What stops you from telecommuting ?

Lost User

(1) I'm less productive at home - more distractions. (2) The fear that if I can do my job from home, then somebody else in another country can also do it for way less money.

DawnnaLewis

I started telecommuting 2 years ago with one day at home. My boss said I got so much more done at home and eventually gave me Monday, Wednesday and Friday at home. I still make appearances at work on Tuesdays and Thursdays if needed but I find myself wondering down the hall to see friends when I am in the office. Saves me $50 a month in gas and 2 hours a day in commute time, of course I am going to get more done at home. I have a dedicated home office, but find myself in the lazy boy with my laptop next to the fire most of the time now. I love my job.

MerlinsBones

I worked at home for several years and it was great for me. I have a home office set up, so in the morning I would get a cup of coffee go in my office and start working. I found that not only was I more productive but typically I put in more hours. There are many pluses to work from home. It save gas, wear and tear on my car, I can let my dog out (now she waits 12 hours), less dry cleaning, and food is there when it's lunch time instead of making it the night before. In the office cube, there are several people that do not understand that there is an inside voice and an outside voice. Their main purpose seems to be to socialize. What stops me from telecommuting? In short, my company. Not everyone actually works when they "work from home" and it has had an impact on those of us who do. The only benefit to be in an office is that the people who are seen are promoted.

SlowFatRunner

- I feel that I'm more productive on those occasions when I work from home. I make more of a conscious effort to be more productive to make sure (1) I don't abuse the system (b) others don't assume that I'm abusing the system. I have broadband at home. I use my work laptop to VPN into the corporate infrastructure. It is just like I'm in the office with all my tools and resources at my fingertips. - Nearly every single day that I go into the office, I contemplate staying at home to work. The thing that gets me to go to the office? Our noon running group. Three of the days are social runs and two are hard workouts. Both types of runs motivate me to endure the commute and the office. The older I get, the greater role this run serves to get me into the office. Larry

RafagaX

Nothing, that's what I do, but being fair, the work I do is give support for a software; that, honestly, can be done anywhere in the world as long as I have access to an internet connection and a laptop.

CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...

Bruce Patin

I worked from home for two years and made a nice home office with custom made desk and built-in shelves. It stopped when my boss needed my physical presence to operate the mainframes we had for testing, because somebody had to push the buttons a lot, even though most of the work could be done remotely. The hard part was my other boss' (guess who) requirement to do the laundry in my "spare time", in addition to other simple tasks, such as repave our driveway. And now, my home office has been totally taken over by her and my oldest son. I work on a dining room table, and have to pack up all of my books and papers the day before cleaning day. Actually, I don't work on those mainframes anymore, but given the above, and the fact that my current nice office with a window is only 7 minutes away, and I do occasionally have to push buttons or chat informally with colleagues, it is a pleasure to go to work.

mthenhaus

Nothing. I have been telecommuting for the last 5 years. I love working from home and am very productive. It does take discipline, and discipline is the most important trait of good software engineers.

"The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong". - Andy Rooney

Jim SS

I did for about 10 years. Much more efficient, got to see my kids ballgames, take my kids to school, eat lunch with my wife every day. Some companies have a problem with telecommuting primarily because the managers have difficulty managing when they can't see the employees. There's also the problem of getting your employees to work 10-12 hours a day when you can't see them. But if you can get 12 hours work done in 8 hours they still want you to work more. Sweatshop is the best description I can give.

SS => Qualified in Submarines "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm". Winston Churchill "Real programmers can write FORTRAN in any language". Unknown

BrainiacV

At one time, nothing. I was able to trade an 80 minute commute to work for 30 seconds to get into my basement computer room. I was able to do that for seven years before the company decided to dissolve the department. I found I was far more productive. I could work all night if I wanted to and did not have to suffer the interruptions of the office. They had to be concise to give me instructions instead of, "Let's have a meeting" where 5+ people sat around trying to decide what they wanted done. When I was telecommuting, I'd be phone conferenced in to some of these meetings and unfortunately for me, when they would ask how long it would take, I could say "It's already done." I'd have been sitting at my computer and working on the problem while they jabbered among themselves. I should have said "a week" and then got it done after a few days of goofing off and develop a reputation for getting things done ahead of schedule. Instead there was nothing to be remembered at review time. I did see others who couldn't telecommute because their boss wanted to do "bed checks" that everyone was at their desk at 8 AM. There were also bosses who were unable to articulate what they wanted done and you had to come into their office so they could gesture at a screen and express what they wanted done. As a manager now, I have to come in to help my minions and more importantly perform tasks on systems that are in a secured location and not on the network. I do let my minions telecommute if the weather is bad or their kids are at home from school holidays or illness.

Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.

Aner Bautista

I think he has a Wife and kids!!! :laugh:

Florin Jurcovici 0

:-D My employer. It's company policy _not_ to telecommute. He probably didn't read that study.

Mike Riley QUSA

I did it when working at Sun Microsystems and was very productive. It allowed me to communicate with people in Europe in the morning and China or India in the evening. Plus we had a VPN solution that made my system act like it was in the Menlo Park campus network, which was not possible within the office network. Code checkouts and checkins had to be done from there or they were terribly slow if you used an NFS mount across the WAN. Unlike a lot of VPN, I still had visibility of my local network devices, so I could print to my network printer. Since my home network was as fast or faster than what I had to share at the office with 75 people, I got better network performance as well. We also had a phone setup that allowed us to have an extension on the company phone network that could be directed to whatever phone you happened to be at, complete with voicemail. We could also get faxes and place outgoing calls so there was no additional costs you had to expense. My round trip commute was 3 hours before that, assuming there was no traffic problems. So putting in a 10 hour workday to resolve an issue was still less time than I used to spend when you figure in a commute. I turned the system on when I woke up and it stayed on until I went to bed, keeping me in communication for a good 12-16 hours per day. I know my productivity improved because I didn't have to allow for my commute time. The key was my office was at one end of the house, away from all other distractions. It probably didn't hurt that my boss worked in a different office than I did, so face time with him had always involved one of us traveling. Mike

Mathew Crothers

Kids

PIEBALDconsult

And porn.

Member 3156407

2 days a week works fine for me and my company , I need limited face to face meetings , and everyone knows my schedule. I do it primarily to avoid traffic , I work in one of the central business district in Johannesburg and getting in can vary between 30 mins and 90 mins , depending on who has run into who on the feed roads , working from home I start relaxed and not frustrated and wanting to throttle some one. AND the coffees better

Mike

Schmuli

I'm surprised that no one mentioned this yet, so maybe it doesn't apply to everyone, but I have an issue with working from home, and that is that the family doesn't appreciate that although I am home I am actually working. This means that at any given time, I have to be available to go shopping, look after an unwell child or just simply babysit, etc.

Member 4608898

What you gain in travelling time and fuel you lose in heating bills. Also, unless you are always working offline it is completely disastrous when the internet line goes down. It is quite unbelieveable how much space there is in an office. Just thought about it: my current office shared with 10 other people has more floor area than my house including kitchen and bathroom.

Member 4608898

Whom did they ask - people who had actually done it for long periods of time or people who had done it occasionally. The ones who do it occasionally will always say it increases performance. The thing is, you can convince yourself that it increases performance even though your performance is the same. Also are these people who work on single tasks or multiple tasks. People who work on single tasks don't have to context switch so being productive can be easily achieved. People who work on multiple tasks have to context switch. Being productive can be difficult wherever you are.