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Blog: Work-at-Home 

Many people aspire to work from home.  No time wasted commuting, you get to set your own hours, no boss looking over your shoulders...  Yet, those who are currently working from home or who have experimented working from home would tell you that it is not for everybody.  Although it has its advantages, it also carries a few disadvantages that can be very hard to overcome.  For one, working from home means that you will not be able to interact with others on a daily basis.  As human beings, we are meant to connect to others and to live in society.  Staying home all day and repeating the same routine week after week can lead many to experience depression.  Further, work from home means that you will not be able to learn from others or ask them questions face-to-face.  If that is the case, how are you supposed to upgrade your skills?  How about your own personal demons such as procrastination?  Being by yourself, what will prevent you from being inefficient?  How will you have a sense of how well you are doing with nobody to compare your work with?

The above is not meant to discourage people that want to work from home, but is meant to portray an accurate picture of the challenges that working from home represents.  Working from home may be a good thing depending on the circumstances.  Specifically, if you have children and want to spend more time with them, it would make sense for you to work from home.  If you are in a creative field and do most of your thinking on your own, it also makes sense to work from home.  If you have worked for 20 years, know what you are doing and don't have much more to learn from others, work from home may also be appropriate.

That being said, it is not recommended for someone starting in his or her career to work from home initially.  Early on in your career, you need mentors and need guidance from others.  You need to see how people work, how they do things, learn from the mistakes that people around you make, learn from their strengths, debate ideas with them, network, etc.  Again, it's about temptation and the ideal that working from home may represent can be very tempting.  Although something can be tempting, it doesn't mean that it is good for you.  Study your options carefully and make an informed decision before you choose to go "in-house". 

One of the options that is open to you may be to work at the office part of the week and at home the rest of the week.  This would give you the balance that you need.  One disadvantage however is that if you choose to spend less time at the office, you will have less visibility and this will probably affect your career advancement... that is, if you care.  If you have decided to put your personal life first and career in the backburner, then go ahead.

Few qualities that most people who work from home have:

  • They are disciplined.
  • They are result-oriented (If you work from home, the only way that your employer would know that you are doing the work would be to actually look at the work that you did, so there might be more scrutiny in that respect.).  
  • They have a circle of friends and have an active social life (They don't need to go to work to meet people.  They will organize their own activities and will make sure they don't feel "trapped".).
  • They are self-motivated.
 
Working from Home

Monday, March 27, 2006

Working from home is an option that should be considered if a person wants more flexibility or a better lifestyle.  Jeanette Trompeter reported on two people, one working from home as a customer service representative and one as a tax specialist.  They seemed to like the arrangement.
 

 

 
  
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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