Your home office/Working from home

[LucasPukus]

It's possible that instead of getting laid off in October, most of us will be offered the chance of working from home. The requirements are that it has to be in an area that is sealed from in-home traffic, has locking cabinets and is free from much extraneous noise. So no barking dogs, crying babies, We get our own computer and VOIP line and then we'll get 1K to make our office pretty cool. Since I already have a bedroom set up as an office with a pretty nice desk, I'm thinking about spending the money on a nice office chair and then a big screen TV.

I've never worked from home before, but I figured that it will be a lot better than getting laid off. Plus, it would guarantee that we wouldn't have to buy a second car and I can work in my PJs.

If you've done it, did you like it? My concern is that I'd miss some social aspects of work, but as of now there are few social aspects that I'd desperately miss.
If you have a home office, got any sweet pics so that I can emulate it?

[Jobu]

If you have ADD or difficulty being self-motivated, then working from home is bad. The lack of social interaction can suck, but there are ways to fight it. It's important to get into a routine like you would if you were going to work.

[LucasPukus]

I would be required to be available and logged into the computer system for a specified time each day, so that might help me stay on track. Or require me to stay on track.
I'd also have a few random visits from the corporate office to be sure I was living up to my work-at-home contract. Working in my pajamas would be kinda nice. And I'd save money on lunches.

I am worried about the no barking dog thing, since I have a doggie. He only barks when someone comes to the door, so I could rent a PO box to avoid the mailman and get a security gate to prevent creeps coming in. Daycare for Mr. Dog would cost $15.00/day, which is more than I'd like to spend. It's possible that I could try to soundproof the office, too.

[Talenos]

Some people can do it, some can't. One of my friends has to go to a coffe shop to get things done. He apparently gets his social interaction from the other people there that are doing the same thing.

[daoist]

One tip i see repeated often: Don't fall into the habit of working in your PJs. Showering and dressing up for work really helps to put you into a working mood and makes you focus more on working rather than hanging out doing nothing in particular, which is what most people do in their PJs.

[12345]

curious, do you take pay cuts or something by working at home? i guess i am not sure why it would help them out. i assume productivity of the workers would drop too.

anyway, for what its worth, there are nights/weeks when i find it near impossible to get motivated to work on my business stuff. however the difference here is you have a full day, where i would be coming home at 5:30 after working and then trying to work some more. when i was between jobs, i had about 1 week of not having to go anywhere. i treated it like i still was. getting up at the same time, trying to stay active the whole time, and i got a ton done. way more than on weekends. in school i would always come home to work after class/at night instead of going in to the studio like everyone else. i found i got way more done at home because i wasnt as distracted by that 'social network'.

also...the only way to soundproof you room is to rip it down to the bare studs and start from there! but surely the occasional dog bark is ok right?

[nithos]

curious, do you take pay cuts or something by working at home? i guess i am not sure why it would help them out. i assume productivity of the workers would drop too.

I am assuming it removes the cost of the facilities. They only have to rent and pay for utilities on a % of the building space.

We are officially not allowed to take credit for any work that we do from home. If I stay home sick because I am contagious, but still have the energy to work and remote in; it's on my own dime.

[12345]

see i am envisioning a large building with cubicle land like Principal in DM or something. but i did consider the less cost of building oporations.

[Robert Paulson]

When I was only doing contracting from home, I found it pretty hard to put in 8 hours straight of work, but it sounds like you might be required to do that. Typically i'd work at least 10 hours a day, but that spanned from noon to 4 am, a couple hours at a time usually.

[daoist]

but surely the occasional dog bark is ok right?

According to murphy's law, if the dog barks only once in a day it's guaranteed to be when you're on a conference call with your boss and grandboss.

[Robert Paulson]

[LucasPukus]

curious, do you take pay cuts or something by working at home? i guess i am not sure why it would help them out. i assume productivity of the workers would drop too.

They have a lot of off-shore workers and they wanted to get back to US-based operations, so when they bought our company it gave them a good chance to add to the US workforce and provides more backup for the emergency planning operations. (ie, tornado, fire drill, whatever) There are not very many of us these days, so it's probably not going to be too difficult for the 15ish of us to start working from home.

Some people are concerned that the company is just lying to us to keep us motivated about working until the end and just want us to think that we can all work from home and that when our final days come, they'll just laugh and we'll be unemployed, but the company has mentioned it several times do I don't think it's a total lie. People will also be given the chance to move to Minneapolis, but most of these Missourians can barely fathom a Minneapolis winter. When the Minneapolis reps came, they enjoyed our 30 degree winters and the Missouri reps gaped in shock at -10 temperatures.

