Pros and Cons of Working from Home

I got up this morning with the expectation of having an 8am video conference call, but after checking my email at 5:30, I discovered that my student needed to reschedule. It was chilly and raining outside so I threw on this giant blue robe and wandered out to my workspace. I\’ll just check my other tasks and a coupla emails, I thought.Soon enough it was after 8. The monsters needed feeding and I\’d dug into some actual work. Just after the feeding frenzy, the phone rang. I was on nearly an hour call.There are various pros and cons to being a hermit working from home.Pros:

• Your schedule is your own for the most part. Sure, there are meetings (and in my case since I teach, grading assignments and papers), but if they are standard or on the calendar in advance, it\’s pretty simple to do what you want around them.
  • This means you can come and go as you please. For example, if I have an epiphany about needing a certain snack that is not readily available in the cabinet, I can take off to get it.
• Similarly, you get to set your own hours. I have office hours during weekdays but also take meetings during the weekend when necessary.
• You are able to create a better work-life balance.

Cons:

• It\’s easy to take days like today (cloudy, rainy, chilly) to do nearly nothing. In my case, I\’ve stayed in my robe all day. I\’ve assessed assignments, updated my calendar, connected to a couple of my doctoral students, sent some text messages, made arrangements on a special gift I\’m buying, and did some of my usual Thursday chores. All whilst in my robe. This may sound like a \’pro\’ (I mean, all day robe wearing, right?), but when you walk to the post box at 2 in the afternoon in your robe, folks look at you in a strange way.
• Unless you do it full-time, you work at the whim of your organization(s), meaning your income isn\’t always guaranteed. For those of us who\’ve lived in at-will states, this is not a thing, but there are times when it gets a bit financially dicey.

I am sure there are more pros and cons but these are the ones that come to me at the moment. While I\’m watching the rain. In my robe. On a Thursday afternoon.What are you up to?