I am a big believer in working from home. Personally, I think I am infinitely more efficient, both as an employee of my company, and as a human being. Normally, it takes me about 45 minutes to drag myself out of bed, wash my face, brush my teeth, get dressed, eat vitamins/breakfast and get myself out the door. It then takes another 40 minutes door-to-door to commute to the office, then 40 minutes back. That's over 2 hours of the day dedicated to the logistics of getting to/from work, which is 2 hours wasted in my opinion.
Due to a slew of evening/late night calls (oh the joys of cross-border work) the past two days, I've been working from home. Which means I start work as soon as I wake up, in my PJs. By 9 am, I'm already done responding to all the overnight emails from different times zones. If I had gone to the office, I would have just been arriving at work after battling with the thousands of other HK commuters on the subway. It would have taken me another 5-10 minutes to get my computer booted and my desk in order, the next hour and a half responding to emails. Factoring in random office chitchat and trips for coffee and bathroom (which is on the complete opposite side of the building from me), by lunch time I'd mostly have spent the morning simply responding to emails. But since I am home, I don't need to make a Starbucks run - I make my instant Via coffee, my bathroom is just steps away, and as a result, so much time is saved. So much in fact, that I have time to toss in a load of laundry, do the dishes from last night and clean up our flat for our guest arriving tonight. So by 9:45 am, I have accomplished way more - professionally and personally - than I would have if I had gone into the office. Granted, I'm still in my PJs and haven't managed to wash my face, but who cares since I don't need to go into the office!
If I were in the office today, I'd be figuring out where to eat lunch, walking to lunch, buying lunch, walking back to lunch, getting settled back into the office - another 1.5 hours. But when I'm home, I simply heat up something from my fridge which takes about 2 minutes to cook and 5 minutes to eat. So including getting ready/commute time + lunch time + coffee run, I save myself more than 3 hours of efficiency by working from home!
I suppose the main drawback of working from home is that you lose "facetime" with your colleagues and bosses, and it's difficult for your stakeholders to know if you are actually working or goofing off. But I think the proof is in the work products you produce, and your responsiveness to emails & phone calls no matter where you are working from. I wish I could have a permanent schedule where I can work from home 2-3 days a week, but for now, I'm pretty happy to have a job with the flexibility to work from home whenever the opportunity allows (i.e. days when I don't have in-person meetings or conferences to attend at the office...which is actually quite a rarity now that I'm in-house. Corporations love meetings! And teleconferences!)
Due to a slew of evening/late night calls (oh the joys of cross-border work) the past two days, I've been working from home. Which means I start work as soon as I wake up, in my PJs. By 9 am, I'm already done responding to all the overnight emails from different times zones. If I had gone to the office, I would have just been arriving at work after battling with the thousands of other HK commuters on the subway. It would have taken me another 5-10 minutes to get my computer booted and my desk in order, the next hour and a half responding to emails. Factoring in random office chitchat and trips for coffee and bathroom (which is on the complete opposite side of the building from me), by lunch time I'd mostly have spent the morning simply responding to emails. But since I am home, I don't need to make a Starbucks run - I make my instant Via coffee, my bathroom is just steps away, and as a result, so much time is saved. So much in fact, that I have time to toss in a load of laundry, do the dishes from last night and clean up our flat for our guest arriving tonight. So by 9:45 am, I have accomplished way more - professionally and personally - than I would have if I had gone into the office. Granted, I'm still in my PJs and haven't managed to wash my face, but who cares since I don't need to go into the office!
If I were in the office today, I'd be figuring out where to eat lunch, walking to lunch, buying lunch, walking back to lunch, getting settled back into the office - another 1.5 hours. But when I'm home, I simply heat up something from my fridge which takes about 2 minutes to cook and 5 minutes to eat. So including getting ready/commute time + lunch time + coffee run, I save myself more than 3 hours of efficiency by working from home!
I suppose the main drawback of working from home is that you lose "facetime" with your colleagues and bosses, and it's difficult for your stakeholders to know if you are actually working or goofing off. But I think the proof is in the work products you produce, and your responsiveness to emails & phone calls no matter where you are working from. I wish I could have a permanent schedule where I can work from home 2-3 days a week, but for now, I'm pretty happy to have a job with the flexibility to work from home whenever the opportunity allows (i.e. days when I don't have in-person meetings or conferences to attend at the office...which is actually quite a rarity now that I'm in-house. Corporations love meetings! And teleconferences!)
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