When you are sitting at your desk inside of a teeny weeny cubicle day in and day out, you may ponder the question of why can’t you do your job from home? Being essentially chained to your desk inside your office gets particularly hard when you log onto Facebook (News - Alert) and everyone and their mother’s status is “at the beach.” But did you ever consider that maybe working remotely isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? I mean, yeah you can wear pajamas and be in the comforts of your very own home sweet home, but there are defiantly some negatives.
Firstly, although you can wear whatever you want whether that it is your favorite comfy pair of sweats or just your birthday suit, you can forget about being able to walk across to your girlfriend’s cube to talk about what went down on last night’s episode of The Real Housewives of Orange (News - Alert) Country or getting the dirt on who hooked up with who at last night’s happy hour. Working physically outside of the office in a sense isolates you from colleagues and makes you an island of one—albeit if you are on your couch.
Second, when you are at your house, distractions are everywhere. If you have kids or even a significant other, just because you say you’re working you are still there and there is no question that if a problem or question arises, you will surely hear a knock on your office door and probably more than once. Pets like in my case with my absolutely adorable two-year-old Vizsla puppy Ollie, don’t care if you have deadlines or important time-sensitive projects to complete because they just see you and their ball that someone needs to throw in the far corner of the room. Further, every time you move to another room there is no doubt that you will see something that needs to be cleaned which can cause a small clean up to rapidly transition into a full on cleaning spree, something your boss probably won’t appreciate.
Lastly, if you have a work-related emergency and need a response right away, chances are if you are not at the office you will need to sit tight until your boss either calls you back or emails you. If you were in the office, you could just quickly run into their office, but because you are working remotely you simply don’t have that luxury.
Although working from home will certainly reduce the stresses associated with long commutes in gridlock traffic, other stress inducing elements will arise even if you are wearing the same clothes that you haven’t changed from last Tuesday.