Anyone telecommute?

[Minnie]

My team is telecommuting this week due to construction.

Today was day 1 and I can't believe how much I got done The lack of distractions and nonsense was refreshing. There are times when the team needs to be together and for security reasons the system was slower but still - wow

Anyone do this regularly or even on a part time basis? What are the positives / negatives that you experience?

FYI - My only DS is a 17 so no small children in our home.

 

[Cindy B]

My DH works full time from home. His team has a meeting once a month or every two months with his full group but otherwise its is full time work at home.

It has its advantages-- no commuting costs (the last time he put gas in his car was 2010!), there are no parking, tolls and train costs. There is no work wardrobe-- clothes are needed, but not fancy clothes!

Disadvantages: you deal with outside noises, landscapers, road construction, and people not realizing you are "working". Sometimes there are interruptions in phone and internet services.

 

[m&m's mom]

I have been telecommuting ("homeshoring") for 5 years. For 15 years I drove 26 miles one way to work everyday in traffic when they picked a few of us to telecommute. Since I had called in sick 2 days in 15 years (now 20 years)- they figured I was a good risk.
I LOVE it!!!! Gas is so expensive and the mileage and wear and tear has stopped almost completely on my car.
I personally do not get distracted as I am a programmer so I have to concentrate.
I still go in the office when I want/need to and "Chat" with my buddies every day. I feel completely "plugged in" the office. I consider myself very, very lucky!

 

[ssawka]

people not realizing you are "working".

This was the biggest one for me when I used to telecommute! In my previous job I had the option of working from home and I loved it, except at the time DW was a SAHM and I guess she was bored because she would be trying to talk to me constantly when I was trying to work.

Sometimes there are interruptions in phone and internet services.

This one cracks me up because I actually have a better Internet connection at home than I have in the office.

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Yes my DH can't believe how much he gets done when he works from home.

 

[scrapquitler]

My team is telecommuting this week due to construction.

Today was day 1 and I can't believe how much I got done The lack of distractions and nonsense was refreshing. There are times when the team needs to be together and for security reasons the system was slower but still - wow

Anyone do this regularly or even on a part time basis? What are the positives / negatives that you experience?

FYI - My only DS is a 17 so no small children in our home.

My husband telecommutes, I am a SAHM and I homeschool my DS8. So we are all home all the time DD goes to school. Most of the time it's great, but we can get on each others nerves. He is a software developer.

DH goes to the office once or twice a week (sometimes more, sometimes less). He locks himself in the office and comes out when he wants coffee or food. He spends most of the day in front of the laptops with Yahoo messenger running and on the phone almost all day long. I can never use the phone, and I have to keep DS quiet and away from DH office whenever he is on the phone. DS and I often leave the house when DH has a big important meeting or is working on something that requires intense concentration.

One of the problems is that DH never leaves his office some days, and he tends to work much longer hours than he would if he were in an office...it's hard for him to sign off and stop than it would be if he were 'going home' at the end of the day. This does tend to be an issue at times, and I have to remind him to take a break, go outside and take a walk, go for a ride to get out of the house, etc.

It's also nice for me though, because I can generally plan to go to Doctor's appointments, run errands, etc and not have to drag DS with me if he doesn't want to come. As long as DH isn't in an intense meeting, I can leave DS at home with him and run to my appointments.

And we usually eat lunch together every day (dinner is much harder because of kid's activities) with DS. DD is at school, so she isn't here for that, but we get some 'family time' during the day that other people don't get. It doesn't happen all the time, we always need to be flexible depending on what DH work is happening.

Another downside is that he deals with clients in India, Europe, the midwest, the west coast and occasionally, Australia. This is a because he often has conference calls in the middle of the night, early in the morning, or late at night at odd hours depending on what client is the focus and what work is happening (when a new system upgrade is about to roll out, this gets crazy).

Overall, we like having him home in spite of the downsides. I'd miss him being at work everyday.

 

[ancestry]

Well I work from home but I wouldn't necessarily call it telecommuting because there isn't any office to go to if I wanted.