Edit://in the end, they haven't discussed paycuts or raises. I don't think most of us would accept a pay cut, but then again, there are few firms down here in the first place and even fewer are hiring.

[fiveSD]

woo cold weather. puts hair on your chest.

I always have admired people that could successfully work from home. I know I wouldn't be able to do it without substantial change. Even being at home and working on homework was more difficult for me than going to the library and sitting in a Tier. I'm too easily distracted and blame the internet.

No idea on what to do with the dog barking situation, but I agree with daoist- it won't end well if it's uncontrolled.

So really, no pay cut? That's a pretty sweet deal. Is there a raise if you agree to move to Minneapolis?
edit, I just saw your edit. Nix that last question.

[Konsole]

I have worked from home for about 3 years now. I recently switched jobs. I am a lead software engineer with a startup company. I really love working from home. Its a very flexible setup. It does take some discipline. Some people don't handle it well. I actually tend to work too much since it is so easy. (it helps if you love what you do).

Working at home, I would recommend a good chair. I have a Herman Miller Mirra (highly adjustable version)

[LucasPukus]

How much was your Herman Miller chair? I wanted to get one, but found they were close to the 2400 range. (GASP!)

[Halt! Hammerzeit.]

I've seen those chairs in the $600-700 range around here.

[LucasPukus]

Should I really spend 600 of my 1k on the Herman Miller chair?

[WrenchHead]

I've got an Aeron chair from Herman Miller and it's the only chair I'm able to sit in for 8 hours straight and not constantly shift around.

They probably cost about 6-700 dollars on ebay, used.

Would I spend the 1k on that? Probably a lot of my money would be my chair. The artwork I can do myself.

I know exactly how much would get done if I was working from home (zero.) I'd have to leave and hang out at the library on wi-fi all day, or the coffee shop. However the freedom to be able to do that seems nice to me. Konsole made the main point... If you actually like doing what you do for a living, it's probably not a big deal. I sit on a computer at home all night doing non-work related stuff without any problem.

[Konsole]

I got my Herman MIller Mirra from: http://www.officedesigns.com/product-ex ... 2%AE_Chair

Ergonomics is a big thing for me. I was able to get my three desks for free from the storage garage of a small company I used to work for. Best deal ever. (they could have cost me (edit..) a thousand dollars). The desks have nice slanted edges, perfect for computers. Have two curved ones (90 degree) and one long straight one. Over 13' end to end. I get comfy with a natural keyboard (ms 4000), custom large mousing surface (func.net surface 1030), and 30" Dell lcd for my late 2008 (glass) macbook pro. I also have a 24" lcd on a PC in my office. its one of the dell ones with lots of inputs which allows me to have a directv box also (nice for cnn or xm radio channels). Lately the only thing I use the PC for is photo post processing in Capture NX2 and Photoshop.

Now, of course you don't need a ton of space or all the hardware to have a nice office (other than a good chair), but I think its important to seperate living space from office space. Don't ever have a bed in the same area as you work. Setup a white board, have an office phone (mine is a voip phone from the company), make it comfy, have a good chair, make it ready for business.

Its your house/office so you might as well make it nice. I have almost too much space in our new house. Took over the formal living room (which would otherwise be a worthless room) and made it my office. Front of house view and french doors are also nice.

I have a neighbor here in Dubuque who works from home also, for IBM. Its fun to know other people who telecommute in the area and get together from time to time. The social aspects are different but you get used to it. Make use of AIM, Skype, iChat video stuff, etc. Sometimes Ill leave iChat running and just have an open channel with a co-worker so we can shoot the shit like people normally do in an office. I knew a lot of people in Ames who worked at home.... ah good times.

Not pictured behind this is a laser printer and a filing cabinet. I don't print much but its nice to have sometimes. Eventually I might want built in shelves and a couch or something but for now its just empty. I don't have any hidden storage in my office now which makes it hard to keep things clean.

[Talenos]

Those 3 desks would have cost you thousands of dollars?

[Konsole]

Those 3 desks would have cost you thousands of dollars?

OK, maybe $1k or something... *shrug* Whenever I tried to find similar ones or more of the same I always ended up looking at $1500+ stuff... might just be an overpriced brand (bush i think)... anyway

[Jobu]

commercial office furniture is expensive as all hell. I would not be surprised if that cost at least a grand.

