As someone who has worked from home for a year and half I can testify to the fact that wfh is not an easy thing to do. What I missed the most was whatever little interaction I had with colleagues. I used to get so frustrated at the end of the day that I just had to get out somwhere at the end of the day - be it to a coffee shop,just to see some people. Given a chance I wouldn't prefer to wfh again. I beleive the ideal combo is to work from office 3 days and wfh 2 days. That said, I know several folks who successfully wfh. I believe a lot depends on your personality.
Definitely depends on your personality. I work from home 3 days a week usually, but at the moment I've been doing 5 days a week from home. It has the upsides and the downsides.
The biggest upside for me is that you can get lots more done - if I'm in the office then someone can interrupt me physically. If I'm at home, the best they can do is MSN me (I can ignore), they can e-mail (I can ignore) and they can phone me (I can ignore that). If something is not urgent I will leave it for a couple of hours.
I also find these does actually help co-workers learn - if you're in the office and they ask you for help, they get it. If you can't respond right away, it often means they'll spend their time on their own trying to fix the problem and then they don't actually need you and they increase their knowledge.
The other massive upside is travel costs (depending on location of your office to your house). Fortunately my wife works from home a lot as well, so it means we only need 1 car (saves a fortune) and obviously spend far less in petrol. Even though we sit in the same room, we barely speak to each other all day a lot of the time - she is often on conference calls and I am coding, but at least if we want a bit of human interaction, we have it.
We've been doing this for 2+ years and we don't have any problems - I guess some couples might find it a strain but it works really well for us.
As a full time telecommuter for almost 3 years now, my opinion is quite different. I can barely imagine going back to a commuter life.
The few times a month when I have to drive during rush hour remind me how much better life is when not spent in traffic. And without the daily distractions of office life I get much more accomplished in much less time.
So long as you have good self control, and can work independently and self-motivate, it can be a wonderful arrangement. If you are lacking in those areas, I imagine it can be very difficult.
I work at work 2days a week and from home 3 days, I too like this balance. It's great for focus when programming, and enough time for meetings. Takes a bit of discipline though. Working from home is great for having time to pick up the children from daycare without having to leave early too.
I think you've got the ideal setup there. 5 days a week in the office leads to too many distractions / meetings; but 5 days a week WFH leads to loneliness. I'm currently stuck only allowed to WFH when absolutely necessary. I'd love to sell this to my employer - was this a change that got implemented or was it that way from the start?
From the start because I could not afford to commute, but I am also a cofounder so I have a lot to say on the issue. I think that for just plain "time to crank out massive amounts of code" nothing beats working from home. I've coded most of the non-routine new stuff like new improved libraries and frameworks this way. For coding maintenance stuff: I think I can do that better at the office.
I think you are right. I was in the situation that I worked from home for 6 months and I found it very hard at the end because I got call only for problem to fix. So, the only interaction was from "negative" conversation. The mix of working home and to the office is the best IMO.
