Someone recently told me that it was ok to put in extra hours at work because I don’t have a commute. Really??

If you’ve worked from a home or remote office, you know what it’s like. Sure, the walking-down-the-hall commute and not having a dress code are great but with these benefits come drawbacks.

• Technical issues: Unless you’re incredibly tech-savvy, technical issues are bound to come up. There’s nothing more frustrating than having to use webmail for months because your email won’t connect properly in Apple Mail.
• Water cooler: The office water cooler no longer exists. Pets become substitutes for coworkers but their social skills are somewhat lacking. Twitter works as a good alternative for chitchatting but only when you have time to tweet, which leads us to the next point…
• No time to chitchat: Even though it’s perfectly natural to spend 5-10 minutes talking in the office, it now seems like you’re cheating the clock. Tracking your time is the best way to increase productivity but it sometimes becomes an obsession. Why waste 10 minutes chitchatting or tweeting during the day when you’re going to have to make up for it later?
• The lunchroom: Is there a point to eating at the kitchen table when your lunch consists of a Lean Cuisine and more conversations with the dogs? It’s just easier to eat in front of the laptop, multi-tasking.
• Productivity is up: Where else could it be? There are few distractions (once you discipline yourself) and an unchanging daily routine only helps with efficiency. BT (British Telecom) says it gets 20% more work out of its 10,000 home workers.

It seems that more and more people are working from a home or remote office now. There are a lot of posts on how to increase productivity but also some that offer help with the less-pleasing aspects. If you haven’t seen this “Why working from home is both awesome and horrible” comic from The Oatmeal, you have to take a minute to look at it.

The benefits of a home office still outweigh the drawbacks for me, at least for now, but I fear that I’m heading down a dark path as there are way too many similarities with Ron Makowichuk’s Why working from home isn’t as good as it sounds post. At least there’s comfort in knowing that it’s not just me.