The Difference Between Working At The Office Or At Home

Today was yet another snow day in the Chicago Area. The client sent us home around lunch time. Since I don't have remote access to the client I had the unusual experience of trying to get work done at home for the client (grab all the files you need and put them on a thumb drive). I got to thinking about the difference between the office and home and I figured it would be fun to put down a few of these thoughts.

Office

Have most things you need at your finger tips
Direct access to servers
You can walk to peoples desks
Can't get any work done because others are stopping at your desk
Get to spend quality hours in the car

Home

Can work in slippers (frowned on in the work place and if you wear something else I don't want to hear about it)
Only the kids bother you
Slow connections if you have remote access
Tempted to play video games or watch TV (or write blog posts)

This is just a short list. Now I need to get back to work. What difference do you find?

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Wednesday, February 06, 2008 1:45 PM

Your Comments.

# re: The Difference Between Working At The Office Or At Home

well, i'm in chicago too and we typically work from home on days like this....seeing as how i'm currently doing that i have the following to offer:

Office
free access to bottled water and soda
feel more connected to your team

Home
work in bed with your gf curled up and sleeping next to you
have to help local friends dig themselves out of the stupid snow.

Left by Eric at 2/6/2008 2:54 PM

# re: The Difference Between Working At The Office Or At Home

Working form home is GREAT! It's everything my former workmates and I used to dream about. However, there is a huge disconnect from the rest of the team and the temptations to slack off (TV, WWW, Sleep) must really be managed. It takes discipline for sure!

Left by homebody at 2/6/2008 7:22 PM

# re: The Difference Between Working At The Office Or At Home

Office
* What's that?
* Oh, the place where everyone has meetings all day.
* Great place to train, learn from each other, mentor, demo.

Home Office
* Work with superior equipment because you invest in it.
* I can have infinite servers using Virtualization.
* KVM switch for as many machines as I can afford to run.
* NO ONE to bother me, unless I work weekends, answer e-mail, IM or the phones.
* Wonder, when will I clean my office if no one is ever here to see it. :)