You can call me weird, but I just don’t see that many. Work from Home Momma had a post yesterday called, More Negatives to Working From Home.
Please leave your comments here with any negatives you deal with working from home. Maybe between all of us, we can come up with some solutions.
Categories: Work-Life Balance
April 12, 2008
6 Comments
Oh my! People must just think that I hate working from home after my recent round of posts.
Actually, the opposite is true.
I do believe, however, that working from home is not for everyone. I know some people who would have a difficult time with some of the challenges listed in that post.
Laura — Nah! We know better than that. And I agree, working from a home office is not for everyone. But, what I do disagree with are those who just eliminate it without giving it some thought first.
Hmmm… too many positives getting in the way of making my list.
For me, the negatives come from my own tendency to fall off the wagon of discipline in my workday. I’m too easily distracted by The Cuteness (my 6-month old), peckishness, the pretty birdies out the window, or e-mail.
To be honest, this isn’t really any different from sitting in my old office at The Corporation. I got distracted by the same things.
The positive side is that while I do get distracted working at home, I think I make up for it by working at weird hours because I just… feel like it.
Don’t feel sleepy? Hey, I might as well finish up that illustration.
It’s just a whole different ballgame. And, as a major league player, I’m certainly not going to complain too much about playing baseball for a living.
Negatives about working from home. I just moved to a new house and more than doubled the space of my office from the shoebox I used to work in (photos coming on Home Office Snapshots soon). The extra space has really reinforced my decision over 6 years ago to work from home. I now have a very comfortable space.
The other posters on their thread are right. Home working is not for everyone. I’m a freelance journo and writer. Many of the editors and subs I work with tried the freelance working from home gig and just could make it work because of the usual reasons: isolation being the main one. Personally, I have enough contacts online so I don’t feel like I’m working in isolation. And with recent research indicating that over 2 million people in the UK, now work from home I certainly don’t fee like I’m isolated at all!
Home working is great, but you need to think carefully about if its really right for you. Anyone done a home worker personality trait test yet? Checkout Adventures in home working [http://steves.seasidelife.com/2004/09/13/my-personality-type—intj/]
for more info.
I’m not sure if this more of a comment on working for oneself or working from home, but I figure that as a non-home-warrior or non-solo-practitioner, the biggest advantage I have is having people in the office to cover for me who are as invested in my (the entity’s) success as I am. Sure, you can get someone to cover for you when you need a vacation or in a pinch. However, those people are just fill-ins and if you have a need for an extended absence or if you get hit with more work that you can handle, it’s helpful to have someone watching your back who is invested in the outcome. Thoughts?
Good point Victor. I was recently down with a virus which meant no time at the keyboard. With deadlines pressing it’s been a slog to catch up after I recovered. I wouldn’t have been able to pay anyone else to do the work for me, but this is one of the negatives I guess of self employment. If you can’t work, you’re not earning.