Working From Home

Does anyone here currently work from home or in the past had the opportunity to work from home?  How is/was your work from home experience?  Did you like it better than showing up to the office each morning and working alongside colleagues?  What are the advantages and disadvantages either way? 

The reason I bring this up is that during a team meeting yesterday management presented the possible opportunity to work from home in the future.  Most of my colleagues were literally bouncing off the walls with joy at the idea.  I was the lone dissenter, however, and when management took a show of hands, I was the only person to not be in favor of working from home.

I am the only single person in the office, and really do not mind commuting to work, spending a busy day working alongside colleagues and then coming home to a nice quiet house in the evening.  This works perfectly when it comes to Angelic Warlord, in that during the evening I have no distractions when it comes to managing the site.

The problem with working from home, however, is that I might potentially feel a bit isolated if I spend the day by myself at home working, and then, once the work day is over, spend the evening working on the site.  Fortunately, my employer is not going to 'force' people to work at home, with the understanding that the work from home experience does to work for all employees.

I am uncertain if working at home will be implemented or when, keeping in mind there are advantages and disadvantages either way.  Regardless, I remain on the other side of the fence.

My wife has worked at home the last year for our church. She likes the flexibility of it, and the fact that she can care for our son easier, especially now that he's on summer break. But, she has some of the same issues you do. By the time I get home from work some days, she wants to go somewhere and I just want to chill.

I'd like to be able to work from home.  Especially since were a very small office and we have that one person that we all look forward to when they're out sick or on vacation.

I worked from home for a while after having my heart surgery.  I didn't like it.  I missed the interaction (well, as much interaction as an engineer gets ) with colleagues.  Plus, it got really lonely staying at home by myself.

Working from home can be difficult, as there are more distractions and no timeclock. One is evaluated solely on productivity.  Also, as has been said the team interaction is missing. I do not work from home, but tried to be self-employed many years ago and found it didn't work so good. With my kids grown up now I think it would be easier, but  doing so with little kids can be hard. I hate when I am talking to someone on the phone that is working from home and there is constant dog barking, kid screaming, etc., in the background. Their distractions become my distractions.

I have my own office at home (a small replica of my "away from home office").  I use it when I work on Saturdays, and probably one or two Fridays a month.  Most of the time I commute to my office where I work with three other people. I find there to be several pros and cons with working at home.

Pros: I don't get interrupted as often by your coworkers asking dumb questions or making silly small talk.
Cons: I get interrupted by my family instead....and find it easier to get distracted by other things that need to get done like laundry, dishes, bills, etc.

Pros:  The commute is way faster, and the dress code is really relaxed.  I took a conference call one time at my home office while wearing only a towel (I had just gotten out of the shower).
Cons:  When you need support from your coworkers in the office it is easier for them to ignore you if you aren't there. 

Pros: It can be really flexible, I can run errands in town during lunch when I work from home.  The city my work office is at is so congested with traffic it can be a real bear to do anything during lunch.  My wife works close to home and I have taken a long lunch with her, and was still able to get a full day of work done at home because I didn't have a 1.5 to 2 hour commute time.
Cons: I use my commute time to unwind from work, and I don't get that when I work from home.  Also my productivity tends to be better when I work from the office, but that may be because I haven't been working from home for very long (pretty much just started this year).

I would be a little worried about you getting enough social interaction from people if you worked from home full-time.  Not having any family close to you might have you a little too isolated.  You should see if your employer will allow you to work from home just a few days a week and see if it is something you like.  This would still give you several days a week to interact with the human element in the office but save your gasoline bill as well as wear and tear on your guy, buy commuting less.

I was self-employed for 11 years until this past Feb. I loved it, but I also had no need to work everyday unless I had a project to work on. Did lots of volunteering and missions. I definitely miss the flexibility of being able to do whatever I want when I want (I often worked at night), but I have adjusted to going to work 8-5 M-F much better than I thought I would. Partly because I have projects to work on. I'm in trouble if I get bored. A real job makes scheduling much more challenging than it had been though. For you, sounds like you should just keep going to work. No biggie. Or just try telecommuting a day a week for a while. You might enjoy it (in moderation) more than you think.

I have never had a job where that was an option.  It wouldn't be good for me as I would probably not get much done.  There are too many distractions at home.

For me the same.
I've never had a job where that was an option.