subject: Working from home on your terms [print this page] Years ago, you didn't really hear about too many people working from home unless they were stay-at-home mothers who were dabbling in something like Avon or babysitting, etc. However, today, quite the opposite is true. If anything, "going to work" has transitioned into meaning walking from your bedroom to wherever in your house your laptop or desktop computer is located. The result of so many people working from home has led to an increase in the number of those who are happy or who feel more fulfilled at their work. To not have a supervisor standing over you, heckling you every other minute or hour to do something is quite different than receiving an email or two. Besides this, many people who work from the comfort of their own homes find that they are allowed to make their own hours. This increased flexibility allows them to spend valuable time with their children and families as well as run errands and get involved in more extracurricular activities. Perhaps one of the most beneficial aspects to working from home is the fact that you can 'plug and play' meaning that you are not restricted to working from your house. Rather, anywhere where you can jump on a WiFi connection seems to be fair game for those of us who enjoy some of the luxuries that working from home can bring. However, things aren't always so dreamy when you have a work from home career. There are a number of drawbacks.
Working from home is not for everyone. Some of us realize very quicikly that working from home doesn't agree with us. Some people need to have a structured enviornment in which to do their work...a structured environment that has already been put into place, where they can go in and report to someone and then leave at the end of the day versus having to come up with their own schedule of planned activities.
Additionally, working from home means that you are ultimately responsible for what happens to your workload. If you are employed by someone, this means that he or she is not only trusting that you will get the work done when it is supposed to be submitted but that you will actually do a good job. There is a lot of pressure put onto those who work from home, and more often than not, those of us who work from home wind up putting in more work hours than we would have had we stayed in an office.
