For the longest time, it made sense. Perfect sense. Because in order to do your job properly, you needed the tools and materials and orders and assistance that could only be found at the workplace. But then the XX century came along and brought all manner of inventions that changed everything. Over the course of a hundred years, Humanity evolved from horses to space shuttles. And, more importantly for the matter at hand, from mail letters to tweets.
It's not 1995 anymore. I don't need to enumerate the technologies that made the telecommute possible, we all know them by heart. The advent and relentless evolution of cell phones, laptops and the Internet gave us all the tools we needed to break free from the chains of the office and work from wherever we please. The last couple of years, especially, have been rife with developments that helped bring these tools to the hands of the masses. We have 3G data coverage pretty much everywhere and netbooks are dirt cheap.
So I can, and sometimes do, stay at home instead of heading out to the office.
I work from a laptop that follows me everywhere, share a Dropbox with my colleagues instead of using the office fileserver, and talk to them using e-mail and skype. I use the same tools to work with people both in the same office and in another country. So it all kind of blends together in a seamless flow of people, tasks and information.
We don't operate in a local economy. We haven't for a while, now. So mastering the art of the telecommute is, I believe, crucial for anyone who hopes to operate on a global scale without the hassle of international travel. For this reason I'm very much in favour of companies letting their employees work remotely wherever possible.
The thing is, should you make a habit of working remotely if your company lets you?
Because it's not all good. By staying at home you will be working all alone. No amount of emails and skype calls will ever truly replace a good face to face chat with the people you work with. You won't really get to know them and, more importantly, they won't really get to know *you*. There will be no empathy, only yellow smiley faces. So the guy who works from home all the time is effectively ruining his networking.
Personally, I like to work remotely from time to time. It's nice to avoid rush hour and write emails sitting on a sofa. But I'd never do it every day. I treasure my time at the office, I love dealing with my colleagues in person, and a bit of 9-6 discipline does me good.
So, should you work from home? Yes.
It will teach you important tools and help you develop much needed skills.
Just don't do it every day.
Pedro Gil Candeias
- Working @ home today
