Comments on: Open Thread: Would You Go Back?

By: What would it take to get me to work in an office again? Seriously? | John Watson

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:21:58 +0000

[...] Joel on Software article (of Fog Creek Software) got me thinking about this a while ago and Web Worker Daily reminded me again today. Maybe I just had a string of bad experiences, but I honestly don’t [...]

By: accelsloato

accelsloato — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:41:21 +0000

Your welcome everyone, My problemm: my pc worked slowly, fast reeboot and some others. Please, help me to fix it – I need some links, that consist info, how can I do it. Thx, accelsloato

By: Smudded

Smudded — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:29:06 +0000

I work in an office right now. I absolutely hate it. I have a web project I’m working on at home that I hope will allow me to be self employed. I love working on that site from home. I hate commuting to an office and dealing with the office life. End of story. If I can help it, im never coming back to corporate America.

By: Mary-Ann Horley

Mary-Ann Horley — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:48:23 +0000

@Stewart: Yeah, that’s what I meant by my working at Facebook comment. But let’s face it, most companies aren’t like that.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:47:56 +0000

We employ some of the best knowledge workers in the world. I have staff that works all around the world. If I have to tell you what to do, we are both in the wrong job. Work where you will, do what needs to get done.

What's wrong with that?

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 18:44:05 +0000

I’ve been able to work at home occasionally at various jobs, but would love to return to that permanently. I’m at a cube job right now and luckily they are flexible about hours, but I’d say that my ideal come-into-the-office situation would be one where I could come in much later. I’m in Chicago and one of the train lines is undergoing a major overhaul, so it’s affecting commute times for everyone. My single biggest peeve is how much of my personal time is wasted during my commute to and from work.

By: Rob Witham

Rob Witham — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:52:41 +0000

I would be very, very slow to ever return to the 9-5 corporate grind. A great salary would only be part of the necessary program to get me back to corporate life. Flexible scheduling, better office conditions, accessibility without driving, etc, etc. I don’t see myself going back though. Sorry corporate America. Wake up and outsource to all of us freelancing web workers!

By: almostgotit

almostgotit — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:01:43 +0000

Working at home means worrying about whether they’ll be any work tomorrow (or next week), keeping many more tax records (and paying through the NOSE at tax time), spending huge swaths of time on your own, having to manage your own time and police it against all would-be intruders.

I wouldn’t ever want to romanticize it :) — and if the right 9-5 came along, I’d still take it. BUT now that I’ve tasted a decent hourly wage, setting my own hours, and getting AWAY from all the really terrible things that attended my last job working in a large bureacracy…. well, it’s pretty great, I have to admit. But I do fantasize, still, about something that would combine the best of both worlds…

By: Manny

Manny — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:39:36 +0000

The biggest departure for me was to see the impact of my work almost immediately. I used to work for Procter & Gamble, at a diaper manufacturing facility. I learned a ton in terms of management, but compare that to what you can accomplish (in terms of product management and product development) online and it's like day and night.

A good example of this is what we've been able to accomplish at TuDiabetes.com, a Social Network for Diabetics that I founded recently. Thanks to the sheer power of other sites linking to it, membership has skyrocketed over the weekend. Try to do that in the physical world... You can't reproduce it.

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:01:20 +0000

Would I go back? I just want to get OUT! I have taken some of your advise from previous postings on working from home….checked some of the job posting sites, sent resumes to companies on my own, etc. I am still stuck in my large front office, facing a “old dog” type office manager all day, missing my daughter while she is at summer day care, worried that I only have 3 days of paid vacation time left, trying to look busy, even when I’m not so I don’t get that look. If any of you have some new ideas on where a person can get a real job working from home….I am listening! HELP!

By: Steve VanSickle

Steve VanSickle — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:09:57 +0000

I work for a company that allows me to work remotely from time to time (which I do almost every Friday [I'm still new]), but sometimes, I actually find being in the office more motivating when I've got a tight deadline. Plus, I'm still a newer developer so it's nice to talk face-to-face with people in my department on how to aproach a new project or just get some advice. Though, to my company's credit, I get to wear mostly whatever I want (just no shorts or horribly offensive things), we don't have many meetings at all, and I can stream whatever music I damn well please (^_-). Oh yeah, free pop is nice too.

By: Deirdré Straughan

Deirdré Straughan — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 04:51:45 +0000

It’s possible to have the best of both worlds. Smart companies are letting their people work from home exactly as much as they want to, with the option to come in to the office when they need to. Sun Microsystems is one good example.

By: drone

drone — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:06:56 +0000

The drain of knowledge workers starting to get noticed eh? Two words:

bew hew

The VP of "I'm smarter than you because my car chirps" should have thought of that before reprioritizing his/her strategic paradigm initiatives and firing everyone. Looking around and can't find anyone that knows how to do anything?

Want some of us back? Here's the short list, Captain Powerpoint. Pay attention this time, kay?

Zero-tolerance for office politics. This is not negotiable. At all.
Guaranteed contracts. Full benefits.
Everyone gets an office. Cubicles are gone. Forevah.
The person who calls a meeting pays for it out of their own paycheck.
Everyone gets to telecommute. All the time.
The HR department gets replaced with a bowling alley.
Part-time and flexible scheduling.
Unless the company is in Chapter 7, no layoffs. Period.

But the corporate types are too weaksauce to understand how real human beings work. None of this will ever happen. So here is my advice to the corporate types who are losing too many knowledge workers:

Cry more.

By: moleskine

moleskine — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 21:24:18 +0000

@TED --I thought I was the only basket case out there that got fed up of the corporate politics in two years time. The first half year is fresh and exciting, the second one is when you really get into the zone of things. Then the third half year kicks in and you know what is actually going on , grumbling aside, when finally the fourth half year you end up sick of it all, the dirty politics, the run and maintain.

Lucky enough I found an employer that contracts me through a third party which actually promotes homework/webwork. I got all my tools, they don't care where I am as long as I get my job done. so it is not full webworker, but more like webworker 1.5. Not self-employed but self-managed.

I do know that I will never return to the 8 hour/5 day a week in the office just because it is "standard". I am more productive, more proactive, more professional these days. And I love it.

By: ben

ben — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 06:13:44 +0000

I look at it from the exact opposite perspective as Ted.

I'll give first priority to anyone who pays well, but:

Give me the privilege of doing the job right.
Give me the responsibility of ensuring that it's done right.
Accept that my eggs will always be not only in your basket, but a few others as well.
Don't put me in a situation where the amount of time I spend on the commute is any more than ten percent of the time I spend on your projects.

Anyone who can't deal with these stipulations, well, Tough Shit. Bizdev is far from being my favorite activity, but it still beats being treated like a mere tool.

By: Ted

Ted — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 19:34:38 +0000

I’d have to lose all my clients with no hope of quickly picking up more to give up on being self-employed. The ability to just close up shop for a few hours and take my kids to the park, or knock out some mid-day shopping, or knock out work in the evenings (or in the park, since we have citywide wifi) is just too glorious to give up. I’ve been in too many office situations where everything started out great with great bosses, co-workers, etc, and it all went to hell after two years. I typically am very project-oriented, so the daily grind of just “maintaining” kills me.