Working full time remote vs going in an office

[AlotToLearn]

Morning All,

What is everyone's thoughts on working 100 percent remote for a company? Does anyone do it now, and if so, are there any regrets of giving up going into an office? I was presented with the potential to do just this, and while I have had the freedom in years past to work from home a day here and there, never have I had worked out of my home office exclusively.

[Fishindude]

I think a person is much more productive if they leave home and go to the office.   Too many distractions and interruptions at home.
Go to work and get your work done in a "work environment", then go home, unwind and forget work.

[naj89]

Going to an office gives you a social outlet also so be mindful of how much you need social interaction with those outside your home. Will you get enough social time by having face to face interactions only with those living in your home?

I have had an opportunity to work from home a day here and a day there, and have enjoyed it from a productivity perspective but not a social perspective. Nothing like cutting out the commute to hit the gym early because longer sessions are needed due to the kitchen being only a few feet from my home office. :-) I found "grazing" to be quite easy, so another thing of which to be mindful.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[HipGnosis]

I was able to work from home occassionally, and had a remote office for a while.
I was surprised how much I could get done at home.  Because office work had so many distractions - numbing meetings, small talk & gossip, betting and lotto pools (it seems to take longer to convince them I really don't want to 'play'), the constant stream of birthday, baby, etc. cards to sign and pass on and the parties, celebrations, retirements, etc. in the break room.
But, it quickly became clear that I was 'out of the loop'.  There is a LOT of info that is spread by informal   communication - while waiting for a meeting to start, while walking out of meetings, waiting for the boss to get to the break room, aka 'water cooler talk'.  And even when passing someone in the hallway.
I strongly recommened to NOT work 100% remote.

[daverobev]

I would say 2 days, maybe 3, in the office a week and the rest from home would be ideal.

You can of course get a desk at a coworking space if you need the office environment.

I worked from home self employed for a few years, and I'm working from home as an employee now. It isn't ideal. And that comes from someone who is an introvert.

I go in to the 'office' which is actually a coworking space my boss uses maybe once a month. It helps.

[paulgkc]

I do this currently, used to go in 3 days a week & then moved to 100%. Most of what people have stated above I've found to be true (good & bad).

You do miss out on the social interaction with coworkers you like; you also don't have to bother with people you don't. I would guess ~1.5 hours a day of my previous office life was completely wasted on small talk, conversations about work decisions with coworkers that we've already had three times and people "just wanted to touch base", etc. I do have to make an effort to get out of the house & interact with other human beings, even if it's just something like grocery shopping, otherwise you get crazy cabin fever.

You do miss a few things that happen in side conversations here & there, but you also don't get sucked into pointless meetings just because you are around, people generally think harder about inviting you to a meeting when they have to go to the trouble of sending you a meeting request or even picking up the phone instead of just snagging you as they walk by your cube. I have been very intentional in wedging myself in as an essential cog in any projects I feel are significant, so it does require some planning.

Overall I am way, way more productive & content with my current arrangement. I can start my day when I want, when I'm working I'm actually working instead of interruptions, or the 30-40 minutes in the car is spent actually doing my job. I can go for a quick 30-minute run while everyone else takes their 45-minute "lunch breaks" eating expensive junk and just graze throughout the day instead, toss a load of laundry in instead of making my sixth trip to the water cooler, etc. Most importantly, I can pop up to feed my 1-year-old lunch, check up on him, read him a book. I may eventually go back to the office life, but I recently had an opportunity for a moderate pay increase (~10k) doing similar work at a competitor and didn't think twice about passing on it.

[AlotToLearn]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

For those working remote partially now, how does your family like the fact you are home?

[Candace]

It's great to have choices. Congratulations and best wishes, no matter what you choose. You must be a badass to have the choice.