The thing that I find the most difficult is for family members to understand that I am working. Because I am in the house there is the expectation that I should be doing the laundry or getting dinner ready. When the kids or husband come home they can't understand why dinner isn't ready when I was home all day.

While it can be a lot of fun at first, after time it can be very isolationist to work from home. I begin to miss the adult interaction that comes with working in an office. Yes, there are emails, phone calls, etc. but it isn't the same type of interaction that happens in an office or in my case a classroom.

It also takes a lot of self-discipline to get stuff done on some days. Without the office atmosphere some days it is really easy to get distracted with life's tasks and it is a challenge to remain focused on work.

 

[angierae]

I LOVED telecommuting, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I worked for a company while living in Nashville, and then when I moved back to Michigan I brought my job with me. I got tons done without interruption, and I didn't find it isolating at all - I'm not really a "people person" and I had IM to talk to people. In today's day and age with Facebook and Twitter I'd probably never feel lonely.

I was done with work by 4:00 when DD got home from school, and we were able to run errands BEFORE DINNER, which was awesome. Now a days I don't get home until 6 and the whole evening is a huge hectic mess.

I was able to take a five minute break here and there so I *did* do laundry during the day (saved the folding for after work) and I'd run and do my grocery shopping during my lunch break. I always felt like I had so much more time. I was also always home for deliveries or if I needed a repairman to come to the house.

I miss it, a lot. It's been over 5 years since I left that job (not by choice, I was laid off) and I still miss it.

 

[bettymae1121]

I've been telecommuting full time for almost 4 years now, after having to drive in to my company's office for 8 years before that. I can't think of a single negative thing to say about it. I work as a travel agent for a major non-profit, my co-workers and I book all the travel for their over 400 meetings a year.

Obviously the first thing is the lack of commute. I used to drive 45 minutes one way to/from the office, so that's 90 minutes of my day that isn't wasted anymore. Another is I have peace and quiet so I can concentrate on my work. Because I still do "phone center" type work, I can't get side tracked by household chores, I'm pretty much tied to the office so I can answer the phone when it rings. I'm still connected to my co-workers through Yahoo IM and the phone, and we make a point to meet for dinner once every few months (on our own time and dime) so we feel that we are still connected as a team.

Having people respect that just because I work from home, doesn't mean I'm "on call" 24/7 hasn't been a problem for me, once the call center software that runs my phone sees that it's 4:30, all calls get directed to the department voice mail. And I shut down my work PC, so I'm not tempted to go back later in the evening and look at my email. I keep work to work hours only. My boss has had problems with this though, since the higher ups in the organization all have her home and cell numbers, if they feel they need assistance during off hours, they will call her directly rather than our after hours service.

Another huge bonus for me is that my DH works nights. Before when I went to the office I'd only see him for about an hour in the evenings, from the time I got home until the time he had to leave for work. Now I see him in the afternoons when he wakes up and I have more time with him at night because I'm already home and don't have to waste time driving from the office.

And of course, the cost savings for gas, clothes, and lunches out really add up. My company also pays for our internet, so that's one less bill too. I started working at home just as gas prices started to shoot up that one year, so because I no longer needed to use my car, my DH was able to take it rather than his gas-hog truck, and between me not driving at all and his switch to our fuel efficient vehicle, we saved hundreds of dollars each month.

The one thing I'm not sure about what we're going to do is child care. We don't have kids but hope to have them some day. It's seems silly to pay for child care when there are two adults home all day, but I need to work and DH needs to sleep. I'm thinking of having a part-time nanny in the mornings (DH can take over in the afternoons once he wakes up), but I'm not sure what something like that costs. We'll figure it out when the time comes, I guess!

 

[DawnM]

I would LOVE it if DH could telecommute! Unfortunately, he can't.

Dawn

 

[prncess674]

I work as a consultant and unless I have to be at a client site then I work from home. We do have offices all over the country so no matter if I am in Disney, home visiting my parents in New Orleans or spending time visiting friends in San Francisco I can always get to an office for full office needs such as copying, printing, access to phones, etc.

