Thoughts on working from home?

[IndyRed128i]

For those of us that used to go to the office, how are you liking working from home? Love it? Hate it? In Between?

I'll be the first to say that prior to the pandemic, I thought having the option to work from home sometimes would be great, but after doing it exclusively, I see its drawbacks.

-No office lunches/lunch with coworkers
-No non computer human interaction throughout the day
-Spotty technology at time
-No company travel until July 2021 at the earliest
-Zoom/Teams is nowhere near as good as in person
NOT EVEN CLOSE

Whats funny is I am interviewing at a new company right now, and they assumed at first that I would be unwilling to give up working at home.

I am honestly ready to go back to an office at least part of the time. How does y'all feel about working at home?

[Merami fan]

Pros:
No traffic.
No stupid meetings.
Less time/effort spent on being presentable.
Better hardware at home.

Cons:
Potentially missing out on a nice office environment, if that applies to you or if you care about that.

I sit in front of a computer most of the day anyway, whether I'm working or not. I'm more productive at home. Actually, I'm most productive when multi-tasking (working on personal projects).

On its own, the time saved by not having to commute far outweighs any negatives for me. While I do enjoy driving, especially in my 3er, I don't enjoy sitting in traffic. Doesn't help that I've only lived in areas with rather bad traffic.

[AmuroRay]

I went from driving 45mins to 1 hour each way at 90ish miles a day, to waking up 10 mins before I have to work, and driving once a week (if even) to the grocery store.

I ****ing love it.

[4Hockey4]

My schedule has changed little since March. Still go into office, occ. work from home. The fact everyone else kills what little traffic we have in Richmond. (ok relative to DC area where I am from)

I hope society stays this way. (not the virus)

[erickonphoenix]

We converted to working 50/50 on site and from home. It's definitely been nice getting back on site since our offices are very nice and have lots of amenities. However, nobody is meeting face to face right now so I'm not sure driving 20 minutes to sit in a glass office and be on Teams calls I could do at home is achieving much more than creating an illusion of normality. I can definitely see why most of my team just elects to remain working from home.

[2000cs]

I go to my office 3 days a week and wfh 2 days. My office at home is smaller than my work office and, being in the basement, lacks windows. But I have a nice set of computers/screens, can easily take care of personal work, can walk upstairs and get some sun or eat a snack/lunch, etc. Lots of flexibility/freedom working from home. So much that I’ve had to get strict with myself about my working hours to keep from overdoing it.

At the office it is very quiet because we typically have only 1/3 of employees on any day, sometimes much less. Today so far I have seen one other employee. We have 6’ mandated distancing, all conference and break rooms are closed, one-per-restroom, office doors must be closed, masks in the halls/restrooms, and for cubicles we hung shower curtains from the ceiling to block most airflow. We also added UV lights to the ductwork and regularly replace the filters. If anyone gets a positive test or contact tracing, we sanitize everywhere they were for the past week. We also sanitize the entire building twice a week. Door knobs and high-touch areas are sanitized daily. We have sanitized pads on all push doors, hand rails and other surfaces to prevent the spread of any germs. Temp check on the way in to work and a daily color-coded wrist band to get in, in addition to the usual badge. No lunches together or other congregating.

My home Internet speed is similar to work, but there are some things I have to do in the office (signing documents, checks, etc). As an officer of the company I have a higher level of responsibility for the safety of our employees, and need to be visible as much as circumstances allow (the other two officers cover the days I’m not in the office so one of us is always here, usually two).

We do our own contact tracing in addition to the state’s health dept (we’re faster). We pay for all testing, and pay full wages and benefits for anyone who gets COVID or must quarantine. Anyone who travels out of state (personal, business is forbidden) must complete a travel form to notify us where/when and get a COVID test (negative) before returning to our facilities.

Across our locations (all in one state), we have had a few positive employees and several in home quarantine. None have contact traced to work exposure, which suggests either we’re lucky or all of our measures are helping.

I would love to get back to greeting people, shaking hands, face-to-face meetings and all the rest. That contact is really important for our psychological health, and definitely helps newer employees come up to speed faster. But my guess is that is a 2022 thing unless we can get vaccinated (not sure where we will fall on the priority for that, but I would expect our field people to be high priority and us office drones to be lower). So I am treating this as normal, not temporary. When it changes, we probably won’t return to how we did things a year ago.

On the good news front, we haven’t had significant sick time taken this year as I think all the things we are doing (at work and at home) are keeping away colds and flu too.

[JP10]

Old job I enjoyed working from home. Also had a shitty commute full of traffic through philly so that had something to do with it. Less stressful of a position, which sounds nice, but also boring. I like stress and fast paced work environment.

New job, I hate working from home, only 10 mins from our facility. Luckily I've been in office throughout the pandemic, only have had to work from home the numerous times my fiance has had to go get tested.