I've worked 100% remotely for a few different software projects. My level of productivity and success depended completely on how excited I was about the particular project. On one extremely complex project I was a beast who crushed the challenges, made everything work smoothly, and kept to an aggressive schedule where software was the tent pole. It was the best work of my career. On one or two others, I simply didn't care as much, and my work showed it. Hopefully you're more the type of person who has a good work ethic regardless of your personal feelings about the current project, and then you won't have the problems I did. Also, it did help me to get out of the house. Sometimes I had my own office and sometimes I was at a coffee shop.

[OtherJen]

I think a person is much more productive if they leave home and go to the office.   Too many distractions and interruptions at home.
Go to work and get your work done in a "work environment", then go home, unwind and forget work.

Depends on the person. I’ve worked full time at home for 6 years and I get way more done in less time than I ever did when I had to cope with all the distractions of an office or lab environment. Our house is cleaner, finances are clearer, and we eat better because I work fewer hours and don’t have to waste time commuting.

If you’re a highly internally motivated hermit (like me), working at home may be great for you. If you focus better around other people doing similar work, then an office setting will be ideal.

[bacchi]

The commute was always the huge stressor in my work life. When I went remote 100%, it was a night-and-day difference.

It helps if the entire team is remote, in which case everyone has the same chance to be "forgotten." Same applies if you're close to ER, in which case being "forgotten" doesn't matter because you're leaving in 6-12 months.

[ForeverPoor]

Morning All,

What is everyone's thoughts on working 100 percent remote for a company? Does anyone do it now, and if so, are there any regrets of giving up going into an office? I was presented with the potential to do just this, and while I have had the freedom in years past to work from home a day here and there, never have I had worked out of my home office exclusively.

I am in a mid-management position and work from home 80% of the time. Mondays are in the office for meetings, otherwise I am on the road traveling with my team to meet clients. It's a delicate balance because you need the self-discipline and drive to produce and not waste away.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I'm moving to one day per week in the office (from 5 days a week) starting May 1. Will report back. Honestly, I think going to 100% work from home would be tough. Some occasional face to face communication necessary, I think. I'm hoping once a week is enough.

[business325]

I think it depends on the kind of business you have, can it easily be done remotely? I like the idea of working from home in your own time.

[Metalcat]

You really can't generalize which is better, it depends on the person, the work, the work culture, and the professional goals.

I would say that the biggest factor is that you can kind of be forgotten in the workplace and therefore overlooked in terms of promotion. However, that's not a given either. If you are good at establishing your own value within the organization, then it can be a non issue.

The key is to identify what the pitfalls will likely be for you in your particular circumstances and plan accordingly to buffer against those pitfalls.

There's no fundamental advantage to going into the office, it's just that most people aren't prepared for the realities of working from home.

[Dave1442397]

I think a person is much more productive if they leave home and go to the office.   Too many distractions and interruptions at home.
Go to work and get your work done in a "work environment", then go home, unwind and forget work.

And for me, it's the exact opposite.

Going to the office means getting up at 4:15am to beat the traffic (35 min commute if I leave at 5am vs close to 2 hrs if I leave at 7am). Then I get maybe 90 mins of time where I can concentrate, followed by a day full of noise, loud co-workers crunching food and talking about TV shows, and if I'm lucky, get home in less than an hour when I leave by 2pm.

Being at home means getting up at 5:45am, walking a few feet to my home office, and working in a quiet, calm environment with no distractions and the temperature set where I like it.

I work from home four days a week most of the time. One day a week at the office is about all I want to deal with.

The reduction in stress levels is unreal. I get more done, I feel better in general, and I'm not wasting time and money sitting in traffic.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

You really can't generalize which is better, it depends on the person, the work, the work culture, and the professional goals.

I would say that the biggest factor is that you can kind of be forgotten in the workplace and therefore overlooked in terms of promotion.

No longer pretending that I have any interest in corporate ladder-climbing is one of the things I'm most looking forward to.

[herbgeek]

I've been working 100% remote for the last 3 years, and 3 years before that at least several days a week from home.

