Within the last few weeks, I’ve once again begun the harrowing task of re-acclimatizing to an office environment. After working from home for a long time (I can’t even remember how long but oh how sweet it was…) I’ve been hyper aware of the positive and negative benefits a “tele-commuter” has versus his office compatriot.

The day I started writing this, it really put a nail in the heart of office-life. While nothing really bad happened, it’s definitely not a situation I want to involve myself in. I had an 11:59 pm flight to catch on a Wednesday night. Horse racing (a huge Hong Kong pastime) is usually on Wednesdays so that in itself leads to increased traffic jams however for some reason, there was a further delay. It took me an hour and a half to get home and that was including me getting out and cabbing it about half of the way home. I guess there was a double-decker bus that had a flat tire so that essentially messed up the flow big time. But let me tell you, standing ass-to-ass with a group of grumpy people at the end of the day is not something pleasant. A bunch of people towards the back were swearing at the bus driver for his inability to cut into lanes haha.

I’ll throw out some random thoughts:

Commuting: I save about 2 hours a day by not needing to commute when working at home. That means more time spent sleeping and more productivity (yeeeeh I value sleep quite a bit). But it is also physically draining to travel in cramped quarters.

Distractions: The office over the last few days has had 5-6 people and at times it was distracting. I can’t imagine it at 18 people (official capacity). However, knowing that you have an “end” time, means you’ll be motivated to get everything done before you leave. With working at home, the “work times” get blurred quite a bit. So it’s a catch-22, working harder with distractions vs. distraction-less work but less motivated. To help support my “office distraction” argument: TED: Jason Fried on Why Work Doesn’t Happen At Work.

Communication: It’s easy to just yell across the room. I guess our set-up makes it easy, it’s relatively small and open. This is what I have valued the most thus far is the ability to instantly communicate short quick thoughts. I do think that decision making is much quicker.

Work Space Set-up: I like to stand up as I work and my work space at home was set-up to do so with a double monitor. Unfortunately I have to rig something up by myself in the office that isn’t quite as good and leads to sore wrists… and no double monitor.

So there you have it… for me you really have to take into consideration of the power of a more productive and more “awake” worker versus the communication factor. It’s not like we make game-changing decisions everyday, but the real answer is a hybrid where you spend some time in and some time out of the office to keep you fresh.

Oh and I’ll leave you with this… Teleworkers More Satisfied Than Office-Based Employees

-Eugene