I am also significantly more lazy when I work from home, not in regards to my work output, but rather how I feel as a whole. Going into work, I am active throughout the day. Working from home, other then the gym I am sitting all damn day and it bores the ever living hell out of me.

[JasonDot]

It's going really well! My main job has always been flexible, so flexible this year that I picked up 2 side jobs and doubled my creative output while working remote. I still go into the office once a week to make appearances and to make sure no one is squatting in my office.

My main job + 2 side jobs has created an inverse ratio of energy spent to income. Without Covid I wouldn't be sitting in the backyard coaching real estate agents in between workout sessions.

[CTinline-six]

I prefer working from home, especially in this mixed climate. My job requires me to travel to client sites, and most of my commutes everyday are around an hour. It's honestly stupid for me to drive to a site, only to meet with most the people through zoom, while only 1 or 2 of the admins for a school district are onsite.

I also could deal without the increasingly stupid behavior of other drivers which the pandemic has seemed to magnify. Each one has it's benefits, but I seem to get more done when I work from home and I'm not as tired from less commuting. I also don't have kids at home.

[OkieSnuffBox]

In our office, we already WFH 2 days per week. I already had one of the bedrooms as "my office" at the house, and I have a much nicer setup here than at the office. So it wasn't THAT big of a change for me.

It can be hard to maintain focus sometimes and not just pick up the guitar to play around or jump on the PS4. I force myself to get up and away from the screens when I have lunch.

Part of what makes it difficult to focus for me, anyway, is all of our stuff is on long timelines for the most part. We do two releases per year, with sustainability stuff and little special projects inbetween. So deadlines are far out, so I sometimes have a tendency to procrastinate then cram everything in as we approach a deadline. I'm working on getting better about setting early deadlines for myself to get things done.


Overall, I'd be fine WFH permanently when this all blows over. I have plenty of co-workers I'd like to go have a beer or bourbon with, but we are all being cautious about that...........my girlfriend is immune-compromised so I'm being extra careful about doing anything.


One of big bosses has said our offices in the US won't open up again until their is a vaccine.

[EricVR4]

I've loved most of it. I'm a lot more efficient and it's obviously more comfortable working from home. I enjoy the time saved too. I live 15 minutes from the office but just not having to get dressed, pack up my stuff/lunch/, drive, park, walk to the building, etc is so nice. I'm fairly introverted too so I like being able to do things my own way at home without people everywhere.

What I don't like is the expectation that's slowly crept in of everyone being available 24/7. I've been working 50+/week since January of 2019 but that's increased since March to upwards of 70+/week at times.

Going forward I'm doing what I can to manage workloads as it's pretty apparent that my employees (including myself) are suffering from work-from-home burnout. It's a fine line to walk though. We want to make the client happy and keep the work coming given the economy, but at the same time the whole work/life balance has never been more necessary than this year. People need a break.

[JasonDot]

Originally Posted by EricVR4

I've loved most of it. I'm a lot more efficient and it's obviously more comfortable working from home. I enjoy the time saved too. I live 15 minutes from the office but just not having to get dressed, pack up my stuff/lunch/, drive, park, walk to the building, etc is so nice. I'm fairly introverted too so I like being able to do things my own way at home without people everywhere.

What I don't like is the expectation that's slowly crept in of everyone being available 24/7. I've been working 50+/week since January of 2019 but that's increased since March to upwards of 70+/week at times.

Going forward I'm doing what I can to manage workloads as it's pretty apparent that my employees (including myself) are suffering from work-from-home burnout. It's a fine line to walk though. We want to make the client happy and keep the work coming given the economy, but at the same time the whole work/life balance has never been more necessary than this year. People need a break.

That's a good point of the "available 24/7" factor. I noticed a LOT of work chatter; eMail, text messages, calls and whatever have expanded beyond our normal operational hours.

Also to avoid work burnout, have you tried taking micro-breaks throughout the day?

[erickonphoenix]

Originally Posted by JasonDot

That's a good point of the "available 24/7" factor. I noticed a LOT of work chatter; eMail, text messages, calls and whatever have expanded beyond our normal operational hours.

Also to avoid work burnout, have you tried taking micro-breaks throughout the day?

Ditto that here, definitely noticed a lot more off hours requests and I've been feeding the horse a bit by responding to them so I'm to blame as well. I guess technology really does cause about the same amount of problems it solves.

[EricVR4]

Originally Posted by JasonDot

That's a good point of the "available 24/7" factor. I noticed a LOT of work chatter; eMail, text messages, calls and whatever have expanded beyond our normal operational hours.

Also to avoid work burnout, have you tried taking micro-breaks throughout the day?

I starting incorporating some breaks yeah. I have a lot of workout equipment at home so I try to take a 5 minute break every hour and do some movement/stretching/etc. It definitely helps to relax a little and get the blood flowing.