It works for me because 1) I'm a hermit- married and not looking for friends in the workplace so I don't miss the social aspects  2) very focused on what my value to the organization is and being the go to person for my area (versus just doing what I'm told) 3)  am very productive, focused and disciplined.   I am at my computer from 8:30 to 5 with only short breaks away.  I also work in a company where almost everyone including management works from home at least 2 to 3 days a week, so that we have the infrastructure to support remote workers, and there's less of the water cooler politics to be up against.  Also, the teams we work in are geographically remote, so we don't have all of a group in one physical location anyways if we were all in the office.  If I'm going to be on the phone with Atlanta, Edinburgh and Providence, why do I need to be in an office?  I can do that at home in sweatpants with much better coffee.  And not have to smell stinky food in the microwave or listen to the person on the other side of the short wall clipping his nails.

I would have hated this when I was younger, single, less disciplined about my work or worried about what I was missing because everyone else is in the office but me.

I do agree you have to make an effort to get out of the house.  Which is funny for me, because when I commuted I couldn't wait to just get home away from all those people.   

[OtherJen]

I do agree you have to make an effort to get out of the house.  Which is funny for me, because when I commuted I couldn't wait to just get home away from all those people.

Yes. I do a lot more volunteer work and hobby things now. I can't wait until the weather stabilizes and I can spend more time outside without cursing the cold and wind.

[debittogether]

I think a person is much more productive if they leave home and go to the office.   Too many distractions and interruptions at home.
Go to work and get your work done in a "work environment", then go home, unwind and forget work.

And for me, it's the exact opposite.

Going to the office means getting up at 4:15am to beat the traffic (35 min commute if I leave at 5am vs close to 2 hrs if I leave at 7am). Then I get maybe 90 mins of time where I can concentrate, followed by a day full of noise, loud co-workers crunching food and talking about TV shows, and if I'm lucky, get home in less than an hour when I leave by 2pm.

Being at home means getting up at 5:45am, walking a few feet to my home office, and working in a quiet, calm environment with no distractions and the temperature set where I like it.

I work from home four days a week most of the time. One day a week at the office is about all I want to deal with.

The reduction in stress levels is unreal. I get more done, I feel better in general, and I'm not wasting time and money sitting in traffic.

I couldn't second this harder.  I would honestly do ANYTHING to have a 100% work from home job that wasn't a massive pay cut.  There's absolutely no reason what I do can't be done remotely....it's just "not how it's done" because tradition/older generations/disinvestment in tech etc etc etc.

I cannot focus at an office.  Horrible lighting, always far too cold (my office does not have heat, just space heaters, and we're in the north), too much chit chat, too uncomfortable.

[AlotToLearn]

Thanks everyone for the input. I work in an individual contributor role in sales, and have no desire on interest to be promoted (that would be a pay cut haha). The social aspect of interfacing with my co workers is not something I honestly would miss daily.

I have been in other professional environments in my career where the whole "out of sight out of mind" factor was in play, but those were also jobs where I was trying to climb the corporate ladder, or managing people.

One guy who works out at my gym works in mortgages (I believe he is an underwriter) and shared he has worked remote for the past 3 companies he has been with since 2011. He said you couldnt pay him to step foot in an office setting again. I have had the chance to get to know him over the past few months, and his personality comes across as one who would be unhappy in a cubicle.

[CarolinaGirl]

I have been working at home 100% the past 4 years and had been working 80% of the time for the 3 years before that.  You couldn’t pay me enough to go back into an office!  I get way more done at home and I don’t lose 2-3 hours of my life each day ‘getting ready’ & commuting.  I save so much money on costumes (aka...professional business attire that I never wear outside of an office setting), gas and food.  My house stays clean, I’m able to cook dinner for my family and my dogs always have a human around to let them outside or to scratch their ears.  :)  Life is good!

[GuitarStv]

I think a person is much more productive if they leave home and go to the office.   Too many distractions and interruptions at home.
Go to work and get your work done in a "work environment", then go home, unwind and forget work.

I am much more productive at home than in the office because most distractions present in the office (co-workers coming by to chat, inane questions from various people, random noises, etc. that typically provide a distraction for me don't exist at home.

