It has been almost 10 months since I started working from home. I did not expect to not go to office for such a long time. This has been a different experience. It was tough initially and I felt so uncomfortable in not going to office. Now, I have got quite used to it and really don't want to go to office in the future :)
Pros on working from home -
✅ Get more time to sleep in the morning. If I have to go to office, I have to get up at least by 6.30 or 7 in the morning. These days, I get up only by 9 to 9.30 unless they set up a meeting during that time.
✅ No more rushing to the pantry at 12.30 pm to get a good seat for having lunch. No more eating food from a tiffin box. Ever since I started working from home, I get to eat lunch leisurely at home on the dining table.
✅ No more riding the bike in the Chennai traffic. I must admit, I do miss driving my bike. Still, the back pain that I had from sitting for a long time during the drive is now gone.
✅ Worrying about travel during rainy days is again something that I did not have the last few months. My parents were the people who used to worry when it rained on a week day. They would call me regularly to update on the weather forecast and ask me to leave early (if I had taken the bike to office) or to get a cab and leave office early. For the first time, I was happily working from home and enjoyed watching the rain outside the window.
✅ No more carrying the laptop bag. The laptop bag that carried the laptop and it's accessories were always heavy to carry and most of us had shoulder pain in carrying it. Well, I did not have to worry about that these days.
✅ I could go and help my parents in household work since I was at home. In the rare occasions, that I could venture out, I could just take an hour off, come back and finish the work. It was a little easy that way.
✅ Last but not the least, I hated using the office rest rooms since it was used by many people and no matter how much the admin staff cleaned, it never felt clean as my own bathroom at home. That was a relief after working from home.
Cons of working from home -
⏩No personal connect - I really miss meeting and talking in person to folks at office. If I needed some details or wanted some help, I could just walk in to their cabin and speak in person. If we had any issues, we would just walk in to a meeting room and discuss about it. Now, it is all virtual connects. Phones and laptops are the modes of communication.
⏩Irregular work timings - While working from office, we atleast had some kind of work timings (even if ended up working outside office working hours). Still, people knew that morning was the time everyone traveled to office, lunch time was from 1 to 2 pm, and then everyone went back home after 6 or 7 pm. After I started working from home, any time was a good time to call. There were no specific lunch time or dinner time.
⏩Long hours of work - I actually think I worked more hours the last 10 months than what I would usually do when I had worked from office. The first few months was terrible.
⏩The network connection at home is not as good and fast as the one at office. That is one of the biggest problem in working from home.
⏩I had some kind of exercise when I worked from office - walking up and down the stairs, walking to the pantry, meeting room. Going on a long walk occasionally. This has all gone after working from home. I have to push myself to walk or exercise every day.
⏩I miss the long walks, going down to the pantry to buy something to munch on - chocolates, samosa, pastries, ice cream. Going out to have lunch with my colleague U when we both will crib about our projects, manager, clients and the company. I miss those occasional team lunches/dinners.
I do miss going to office. Still, have gotten quite comfortable working from home these days.
Well, as they say - change is inevitable. We just have to adjust and go on with life.
No comments:
Post a Comment