But unfortunately the 24/7 thing is kind of a culture that's developed on the program I'm on. Habits can be hard to break I guess. As an example, I've been out for the last 3 weeks due to shoulder surgery, and despite having my out of office message up saying I'm out on PTI (paid time off for illness), people have still been calling/texting/emailing/messaging/etc non-stop. I've just been ignoring them though

[Colodano]

My current job is not the first time that I have worked from home, as I was a remote salesman for a previous company after moving away from our main hub while I was off on Paternity leave. For some reason, it is even easier now, but that may be different living circumstances i.e. I live alone now.

Very happy to not sit in traffic for an hour every day, and filling up the tank once every 2 months instead of every week.
Not worrying about a fresh shave, or calming my sometimes crazy hair.
Having a full kitchen to make meals as I see fit through the day.
faster internet, and I can have my work setup going, and deal with personal stuff in down moments.
No loud as hell coworker talking right next to me, making it hard to concentrate on my work.
No need to adhere to company dress code at home.


Really the only downside, is I don't have a printer/scanner at home, for the rare occasions that I want to print something. That and I do want a bigger place with a better dedicated office. We are not going back in anytime soon, so I may look at that more in a few months.

[Colodano]

Using a Fitbit is great for the breaks, mine is set to give me a buzz at 10 till the hour, if I haven't hit so many steps in that hour. Great quick reminder to get up and walk around or stretch.

[UncleWede]

I provide technical support to a City/PD, so I'm essential and here every day. The only thing that has changed is that the public isn't allowed into the buildings. A select few have WFH laptops now.

[stein_325i]

Biggest perk of working from home is I much prefer my new co-worker, however he does have a tendency of sleeping on the job.

[nyalpine90]

working from home has been a challenge!
there are pros and cons, but having 2 toddlers and one of them doing PreK
virtual learning, helping him with assignment plus my work/calls/emailing/zoom meetings
not fun.my daughter wants to do everything her brother does lol
its like im physically at home but im not lol. work is very demanding as plumbing engineer.
Sometimes i find it unfair and feel bad for them, my work is part of their environment.
So if i get a call or zoom meeting, I announce that im working from home, and you may hear my kids in background.
I have learn to manage my time better, still be productive for the firm.
my wife wished she was able to work from home!

[2000cs]

Originally Posted by nyalpine90

working from home has been a challenge!
there are pros and cons, but having 2 toddlers and one of them doing PreK
virtual learning, helping him with assignment plus my work/calls/emailing/zoom meetings
not fun.my daughter wants to do everything her brother does lol
its like im physically at home but im not lol. work is very demanding as plumbing engineer.
Sometimes i find it unfair and feel bad for them, my work is part of their environment.
So if i get a call or zoom meeting, I announce that im working from home, and you may hear my kids in background.
I have learn to manage my time better, still be productive for the firm.
my wife wished she was able to work from home!

I’m interested in how the parents of school-age kids are managing through this. The romantic vision is an old timey doctor/veterinarian/lawyer working out of the front room of the house (parlor) while the family occupies the rest of it. I don’t think that fits reality, especially if both parents work or there is only one parent.

[bucketfoot]

The only thing I miss about working from home is the drive to & from work. My commute is a simple 25-30 minute drive with minimal traffic, so I just get to enjoy being in and driving the car.

Short of that, there is nothing that I can't accomplish from home that I can in the office. Our two main offices are in Dallas and LA, so I'm on conference calls either way.

Now completely unrelated to office vs home, but rather COVID related is the fact that I never thought I would say that I am really ready for a business trip

[King Rudi]

I'm our companies Project Coordinator and our facilities 5S/Lean Manufacturing guru, not to mention essential so I'm still in the office 55-60 hours/week. I'd actually like to work from home 50/50. Have no problems being at work, but we have two major projects (a little over $10MM - the pandemic has been good for business....sadly) and an ongoing front office remodel currently and my presence is paramount. WFH/Office 50/50 would be ideal for me since my children are adults and I live alone. I would only want to do 50/50 though as I could see myself getting lazy quickly.

My work set up is pretty nice though, nicer than home anyway. Two pc's, four monitors, large desk, etc. At home I would be hunched over a laptop on my cocktail table. I made it this way for a reason. I used to work from home on occasion, at a former job, and it created issues between trying to balance personal and work life.

The biggest issue I have at the moment, is that our corporate office employees work from home with no set schedule. If I need something reviewed by accounts payable, legal, etc.; I end up with emails at 10:00 - 11:00 pm. If sensitive information is required that I can not access via email on my phone, I'm stuck until I can get in the office to my work machine. Then I won't hear back from corporate until later that night. I understand they have kids and balancing work/personal life as well; but it does make doing business a little more difficult.