My concern about working from home is that you're not going to be as visible as people in the office.  Like it or not, a fair amount of how you're judged as an employee in most companies is related to visibility.  At most places I've worked, the guy who does 10-15 hour days every day and occasionally misses deadlines tends to be viewed more favourably than the guy who always makes his deadline but never puts in more than 8 hours.  If you're working at home, you don't have as much visibility . . . this means that a shitty manager will assume you're not working very hard.

[LiveLean]

I've worked from home -- and out and about as I'm a journalist working on stories - for 21 years, including my last year with a full-time employer. It's life changing not having all of the time lost to commuting, endless meetings, chit-chat, interruptions, etc. If you're the type of person who needs the constant work interaction and derive your social circle from work, that's one thing. But if you're a self-starter who prefers to make your own hours, design your own career and avoid office drama and mind-numbing meetings and office culture, it's a no-brainer.

[AlotToLearn]

I've worked from home -- and out and about as I'm a journalist working on stories - for 21 years, including my last year with a full-time employer. It's life changing not having all of the time lost to commuting, endless meetings, chit-chat, interruptions, etc. If you're the type of person who needs the constant work interaction and derive your social circle from work, that's one thing. But if you're a self-starter who prefers to make your own hours, design your own career and avoid office drama and mind-numbing meetings and office culture, it's a no-brainer.

I am certainly not a person who will miss the distractions found in the office (chatter, drama, office politics etc). I honestly think I would be happier working remote, even if I did so and *made less* than going in an office daily.

[dodojojo]

I work about 95% of the time at home.  I have an office but my manager, who works remotely, doesn't care if I go in except to take care of something that can't be done on my lap (picking a check for example).

It is a great benefit but the cons are mostly of my own doing.  I definitely could improve how I use my time.  Let's just put it that way.  I get things done and meet deadlines but it's too much of pulling out all the stops to accomplish something I could have comfortably done between business hours.  So yeah, I get things done, but I'm not happy with my process.  And yes, it's easy to find you've not interacted with any other humans day after day, especially if you're single.  And I do feel like I'm treading water career-wise.  The salary has increased moderately over the years but I'm doing exactly what I did seven years ago.  Zero growth.

[mm1970]

I think a person is much more productive if they leave home and go to the office.   Too many distractions and interruptions at home.
Go to work and get your work done in a "work environment", then go home, unwind and forget work.

Depends on the person, the day, the job.

I work at an office, and much of my work really requires it - hard to do the face to face discussions needed remotely.

However, I'm the person who knows everything.  Or at least, knows how to find everything.  I get interrupted a LOT.

Some days, I work from home for a few hours because I have a Dr's appt mid-day, or a sick kid, or whatever.   I can often get 2x the amount done at home, compared to a typical office day, because: no interruptions.

[jlcnuke]

I work from home for ~1/3rd of my time currently. While I'd miss some interactions with some co-workers, I'm much rather work from home 100% of the time. In fact, when I'm close-enough to FIRE, I'll switch to working from home full-time. Currently, that option is only available in limited circumstances to workers here, generally as part of "I'm going to have to quit or work from home, can I just work from home?" conversation.

[Unique User]

I've been working from home 100% for the last 8 years.  So many pros, most listed, but I'll also add that DH was able to relocate twice, halfway across the country each time because my job went with me.  Another big benefit is that my daughter is driving now and we share a car.  My division of the company is 100% remote and my team is in all different US time zones as well as in India, so I'm not the only one working remotely.  Another benefit is that I'm at home when my daughter gets home from school - not so important now as a senior, but very important in elementary and middle school.  I do have two friends that worked remotely and took other jobs to go back to an office as they missed it, I'm a hermit so it works well for me.  DH is in sales and also works from home when he is not on the road, we just set it up so our offices are on different levels of the house.  The only con I've noticed is that work bleeds into personal time. 

