Does anyone here work from home much?

That's the thing about writing.
I'm sure if anyone watched me working they would wonder about the amount of time I spent staring at the screen not writing anything or wandering around wikipedia.
But it's all part of the process.

 

depends on your job I suppose

I'm responsible for processing transactions, and they happen all the time - whether I go horse riding or not.

It's not creative work or risk based work, and it wouldn't suit the sort of people who have the skills for that.

Most companies have a back office somewhere with people like me who graft (and have a team of people who graft) to keep it all ticking along. And you need other types of people as well of course.

It might (for example) aggravate me that we have sales people who probably aren't working very hard on a Friday afternoon. But at the same time I understand they do a different job to me and they do something I cannot do. And they are measured in a different way. If they bring in sales, and as long as they dont really rub it in people's faces they dont do 45 hours a week - nobody will give a fuck. Their job is to sell. My job is to work.

 

I travel extensively for work so my situation is kinda the opposite of this thread. I've always wondered what it would be like to be home in the evening after a normal 9-to-5 but the commuter rat race always sobers me up and gets me back on the plane.

When I am home, I'm home with minimal obligations. Imagine taking all your weekends at once. Every day I'm home is basically a Saturday for me. Bad Adult (TM) stuff. Netflix, booze and pajama pants at 8:53 AM on a Thursday? Can do.

I have a pretty extensive home office setup, but it's mostly because I'm OCD. It is my firm belief that a man should never be without access to a printer/scanner and a plethora of standard issue office supplies. T'would be uncivilized.

 

I work from home 2-3 days a week. My husband has both a home office and a physical office for his IT business.

I enjoy being at home in order to get face time with hubby, as we work nearly opposite schedules. The days I do commute, I leave the house at 5-6am and get home well after 7:30pm. He leaves 9-10:30am and usually gets home 8-10pm, right as I am winding down and crashing for the day.

I take the "manage my workload, not my time" approach. I will often work in 1-2 hour spurts, then move on to something else. I don't have a dedicated office spot, but I do work outside when weather permits, or will pack up and head to Panera or Starbucks. I find myself much less distracted when I can't just get up to get something out of the fridge or do laundry, and so I get more done in 90 minutes than I might in a morning just being at home.

The flexibility is nice, and it's afforded us the ability to do things a normal 9-5 would not, without taking extensive PTO.

It gets very lonely sometimes though, especially given the nature of my job. It's a bittersweet thing. The very nature of it is what lends itself to remote work, as I can work anywhere I have electricity, my laptop and wifi. My job is data driven about 90% of the time. I make 5-10 phone calls a month.

 

Not outside today - a tad wet in Sydney today.

Sydney weather: storms, heavy rain and winds pound NSW for third day

 

I do think different industries have different standards. I'm speaking as someone in a fairly "working class" industry (filling stations basically). If you worked in a tech company or for a marketing agency all sorts of different things go... you can turn up for work wearing your hair in a bun or wearing jeans, work from home (as long as exclusively Apple products) etc etc.
(this really happened to me the other day. I am launching something and my boss wanted a marketing agency to do some stuff for it, and the guy turned up in jeans, open collared shirt, hadn't bothered to have a shave...)

I guess the thing is for me, 95% of the people who work in my office and 100% of the people who work personally for me, dont have the option to spend a day horse riding and claim theyre working because they're thinking about work, or sit on their porch at home because it suits them. They have to be in at 9am and away at 5:30pm, and if they dont they'd get sacked.

Now, granted I have parts to my job that those guys dont. If something goes wrong today I'll be fixing it on a Sunday. Last week I worked a couple of 12 hour days, and also had to travel down to London on another day. I have responsibilities in my job that never switch off. I have to make decisions that really affect the businesses bottom line in a pretty direct way. I personally will be held accountable for the delivery or not of projects in the way that someone in a front line job wont be.

But I also get paid 3 to 4 times what those people do, which is kind of the balance to that.

So since all the people who work who get paid £15K a year HAVE to turn up to work every day and working from their start time to their end time, I think the least I can do is do show them the respect of doing the same.

_

I guess in a way its the level of entitlement you feel, and I've often thought this is what keeps me "back" in life.
The people who get away with stuff are the ones who just have the balls to do it.
I wouldn't have the balls to spend every Friday at home because I'm in a relatively senior position. I'd feel ashamed of myself.
The people who do have the balls probably dont get paid less or get ahead less, they get ahead more. And they get to have a lot more time to themselves than I do.
But at the end of the day you have to know yourself and be true to your own character. I'm the kind of person that will always graft at whatever job I do.