We have all gone very virtual and it is good for employees as well as the company. Very few people have a permanent desk in the office. We have a "hoteling" concierge in every office. You can either make a reservation online or see the concierge in the morning and they assign you a desk for the day (or week, etc) All the desks are stocked with the basic office supplies.

The company benefits since there aren't a bunch of empty desks for people rarely in the office so they pay less in office space rent. Employees benefit because of the reduced commuting costs, etc.

The big pro to me is being able to wake up at 7:45am and walk into the kitchen, flip on the coffee pot watch a few minutes of news and still manage to be on my 8am conference call. Also since I am home I can do little things around the house as a stretch break. I throw a load of towels in the wash and then have my evenings free. My company also gets more work time out of me because before I would leave the office at 6pm and not get home till probably 7pm. Now I can work till 6:30pm and I am still "off" earlier than I was if I had gone to the office.

The biggest con is the sometimes lack of real human interaction. If I am getting bored at home I will sometimes just pack up and go work at a local cafe for a change of scenery. It may not be the same as working in the office, but at least I feel like I am part of society. The other big con is the urge to work in PJs all day. Sure it is great every now and then, but if you sit around in PJs there is temptation to just be lazy. I don't put on my typical work clothes every day, but I do change out of my PJs so as to signal to myself that this is work time and not nap time.

 

[QVCshopper]

I do, but part-time at night. I used to go into my job for two years before switching to telecommuting. Driving home at one in the morning after watching little kids all day wasn't fun, especially with deer and policemen wondering why you're out. I do get a lot more done at home than when I go in to the office and talk to my boss.

For about a year, I pretended to still go into the office because my kids just wouldn't leave me alone. I'd sneak around the house and go into the basement, until one day my DD hid in the basement window well during hiding and go seek and saw me. She came running in and that was hard at first, but now they know to come visit for a minute and then go back upstairs.

Anyway, if they make me switch back, I'm not sure what I'd do. Staying home has been so nice, it's only my boss and I during the night anyway, so there's no real reason to go in.

My biggest problem is falling asleep. It's hard to just switch off, so I'm up a lot until 2 sometimes 3 in the morning and my kids get up around 8. At least its just 3 nights a week.

 

[pooh17]

I've been working from home for over 8 years.

The upsides of WAH have been covered - more productive, more time to get things done at home, more time with family, save on commuting, food, clothing costs.

The downsides for me are:

Review time - most years I have been a top rated employee (this is important because its tied to bonus pay). I had 1 manager in my 8 years who was not supportive of WAH employees and refused to give us the top rating (for no good reason).

Power/Phone/Internet outages - my company doesn't care if there is a storm in my area and I have no power or lose phone/internet. I'm expected to get my work done and call into scheduled meetings on time.

Longer hours - I tend to work 12 hours a day at home. If I'm busy, I don't take breaks. WAH isn't always good for my health - make a forced effort to excercise daily.

 

[Hoodie]

I do one day a week (our policy doesn't allow more). It's by far my most productive day. It did take a while to get used to the workflow. I'd bring home what I'd normally do in a day and be done by lunch. Now I always bring home my entire "to do" list and get a huge chunk done. We recently had several people added to telework as part of our disaster plan. I kept telling them to plan on a lot more work for the day then they would think. Sure enough, we were all home testing our system capacity and by 1-2 the others were sending me e-mails saying that they had gone through what they had taken home already!

It's nice to save some gas money and to work in our PJs for a bit. It's also nice to actually be home to receive packages. I usually try to still take a lunch where I'll run out to the store or pick up dry cleaning - things that otherwise would be added to the weekend chore list, so that helps as well. I do end up working longer usually because I don't usually pay attention to the clock until DH comes through the door.

That said, getting DH to realize that I was working and still wouldn't necessarily have time to clean the bathroom, do all the laundry (I will throw it in, but folding is out of the question) and even get dinner started was a problem. He also insists on calling me from work when I'm at home. He doesn't do it when I'm in the office, so I don't know why he thinks he needs to call me a couple of times a day when I'm telecommting.