[NYCWife]

I've been working from home at a variety of jobs for the past decade. I've worked in an office where I was the only one working remotely. In that case, I went to the office one week a month (about 3 hours from my house by train). I've worked in an office where pretty much my entire team was working remotely too, so as previous posters said, there was a lot of infrastructure in place to support remote teams. My current job is 4 days a week at home; 1 day a week in the office. For me, I get MUCH more work done on my "home" days than on my "in the office" day. That could be because I schedule all my meetings for the day I'm in the office--LOL.

I greatly appreciate working from home. I have a space set up for working, which I learned early on was an important part of the process, otherwise I tended to let my work day bleed into evening family time. Having a specific work space gets me in the right mentality when I head there in the morning and allows me to leave my computer and work phone isolated at the end of the day, to avoid temptations to keep working. When I lived in NYC, we didn't have a real office (NY apartment and all that), so my space was just a little corner of the dining area. Now that we've moved to the country, I have an actual office with desk, equipment, and great light.

I really enjoy being able to set my own hours (I like to start work early and end right at 5:00 or 5:30). I enjoy being able to do laundry in the "brain break" times throughout the week. And since I LOVE to cook, I really enjoy the ability to be able to conserve the time I would have used for commuting in preparing dinner. For me, it's been a great balance.

The only challenge I have had (other than unbalanced work-life time before I got strict about workspace) was when I was the only remote worker on my team. It was very difficult to be part of the team then--though they added me to conference call lines, I was the only team member on the call and they would often forget about me, engaging in sidebar conversations that I couldn't hear, forget to start the call, etc. I tried (in vain) to switch to video conferencing, which is what I would definitely recommend for anyone who is the only remote worker attending a team meeting. I'd also recommend setting up weekly check-in calls with your manager, and setting up "lunch chats" with colleagues, where you eat and video chat to build/maintain relationships.

In the end, I do think it's about your personality. I love working from home because I'm introverted and am easily over-stimulated by people/noises at the office. My husband is the reverse--he loves chatting and hustle/bustle. I don't think he'd be too keen on working from home. YMMV

[Indio]

I've had 3 jobs over the past 20 years that are 100% remote work from home. There are plenty of benefits working from home, internet, cell and house phone are expensed. In summer, I relocate to someplace scenic, as long as there is a reliable internet connection. I've worked from a lanai in Hawaii looking out on the beach, a bay in San Diego, a lake in ME. It's great when school is out.
At my current job most of the team is remote, but once a month we meet on-site at office. Another person on the team, who worked remotely at her last job did so in French countryside for 2 years. She's selling her house and going to move to PR for a year and still work for company.
It's easy to attract good talent when there isn't a requirement to be in the office. My first remote job, found that recruiting was difficult and they had to pay higher salaries when they wanted people to relocate to HCOL.
There are a few disadvantages of working from home like family thinking you're available to run errands, forgetting to turn on car for 2 weeks at a time. The good part is that I can get all of my errands and chores done while on a conference call can fold laundry, do dishes, sweep floors, plan dinner, etc. It frees up weekends for fun.

[Mike in NH]

I have been working from home nearly 100% of my last 10 years @ insurance mega corp, I was in an office about 25 minutes commute away for the 5 years prior. Here's my take which lines up with what some others have said.

Positive:

- no commute, no getting dressed, needing work clothes, get ready in the morning, etc...I budget this as about 10 hours of my life that I got back every week by working from home. I used that time to invest in my health (exercise, learning how to cook). And this is just the time, obviously there is a financial impact as well.

- chores around the house are so much easier. Run the dishwasher, throw a load of laundry in, it's a nice break from sitting/staring at the screen and seems like a lot less of a hassle

- more efficient use of PTO/Vacation time ... you don't ever really have to take a sick day, it's pretty easy to wheeze through a less productive day at home than to try and drag yourself into the office.

- I think it actually made me more social...when I was gone all day, @ the end of the day all i wanted to do was sit on the couch, relax and enjoy my home. When I'm home all day all I want to do at the end of the day is get outside for a hike, see my friends, etc.

