Working from home. Anyone do it?
 

Heya,

First of the year I'll be starting a new job where I'm going to work from home. I'm a fiber network engineer so basically a computer nerd. What are the goods and bads of working from home? I have a 3 1/2 year old that isn't going to school, so I know that's going to be some work along with a wife who is a stay at home mom.

Should be interesting to say the least... :D

Get an office room, and make sure they know its off limits. Otherwise you won't get crap done.

If you've got flexible hours, it's great! I did it for years and liked it a lot. The few cons were far outweighed by the many pros. It made things more flexible for me as well as me being a lot more flexible for the company and is a win/win for everybody. It's great to be able to roll out of bed and be working in 5 minutes instead of dealing with getting ready and even a minor commute. It's great to have your kitchen there at lunch time as well. Enjoy!

I do hear that some folks end up working a lot more hours, but that's up to you and your time management and self control imo.

Reminds me of this comic. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home

Sorry I dont have anything to contribute! :p

I have done it before and do it now. I don't have any problem with motivation - as Brett said I actually work more at home that when I worked in an office. I am self employed though so that makes a difference. Keep the wife under control - when I was married I actually had to go get an office outside the house because she wouldn't leave me alone when I was trying to work.

I've been WFH for 5 years now. It works out great for me. I still work a lot, but it's my own business so that's kind of par for the course. My hours are typically very flexible, so if it's nice out I can disappear for a bike ride. If I want to see people, I go to client sites. If I don't, I chill at home. I don't have motivation issues - but again that may be partially because I'm the boss. It might be a different story if I still lived with people...

Overall I think it's great...

I work from home maybe 30-50% of the time. I'm self employed so I can decide if & when I want to. It's great.

My kids are older now but I will say the having defined boundaries when you close the office door is important. When the kids were really little, I put a lock on the office door - they just didn't understand and would barge in talking loud asking for something when I'm on an important client call. As they got a bit older, I didn't have to lock it because they knew what that look on my face meant! Now, they're teenagers, there's no issues about that and I think that sometimes it's nice to have them in my office listening to phone calls now & then. It leads to cool discussions about "what does that customer want?", "how do you do that?" "where do you find customers?", etc.

Over Thanksgiving, I had my parents stay for the week. I worked at home for several days and the same thing came up. Every 15 minutes it seemed, one of them would come in and interrupt by asking where something was, if I needed something, etc. Or, Dad would use the other computer and read me e-mails or news on-line. I wouldn't even be on the phone but it's hard to write or work through numbers with someone talking to you in your office.

I have a mostly stay at home wife and a 3.5 yr old too. The little does go to "school" two to three days a week, but when they are home I can not get a thing done. Totally need my own space at home for work only. My wife will also schedule personal things because I am home, which defeats the purpose of working from home too.

I love to work from home and when it is quite there I can crank out a ton of stuff which is nice.

I worked for a large company for 3 years from my home office. After I was laid off there was no way I was going back to the cubicle life. I started my own marketing company and even though I rent an office, it's pretty much like working from home.

First off, let me say, the only real problem I ran into actually working from home was since I was home, everyone thought (Oh Dads home so he's not working) I would be on an important call and all of the sudden my son would pop in flying his helicopter or something, and I'm sure you could hear it on the other end of the phone. Even though i would get a tad angry because the family could never really grasp that even though I was home I was actually working. I decided to rent a small office to avoid the little distractions. I still split my time working in the office and at home. The cool thing is, with the nature of my business, if I am not out selling, I can easily sit at starbucks with my laptop and work there or anywhere that has wifi. I can tell you this, once you get a taste, you will never want to do it any other way.

Does anyone mind sharing what they do/what business they run? I'm curious, mainly as to whether they're product businesses, marketing businesses, support businesses, etc.

As a marine surveyor my time is split pretty even between the bilge and the desk. I built an addition three years ago when my third was born to replace the office space I was loosing to her bedroom. I wish I had leased an office. But I would want it close and cheep and private. I get distracted in my home office. Maybe its adult ADD but from this chair I have within arms length all my wake boards, golf clubs, rowing machine, dart board and TV with X box. Oh and Wakeworld on a computer with no company filter. Hmmm.. maybe that's my problem....
Granted I have three kids under 10 and a stay at home wife with her own priorities.
Sean I feel you bro. Somehow her shopping without children on a Tuesday gets put in front of paying clients. Drives me crazy.
Watch out for spending too much time in the office as well. Set regular hours and stick to them if you can. If you find yourself skulking off at 0600 with your morning coffe and running back in after supper then you are going to be either single or in counseling very soon.

I have tried it in the past. It's not for me. I prefer the office environment to work in...sure ther are distractions, but I like to think I manage my time very effectively. I get alot more done in my office than I ever do at home. I prefer the structure of a day that envolves going into an office for a set number of hours every day. I do consider myself lucky b/c I'm fortunate enough to have a job that when I leave the office at nite , I rarely if ever am required to do anyhting untill I return the next day.

I'm in a weird hybrid work siuation now....

I was hired as an intern, did well enough where now I'm a project engineer working 2/3 days a week at the plant - another 3 days a week from my appt. at school (still have 8 credits to finish before the degree).

...... what would take me 1 hr at the office takes 5 at the appt.... no kids, no wife, just a roomie. It maybe harder though because of the "college" life. Ps3/Xbox, the fact people start boozing on average at like 3 pm, and all the other non-sense that is hard to avoid in college..... with that said, I don't have an office here, just a desk in our basement - right next to a plasma tv/ projector and a ****load of video games. I would think if we had an extra room I could get a lot more done.