[nithos]

We have some of the Herman Miller Aeron chairs here in a conference room. They don't hold up for shit. It doesn't help if they are adjustable 20 different ways if 15 of the levers don't work.

[Konsole]

We have some of the Herman Miller Aeron chairs here in a conference room. They don't hold up for shit. It doesn't help if they are adjustable 20 different ways if 15 of the levers don't work.

That's odd. I have always heard good things about how they hold up. They do have 12 year warranty.

[nithos]

We have some of the Herman Miller Aeron chairs here in a conference room. They don't hold up for shit. It doesn't help if they are adjustable 20 different ways if 15 of the levers don't work.

That's odd. I have always heard good things about how they hold up. They do have 12 year warranty.

These are 4-5 years old. I will have to ask the facilities people what's up and get on that warranty replacement.

[Alice Ayers]

FWIW, it was made official and I should be working from home tomorrow or Thursday. We ended up getting dual 19inch monitors, which is a lot more helpful. I had to have an electrician come out and build a second phone jack for my DSL line, which delayed my in-home set up, but I think it's going to be pretty sweet once I'm done. I think after our 12 business day trip we all bonded a little bit more, so it's harder and sadder to leave now. I guess we'll be planning some more social gatherings to make up for it.

[Pokaris]

FWIW, it was made official and I should be working from home tomorrow or Thursday. We ended up getting dual 19inch monitors, which is a lot more helpful. I had to have an electrician come out and build a second phone jack for my DSL line, which delayed my in-home set up, but I think it's going to be pretty sweet once I'm done. I think after our 12 business day trip we all bonded a little bit more, so it's harder and sadder to leave now. I guess we'll be planning some more social gatherings to make up for it.

Will you go in at all? I travel to other sites, 25-50% of my time, so I have some people interaction then, but if I'm "home" I go in on Fridays and go out for lunch with my old department. That has worked well for me.

[Alice Ayers]

I think I might go in 1x a year for more training, but they might not do that unless absolutely necessary, since it will be in MN and they'll have to pay for our flights + hotels again. They will probably try to do a lot of powerpoints or webinars for training.

I don't want to be a jackass, but the one thing that I'm not going to do again is share a room for 12 days with a coworker, so it will be quite expensive for them to fly all 20 of us up there again for awhile. But anything is possible, I guess.

Poki/Konsole-do you deduct any of your business use space for tax purposes? I want the sweet deduction, but I don't want to reduce the basis on my house either and it doesn't seem like the two are mutually exclusive. What % of your house is your office and did the deduction make a big difference for you? I need any and all deductions I can get, but I might just be fing myself on the back end when we sell the place.

[fiveSD]

They would fly you, really? Why not just drive?

[Alice Ayers]

A few people drove last time b/c they couldn't handle flying and they decided to move to MN, so they wanted to look around for apartments. For the rest of us it was more of a why drive 6 hours and worry about your car when you can fly for free?

[Pokaris]

I think I might go in 1x a year for more training, but they might not do that unless absolutely necessary, since it will be in MN and they'll have to pay for our flights + hotels again. They will probably try to do a lot of powerpoints or webinars for training.

I don't want to be a jackass, but the one thing that I'm not going to do again is share a room for 12 days with a coworker, so it will be quite expensive for them to fly all 20 of us up there again for awhile. But anything is possible, I guess.

Poki/Konsole-do you deduct any of your business use space for tax purposes? I want the sweet deduction, but I don't want to reduce the basis on my house either and it doesn't seem like the two are mutually exclusive. What % of your house is your office and did the deduction make a big difference for you? I need any and all deductions I can get, but I might just be fing myself on the back end when we sell the place.

They pay for stuff I use (laptop, internet, etc.). Plus, I'm not exclusively a telecommuter, I have a "real" office too. So I don't bother with it for fear the IRS get mad.

Oh and on the driving thing, I drive everywhere. E-85 is under $2 a gallon and they pay me $.55 a mile, it has been a good year, they've essentially paid my truck trade for me.

[fiveSD]

A few people drove last time b/c they couldn't handle flying and they decided to move to MN, so they wanted to look around for apartments. For the rest of us it was more of a why drive 6 hours and worry about your car when you can fly for free?

I'm surprised the company wouldn't pay for rental cars and make you drive there. It's much cheaper...

[Alice Ayers]

My flight was $265.00.