- I really feel like it makes my time more my own ... if I'm not feeling work and I want to go for a walk, read a book for a bit etc, there's no concern of looking like I'm slacking off @ my cube. Going to the gym at lunch isn't some huge process involving changing clothes or worrying about a shower, it's just going to the gym.

- Working from home and having a garage basically made the concept of the 'Tough New England Winter' disappear. Don't have to clean the car off in the morning, don't have to deal with crappy roads if I don't want to. That reduces stress, and liability risk driving in those types of conditions.

- I don't have to leave our dog alone for long periods of time.


Negative:

- If you struggle with communication (written, verbal) and your job relies on that, it can be a challenge

- If you need the structure of work to stay on task it can be a challenge

- I'm an extrovert, so I need to stay on top of getting myself social interaction

- It's easy to think you will never miss the people that annoy you in the office, and some you may not, but there are plenty of stories of retirees that miss certain aspects of the office...sometimes I struggle with feeling like I am part of a team/common goal.

- Slippery slope to hermit life! No social norms keeping you in line...some winters putting on jeans and a button down feels like a tuxedo haha

- The struggle is real when it comes to snacks. When I lived alone I just didn't have them in the house. My wife is the snack queen. Sometimes it looks like a bear broke into the kitchen when she gets home.

Overall I'd say that working from home gives you more of your life back, which is what most of us are trying to work towards anyway, it's more efficient/economical, and it's good practice for what your early retired life might feel like some days.

[PJC74]

Looks like I'm in the minority here, but I work in the office almost everyday and don't mind it one bit. Here are some positives:

*easy commute - 15 min each way, minimal traffic, and I pass by the grocery store, Home Depot, and other stores along my route so I can pick up things on the way home.
* walled office with stand up desk. The area I work in is in a quieter area of the building also.
* Coffee/Latte/Water station - free drinks :)
* onsite gym- I normally take my lunch break and work out. I go the same time and there is great camaraderie at the gym
* I consider my direct colleagues I work with as much as friends as coworkers. We normally will go out for drinks once in a while. We have a lot of laughs during the day.
* I'm an extrovert. The building I work in is quite large with a wide variety of people. I have my groups that I chat with about my different interest, surfing, poker, family,etc..

[FInding_peace]

Wow, I think Mike in NH really nailed it so first, I'd +1 everything he said, both on the positive and negative sides. 

A few additional (or related) points:

Positive:

+ Opportunities to multitask during meetings: I usually have at least a few meetings in the week that are "listen-only", e.g. a C-level exec talking to the whole division about priorities for the quarter.  They're information distribution.   I think of these like a podcast I'm listening to, and use the time to work out, fold laundry, do dishes, meal prep, or cook.  You can save a bunch of time this way, or just cook a really nice leisurely breakfast. 

+ Focus shifts to results you deliver, rather than the time taken to deliver them:  No one is watching to see if you sit at your desk all day or not, so if you can really focus and bang out all your work quickly, you can actually free up more of your week to do other things (so long as you are still reachable during work hours). 

+ More opportunities to travel: I live far away from family and I like that I can just go see them for a week and take my work with me.  I'm able to stay longer and don't have to take PTO to do it.  You can also try slow-travel or a snowbird migration pattern to escape winter for a bit if you want, without using PTO.  I've had mixed feelings about these latter options.  I get kind of frustrated paying for a hotel or an airbnb someplace, only to spend most of the time glued to my computer anyway, but you can try it and see how you feel about it.  Of course, you can also move anywhere you'd like too. 

+ Free regular trips to the main office?: These can be fun if company headquarters is in a cool city with lots to do (or eat, yay for per diems!).  You get some of the benefits of getting to explore without actually having to pay the exorbitant rent there. 

Negatives:

+ Difficulty leading and influencing team strategy: If you're someone like me that likes to have strategic influence on the team's direction, that's going to be harder when you're remote.  You just miss a lot of the watercooler discussions where ideas form and the ball starts rolling on them.  If you want to have influence, you generally have to be really proactive about setting up regular 1:1s with a lot of team members to catch up on all the watercooler talk and socialize your own ideas with people. 

