Posted by Brian McCullough
Great post on the perils of working from home over at Snakes and Ladders: 7 Reasons For NOT Working From Home.
I know, I know. People hate it when I tell them that working from home is not what it’s cracked up to be. It’s like movie stars saying it sucks to be rich and famous.
For part of the 3 years I lived in NYC, I worked out of my apartment. I can attest to a lot of the perils on this list. I would add the following:
- I most definitely put on weight. Around 25 pounds when all was said and done.
- Workspace is an issue. Especially if you live in a 700 square foot apartment. After a while, you feel like you’re living in your workspace, not working in your home. If I had had a house at the time, with a separate floor or level for the office, maybe it would have felt different.
- They mention tv and other distractions, but I really cannot stress enough the struggle to come up with a plan for discipline and productivity. In my case, I could turn around from my desk and see my bed down the hall. Think about a day, like today, maybe… when you have the monday blahs, and you stayed up too late last night watching basketball, and you literally cannot keep your eyes open. Now imagine your bed is within reach.
- But the overarching thing that I found to be a problem was the lack of human interaction that they mention in points 1 and 3. As much as you might hate your co-workers, at least you have living, breathing human interaction. In my case, I ended up eating out with my laptop every day, using working lunches to get out and about and talk to people, even if they were just waitstaff. It’s depressing when you realize it’s 3.30 in the afternoon, and not only have you not traveled more than 15 feet all day, but you haven’t opened your mouth once to make speech, much less talked to another human being.
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