The advantages of working from home are well known and so frequently mentioned as "the new and coming thing" that I am heartily bored with the subject.I have to declare an interest - I worked from home in Devon for seven years in the late 80s and early 90s, when it really was the new and coming thing, and it was great.
I had the first computer of anyone I knew, linked by phone line to the ICIS mainframe in Paris. Visitors would come and gawp at the strange contraption with its cups that would be connected to the phone receiver as the printer spewed forth thermal paper.
Now successive generations discover that, like wow, you get so much work done, and you save all that time commuting, and you can spend all day in your pyjamas, as they revel in this spanking new idea.
Now the Blog has to speak the unspeakable, and say what everyone who has worked from home for even ONE DAY knows to be true. It's not unmitigated bliss working remotely. Here's a few home truths.
The Blog's Top 10 Disadvantages of Working from Home
1 The Cold - You don't move around so much, so by mid morning your circulation has seized up.
2 Guilt - You know that they all think you're skiving, so if you step away from the Yahoo Messenger screen even to make a cup of coffee, they will all know.
3 Cat on keyboard
4 Boredom - yes, it's just you.
5 Getting stitched up by people in the office when you're not there to protect your interests.
6 Blackberry in the bathroom (see 2)
7 No-one to go to lunch with, which leads to 7a: You're late with all the hot gossip.
8 You never help anyone else out
9 No office birthday cakes, birthday pizza, foreign sweeties, celebration drinks BUT you put on weight from gorging all day on everything in the fridge.
10 New people don't know who you are.
You've missed out the worst of all - seeing all the mess that your family members create around the house while they are relaxing and you are working!
I think the ideal solution is to work a few days at home and a few days in the office or:
1) Kick start the circulation the next day by going into the office or alternatively wire yourself up to a treadmill as you work.
2) If you are truly working then why the guilt. Are the office workers who spend all day in the kitchen yapping feeling the same?
3) Cat on the keyboard (sorts out the boredom).
4) Boredom, office or home, I don’t think you can really escape it.
5) Getting stitched up, again either way if someone’s out to get you then they will.
6) I am not important enough to own a blackberry. I am guessing it’s never a good thing to take to the loo in case it redials the last caller while you are in mid action.
7) Could always arrange a lunch meeting via a webcam.
8) Oh well, life is too short to worry.
9) Lock the fridge and buy cakes for yourself for your Birthday only and stuff the lot.
10) New people don’t know who anyone is (for the first year), regardless of if you work in the office or not.
As per previous comments, working partly from home, partly from the office has to win hands down. I am typing this in smelly sports wear as I haven't had time to shower yet after my lunchtime jog. This keeps the cat off the keyboard but more importantly means that my wife doesn't want me around to help with the chores. I am simply too smelly.
When I go to the office I can wear my smart new Christian Dior tie I bought while ebaying during a conference call. It also gives my wife time to tidy and clean the house in my absence.
Going into the office also makes the children realise that their dad is important after all, as he dresses snazzily for the day ahead. The only decision being whether I wear my belt under or over my portly silhouette.
Coming into the office benefits me in two important ways: I remain socialised and I get free heat/air conditioning as the seasons require.
There are other great free benefits of being in the office: endless hot water, wearing out someone else's carpets, chairs, the option of fantastic cooked breakfasts, someone cooking and washing up for me at lunch time.
Staying at home alone to work (no spouse, no kids, no cats (ever)) means I can get more done, though (whisper it) I seem to get enough done in the office for the other people I work with.
Working at home means that I can wait in all day for deliveries/visits from organisations that seem to operate in six-hour time slots, and I can whistle as much as I want with impunity.
You're right there, especially on the "guilt" front. In an office you'd be a pretty unusual sort of human being if you didn't get engaged in conversation with your colleagues, which is an unavoidable and, I reckon, necessary part of a normal working day. And you aren't aware that you aren't actually working. In isolation, you are immediately conscious you aren't working the moment you stop, so going downstairs to make a cup of tea or (instant) coffee assumes the nature of a guilty pleasure.
In my case, it also means being imprisoned in my "study", as I call the little bedroom which, for most of my life, was the least occupied and most neglected room in the house but is now where I spend most of my time. At least, the rest of the house doesn't have to be affected (or should that be "infected"?) by work. In most people's cases that would enable them to preserve the rest of their homes in a neat and tidy state: for me, it merely means that there is no cross-pollination of the shambolic disorder that features in all areas.
Mind you, one item on your list missing from my own place is the cat marching over the keyboard, something I don't have to worry about - but it's an idea!