+ Harder to navigate social nuances: If you're communicating with people mostly over Slack, you're missing a lot of communication signals: body language, tone of voice, etc.  Depending on how direct others are in their communication, this makes it harder to detect for example when you've reached an agreement, but not everyone is fully onboard with it.  Or if you said something that offended someone.  Or for them to detect if they said something that offended you.  Seeing each other in person or over video 1:1 regularly is great for staying on top of these sorts of things.

+ Murkiness of boundaries between work and life: It's soooo easy to not feel like working on a Friday and put off what you need to get done to the weekend.   Or get started a couple hours late in the morning and then feel like you need to work late to make up for it.  If you have problems with procrastination or self-discipline, working remotely might be hard. 

+ Possible loneliness, even as an introvert:  I'm a strong introvert, and I typically don't think of myself as needing much social interaction to be happy, but working remotely can be on another level in terms of lacking social interaction if you're not careful about it.  When I'm in a relationship, I tend to enjoy working remotely, as it leaves me more social energy to enjoy spending time together with my SO at the end of the day.  But when I'm single, it's a definite challenge, I have to be really proactive about setting up lots of social plans, and I can still end up lonely even with a few hours here and there with friends on the calendar.  I'd think about how much social interaction is naturally baked into your life already through a partner, kids, roommate, family, friends you see regularly, or hobbies, and if it'll be enough, and if not, how hard you'll have to work to supplement it. 

Overall, I'd recommend working remotely as long as you're good at managing yourself and you'll get sufficient social interaction.  I'd agree with Mike that it does feel a bit closer to early retirement, especially in that it increases your freedom substantially, and can be a great way to feel like you're transitioning toward the lifestyle you want. 

[StarBright]

I'm also in the 10+ years of 100% work from home. Mike in NH and FInding_peace cover it quite well. In particular FInding_peace's negatives are definitely my negatives.

I'm an introvert and LOVED working from home for the first 3 years. I felt much more neutral on it for years 4-8 and have actively disliked it for the last two. I have a few things that keep me in my specific job, but if I didn't have those, I would have moved back to an office job at this point.

So I have a few caveats:

It depends on your job. A lot of people talk about how much home stuff they can get done when they work from home, or how they don't have to take sick time, etc but I want to throw this out there: if you have a job where you are expected to be in front of your computer/at your phone/desk for 8 hours a day then working from home can be even more isolating. You don't have to take sick time true, but you might be expected to work the whole time you are sick (and thus not really get rest/recover).

I think it also depends if you are in a relationship or have children. My job got much harder in some ways once I had kids (I suspect most jobs get harder once you have kids :)). But in regards to working remotely, the time I used to have in the evenings to leave the house or be social was drastically curbed by my family's needs. I can go several days without leaving my house now and it sucks!

It also depends on your boss- do you have a micromanager boss who loves butt in the seat time? They might expect constant interaction when you work from home and that can be a pain.

So basically, it can be great or it can suck, and a ton of it is very dependent on your situation. You need to analyze the job, your life, your personality and see if it works for you.

[ditheca]

I'm coming up on 3 years of 100% working from home after 10 years of working in an office.  I love my home office, and never want to leave.

The position is a well paid dead-end job... There is no room for career growth or promotion, so I'm not missing out on promotion opportunities by disappearing from the social scene at headquarters.  I'm pretty introverted, so I get all the face-time I need from hobbies and church.

The biggest downside for me is that I'm so comfortable here that I haven't been able to force myself to seriously consider alternatives.  I could handle much more challenging and rewarding work, but I'm very hesitant to look for it.

[MonkeyJenga]

I have haaaaated the periods when I was forced to work from home temporarily. I sat on the couch and ate all day, and I couldn't disconnect from work at an appropriate hour because there was no divider line. I need to see people during the day or I go totally bonkers. I've always had genuine friends at work, though, and I trained myself to enjoy chitchat with rando coworkers. I also need zero barriers to exercising, which has been made easier by having gyms at work. Without that exercise and social connection... oof.

