only work from home if living in a big city, in order to combat isolation. In
a city you have access to people, whether by interspersing meetings into your
day or simply stepping outside, and this combats isolation. I would not enjoy
working at home in the suburbs.

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wglb
Just short of a self-serving advertisement. As someone who has worked at home
for a substantial portion of my <redacted> years long career, and have managed
teams that work exclusively at home, what works is 1) have an office with a
door that closes and make sure even the most slow-to-learn family member knows
to treat the closed door as you being out at the office 2) I have found more
distractions in corporate workspaces than at home. See #1 for reducing
distractions 3) Find or build a community that is refreshing--it is likely to
be better for you in any case.

There are certainly some office situations that are impossible to duplicate
from home, even with lots of electronic communication, however. They are quite
rare in my <redacted> experience.

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abyssknight
This is very, very true. I worked on a start up for a friend of mine years
ago, and I lived in his guest room. I woke up, rolled out of bed, walked 2
feet to my desk, and coded for my 4 hours work day, then some at night, and it
was exhausting. I know, that sounds crazy, 4 hour work days and being
exhausted, but when you work where you sleep you get pretty confused. The 4
hour work day was mostly due to distractions: video games, walking in the
woods, arguing with cofounder about randomness. On top of that, where we were
was so isolated (about 16 miles from civilization) so I never really saw
anyone but my cofounder. Things got tense sometimes, and there was no one to
vent to.

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russm
hey guys-

i do freelance social media for sunshine as one of many, many freelance
projects that i have, and one of the fringe benefits of putting in a few hours
a week for sunshine is that i get to work out of either of the Manhattan
locations. it's a bit of trek, since if i'm at home i'm in astoria and if i'm
with my girlfriend i'm in greenpoint, but i've found that the act of getting
up and actually going _in_ to a desk space, rather than saying 'yup, gonna
start working" at _arbitrarily assigned time_ , even figuring in the hour of
transit.

it's true that a lot of the same distractions, or rather variations on such,
can exist in a co-working space. annoyingly loud phone calls, bothers from
home, cat videos on the internet (sooo many cat videos. SO. MANY.).

but in a co-working space, every distraction is an opportunity, really-someone
COULD be bothering you to see if you do graphic design, because they're
looking for someone to do their business cards. and i've found those
opportunities outweigh the negatives? because when it comes to stuff like not
slacking around on the internet, that's still a temptation anywhere-may as
well place yourself smack dab in the middle of networking opportunities.

that's just my two cents-i'd probably STILL be working from home if my work at
sunshine hadn't introduced me to Coworking with a capital "C", but, honestly,
I've tried to work from home and it just doesn't happen.

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amosamos
We live in the best networking city in the world as far as I am concerned and
the last thing I want to do is stay at home when opportunity is out there. I
am currently working out of Sunshine Suites @ Tribeca West and I got to tell
you I really benefit from meeting a ton of entrepreneurs, in fact I just heard
a lecture in one of the conference rooms about social media law really
helpful.

~~~
pyre
Huh? Who is 'we?' What city are you talking about? How does 'working from
home' mean that you _literally_ have to be at home working instead of just
remotely working from a cafe or something where you can also interact with
people?

The fact that you _just_ created your account for this comment smells fishy to
me too. It's a little suspicious that on an article where people are
commenting that the author has a conflict of interest (i.e. claiming that
working from home is bad, while selling office space), someone creates an
account _just_ to comment in favor of the product that the company is selling.
You're not agreeing with the article (that working from home is bad) so much
as you are praising/pimping the product.

This is one of the reasons that I feel 'crowd-sourcing' isn't as important as
'social-networking' because I would trust someone I know more than some random
person that shows up just to make a single comment. You _could_ be a real
person that just wants to share you experiences, but you could also just be a
marketing/social-media person for Sunshine Suites that's trying to 'drum up'
some interest in the business.

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jsz0
You could easily argue these points the other direction. To me the office
environment is really distracting. I focus better at home. If I had my own
sound proof office at work with a big, lockable, door I'd probably get an
equal level of focus but that's becoming a rarity in the cubicle environment
for most people. Ideally a mix of both works best. I like having the option.

~~~
kentosi
The fact that you have a "sound proof office at work" seems to agree with the
article.

It's not that you're travelling to a corporate office environment that helps
you work, but the fact that you're in a separate environment to your usual
home that's distraction-free (be it a library, or as in your case, an separate
office room).

Had you not had the sound-proof office, you'd easily get distracted by the TV,
the book you were reading yesterday evening, the kitchen, etc.

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brc
They forgot to mention one of the dangers of working from an office : paying
exorbitant rent that you could save by working from home.

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pw0ncakes
Hard-line 9-to-5 sucks much worse than working from home, but the best is to
have an office available with flexible hours. I think the optimum is somewhere
around 20-30 office hours plus 20-30 work-from-home hours.

One of the lingering benefits of old-style work environments is the idea that
a corporation is invested in your career development; you're _their_ employee.
In practice, a lot of corporations ignore this responsibility, but that's
another topic... If you work from home, it becomes more visibly evident (or at
least seems to be) that you're just providing services in exchange for money;
there isn't even the pretense of that sense of responsibility.

