1. Not for ‘procrastinators’ – If thinking of getting down to work reminds you of the tap that needs to be fixed, the room that needs to be cleaned and the cake that needs to be baked, admit that you are a ‘procrastinator’. Working from home will only make you procrastinate even more. To be able to work from home, you need to constantly motivate yourself, you won’t have other colleagues or your boss to do that for you, and need to be extremely self-disciplined. This is perhaps one of the greatest flip sides, that you may descend into the land of slackers and never recover!
2. Not for workaholics – If you are the opposite of what a procrastinator is, a go-getter and a workaholic, this may not be quite the right option for you either since you will have no office hours to limit your work to and will end up working crazy hours because you know your home is your work place. As a result, you will neglect your family, and/or have no social life at all.
3. You miss out on networking and office fun – One of the greatest disadvantages of working from home is that there will be far lesser or no opportunities at all for networking. In the process you end up losing out on knowing a lot of resourceful and interesting people. Also, there will be no scope for water cooler conversations and the office camaraderie, unless you plan on talking to your water cooler back home, which we explicitly forbid, since it would creep your dog out. You wouldn’t want that to happen since he might be the only company you’ve got!
4. There will be no office to ‘escape’ to – You chose work from home to be closer to your family, and to be a more responsible person who takes care of both family as well as work. However, what you probably don’t realize is staying at home 24*7 might get very depressing either because of isolation or because of having to give constant attention to people/things. In that case, office would at least give you a few hours away from home to help you recharge. Once you choose on working from home, you would no longer have that option.
5. Distractions – Yelling kids, needy pets, the constantly ringing door bell. Telephone ringing off the hook. Neighbour’s television. Your own temptations to take afternoon naps or swims, or simply to finish that “un-put-downable” book! There will be distractions galore if you work from home and it takes a very strong mind to ignore these, keep calm and continue working.
Besides, there is also the all-important “money” factor. In some cases, opting for a work-from-home option may mean taking a substantial cut in the compensation. Most companies have not yet realized the full potential of offering remote or flexible working options and see this option as a soft or unnecessary perk (there are some companies too who reward their employees for opting for this option as it leads to considerable capex and opex savings for them).
If you feel the cons are nothing you have to worry about and the pros far outweigh them, we wish you all the very best. If you feel that the pros are not worth it, and having a full time job is much better for you, we wish you all the very best too! However, if you are still confused, we urge you to write to us and we will do our best to walk you through your confusions. Here is wishing you happy confusions! 🙂
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