I am not good at mornings, so my favorite schedule was a flexible morning WFH, then go into the office around noon.

[ReadySetMillionaire]

I work for myself, not a megacorp, but still opted to rent an office.  Now, my original office share (with five other attorneys and 4-5 staff) was just way too distracting.  Constant phone calls for other attorneys (still distracting to hear the phone ring off the hook), constant small talk, constantly being asked for favors (I turned into an amateur IT guy because the staff couldn't save files and stuff like that). It was all very distracting.

So I just moved into my own suite.  It's 600 square feet, just me.  My productivity is absolutely through the roof.  I'm away from the traditional office distractions. It's great.

In addition to needing to meet clients here, I need an office because I generally agree with other posters who've stated that they just can't be that productive at home. It's too easy to go and make lunch (instead of just eat it), stop and read a book for an hour, go clean something, watch an episode of something, etc. I'm just not that productive, and then boom, it's 3:00 and I haven't finished anything.

Ultimately I think it's a personal decision that is largely based on your work habits, eagerness for social interaction, and your ability to stay focused.  There is no right or wrong answer.

[dodojojo]

I'm coming up on 3 years of 100% working from home after 10 years of working in an office.  I love my home office, and never want to leave.

The position is a well paid dead-end job... There is no room for career growth or promotion, so I'm not missing out on promotion opportunities by disappearing from the social scene at headquarters.  I'm pretty introverted, so I get all the face-time I need from hobbies and church.

The biggest downside for me is that I'm so comfortable here that I haven't been able to force myself to seriously consider alternatives.  I could handle much more challenging and rewarding work, but I'm very hesitant to look for it.

Ditto.  I double-checked your name to make sure I hadn't posted...

[dodojojo]

Sometimes people overestimate my level of flexibility when they find out I work from home.  That's because of the electronic tethering of chatting.  My company has an internal chat system and people can see when you're online.  It's not mandatory to be on it all the time, but in the real world, if your manager is on it all day, so will you.

So though I work from home, I  conform to normal work day hours.  I have a friend who doesn't have this electronic leash and she has far more flexibility between working, running errands, picking up her kids, etc.  Whereas my workday hours are much set much like anyone else at an office.

[FInding_peace]

For me, the problem of being online and available on a chat program can be solved just by leaving the computer on, even if I'm not actually sitting at it at the moment.  Our chat program, Slack, makes noises whenever someone mentions me in a conversation or sends me a private message, which is handy because I can hear it throughout much of the house and go respond. 

[dodojojo]

Yes, I can hear the notification when I'm in my apartment but I meant true flexibility in terms of working unorthodox hours.  For example, if I didn't have to be online all the time, I could decide to work out in the mornings, start working near noon and finish late evenings.  Get my work done but on my schedule.  Whereas since I have to log into chat, I work the more traditional 9-6 day.  That's close to the schedule my manager works and he expects me to be online and available.

[PDXTabs]

I work from home 100% (minus occasional travel). In most ways it is way better than my last job where I was crammed into a hectic and distracting office. Also, my boss at the new place is mostly great. The organization is a young startup and it is chaos, but my boss does a good job of shielding me from it. With that said, it might be less chaotic if we were co-located. But I've gotten good at accepting that I get paid to write code on my couch and I shouldn't be too critical.

[BookLoverL]

At the moment, I spend 2 days a week in an office, and most of the rest of my work is from home. I'm disabled and introverted, and personally I find it takes a lot out of me energy-wise to maintain office-level professional appearances for a whole day at once, so I'm looking forward to the day when I manage to fund my whole lifestyle with the working-from-home stuff rather than the office stuff. But if you're an extrovert and you're good at the office politics/social appearances angle, you may find you prefer to be in an office or other open-plan space at least some of the time. So yeah, if you currently wake up on the office days and you dread them for reasons that are to do with the office-y aspects rather than to do with the nature of the work you're doing, it's definitely worth considering remote work, but if not, then YMMV.