[fiveSD]

True, they have gone done in price quite a bit, esp if you know in advance. But 4x265=$1060>>rental car+gas, unless you're there for months. We always drive to our production facility from MN (it is about 2 hours south of KC) to save $$.

[Alice Ayers]

We have the overtime factor, too, because none of us are salaried. So it's about 6-7 hours of overtime by driving and 3 by flying, including gate time.

[fiveSD]

ah, gotcha. Makes sense.

[Alice Ayers]

My friend had the surprise visit today. I dont think any of us were expecting it this soon, but we can all get on the horn and warn each other now. It really sucks for the person that has the surprise visit first, though. Two managers came at 445 pm and called her cellphone from the driveway and said they were there and to let them in. She had just enough time to move her laptop to the floor and try to hide it, but I'm sure they spied it anyway. Otherwise, they were just checking on shredding and locking cabinets, ensuring that we had blinds on all of our windows and were otherwise following the rules.

[Little Bobby Tables]

hah! You totally mock me for using the phrase "on the horn".

[fiveSD]

I'm confused. You aren't actually working from home?

[Alice Ayers]

We are working at home, just have to have two managers make surprise visits to our houses to be sure we are following all of the rules. My surprise visit was yesterday, but I was forewarned by a few other people, so I wasn't in my pajamas when they came. Sneaky managers....

[Talenos]

That sounds pretty lame actually.

[MarcusAurelius]

yeah, you'd think the managers would have work to do that wasn't babysitting.

[Alice Ayers]

The managers really likeit. It only happens once a year, but they get to travel across the country (and now to the UK, too) visiting different agents. I'm sure it's a nice chance for them to get out of the office--and I am sure the nosy side of them enjoys seeing how people really live in their homes. It's pretty standard procedure for most companies to have an on-sight visit from management when there are multiple locations. Not doing something like that seems pretty stupid.

[Pokaris]

We are working at home, just have to have two managers make surprise visits to our houses to be sure we are following all of the rules. My surprise visit was yesterday, but I was forewarned by a few other people, so I wasn't in my pajamas when they came. Sneaky managers....

Do they care? I routinely crack jokes about not wearing clothes (e.g. while discussing videoconferencing, "I'm opposed on the grounds that I'd have to wear pants!"). No one gives a damn, we just do our thing.

Fortunately we don't have "managers" to spare.

[Alice Ayers]

You can't really get in trouble for working in your pjs, so on that level, I don't think they care. I think it's just a bit awkward for all parties involved. I would be completely hideous to be caught sans bra or pants, but hopefully those situations are rare.

[nippletwister]

And sexy!

[Alice Ayers]

Today the city decided to cut down a lot of tree branches on our street and feed them to the mobile truck mulcher. It lasted for about 5 hours and more than 1 person asked about the construction near my house, including one manager. I tried to explain it was the city's chainsaws, but I don't know what corporate's view is for this situation. I hope it doesn't hurt my job status--or I hope that if they decide to end my contract they at least offer me the chance of moving to the corporate office in place of the virtual office.

[Jobu]

jfc, are they really that anal? Fucking control freaks. If you can't have even a little trust from your employees then they are screwed.

[Alice Ayers]

Do you want your richest clients to hear chainsaws when they call in?

[MarcusAurelius]

i think rich people are familiar with the concept of construction.

[nithos]

I can't even count the number of times I have heard dogs go nutz because the Fed Ex knocked on the door of someone working from home.

[J-Dogg]

Screaming kids is what I always hear.

[mjssoulfan1]

I love working from home simply because of the convenience. I do have two roommates though, which has been a little tough. So I went and bought a "bed tent" and on the days that I'm too lazy to get out of bed, I can still work without any distractions. My job is really great.

you seem quite intent on including a certain website in this post. since you just created your user account, this tends to give the impression that you created the account solely to advertise a particular website. that kind of activity is frowned upon in this forum. if somebody here is interested in a bed tent, they can easily google it.

[Uncle Sherm]

I love working from home simply because of the convenience. I do have two roommates though, which has been a little tough. So I went and bought a "bed tent" and on the days that I'm too lazy to get out of bed, I can still work without any distractions. My job is really great.

Sounds like it. When I can't get out of bed and don't want distractions, I took it one step farther and got an entire "bed room". It works even better.

[mjssoulfan1]

Lol well like I said, i have roommates unfortunately. Hopefully I can get my own place soon...

[Santa]

What's that thing you used again?

[DTower5]

If only she had posted a link, you wouldn't need to ask that question