Survey: Love Working from Home? Hate Working from Home?

[bucktalk]

Apparently many are limited to their home for work during the virus outbreak. It's interesting to read some who love working from home and those who hate it. I would love to get a overall survey to see how this topic plays out in the OKC metro.

What about you working from home? Love it? Hate it?

[jompster]

Mostly hate.

I prefer direct human interaction. For now it's working out OK. I just get up, get ready for work, go drive around for 10 minutes, then start the day. Then leave at the end of the day, drive through the park, and then call it good.

[FighttheGoodFight]

I would like it if everything else was normal!

[Snowman]

In most ways like it. Though if it was going to be a continuing thing outside of a lock down, it would be nice to have at least one day a week would be at the office for in person meetings.

The organization I work for had been incrementally increasing the number of people working from home before this, and considering doing to a point of leasing out a large percentage of their current office space, interesting to see if this experience pushes that forward or causes them to change their mind.

[OKCbyTRANSFER]

I hate it. Our systems are too slow, overloaded and make it difficult to get the job done. I tried a few days, decided to go into the office and let everyone else stay at home. I'm just not productive at home.

[Scott5114]

Love it. Love the freedom of being able to not put wear and tear on my car, worry about getting in trouble for being late, pay for gas, can start and finish my day whenever I want, don't have to wake up as early.

[BBatesokc]

Wife and I both love it.

I already worked from home a lot, but also keep an office in downtown OKC by the courthouse. I am up by 3:30am regardless. I used to drive into work since the wife wasn't going to be home. However, now I go to my home office so I can spend a few hours with the wife - sharing the same office space at home. I then make my way downtown later in the afternoon for a bit - mostly to meet with clients since I don't want them coming to my house.

Wife loves no commute, a bit more sleep, no office distractions and getting off work and being able to immediately go outside for a run or bike ride. Her dog lays beside her all day and she gets as much or more work done from home. She hopes this becomes the norm. She said she also saves a ton of money not buying breakfast or lunch at work or filling up the car with gas once a week. She does however miss her routine of listening to audio books during the commute.

[Roger S]

I'm getting more business work done without office distractions and the extra 90 minutes I save not driving to and from work gets put into working longer or doing chores around the house.

Right now I'm only going in if I need to print a project out to give on to someone else.

[jccouger]

So many benefits.

The added time to your day from lack of commute. Avg 1 hour a day = 260 hours a year on avg

The added savings in fuel costs from lack of commute.

Decreasing commutes is a major benefit to the health of the planet & air quality, and also decreases needed government funding for repair & expansion of roads/highways.

The decrease in costs to employers based on lowered need for office space & utilities.

Feels like we have moved in to the future.

[Paseofreak]

I can't do much work at home. I am a cabinet maker and work mostly alone all the time, but now it is completely solitary (so I don't feel like I'm causing problems by continuing to work). I absolutely love it. Every tool is exactly where i left it and the place is clean and orderly. That won't last after things get restarted, but things are damn sure gonna be different from now on. Also, backlog is slipping and i have to get out there selling sooner rather than later.

[OkiePoke]

I'm enjoying it for the most part, but there are efficiencies to be had being in the office. Maybe something my company can adopt is WFH one day a week or something.

[GoGators]

I can see benefits of working from home, but for me personally i don't really enjoy it. Working from home doesn't save me any money or really any noticeable time (15 min round trip) on the commute, so i just started going back in the office after 2 days of trying it out. Its just much easier for me working where i have everything set up to my liking. And i'm still practicing social distancing with most everyone else in the office currently working from home.

[OKCisOK4me]

I can't work from home. Currently furloughed.

[poe]

I'm about 50/50 on working from home. On one hand, I like the fact that I can get things done around the house while still working. On the other hand, my home is my de-stress location and if I have stressful day, I can't leave it at the office. Plus, I manage a team, so I've found it somewhat difficult to really oversee what people are doing. It's definitely an exercise in trust, but our entire management team will probably go to some type of rotating work from home schedule when our office does reopen.

[MadMonk]

Currently working from home. It's not horrible (yet). I once worked remotely for a bit over a year and it got really, really old. It got so bad that several coworkers and I would meet up once or twice a week at a nearby Buffalo Wild Wings and take over one of their large round tables and work a few hours or so (buying food/drinks of course and tipping well). That made it much more pleasant. I currently have the option to work remotely if I need to, but generally work in the office unless I have a specific need to be at home. It's very nice to have the option to do this though.

[OKCbyTRANSFER]

Currently working from home. It's not horrible (yet). I once worked remotely for a bit over a year and it got really, really old. It got so bad that several coworkers and I would meet up once or twice a week at a nearby Buffalo Wild Wings and take over one of their large round tables and work a few hours or so (buying food/drinks of course and tipping well). That made it much more pleasant. I currently have the option to work remotely if I need to, but generally work in the office unless I have a specific need to be at home. It's very nice to have the option to do this though.

Good point. Working from home in a snow/ice day, I can manage. All day everyday, no thanks.

[mugofbeer]

I do because l am self employed but my wife, who is now working from home, gets a true 3 - 4 hours of work done though she's signed into her computer for 8. Some people can do it, others simply need to be away from home, the ditractions of TV, risk-free web browsing, online shopping, barking dogs, kids, etc.

[BoulderSooner]

I’m sure I would like it. But I am still going in to work everyday

[jedicurt]

Currently working from home. It's not horrible (yet). I once worked remotely for a bit over a year and it got really, really old. It got so bad that several coworkers and I would meet up once or twice a week at a nearby Buffalo Wild Wings and take over one of their large round tables and work a few hours or so (buying food/drinks of course and tipping well). That made it much more pleasant. I currently have the option to work remotely if I need to, but generally work in the office unless I have a specific need to be at home. It's very nice to have the option to do this though.

i think i would be handling it much better if i could have my usual social meet ups as well. not getting those times out for non-work conversations, etc. is not only affecting me, but i have noticed it affecting how my team works. we used to grab lunch or after work drinks and cut up. so i have noticed that since that isn't happening, the work chat has gotten much less professional, and very little work talk occurs on it now unless there is a fire. i don't think that would be happening with remote work if every aspect of social life wasn't currently shut down.

[mkjeeves]

I'm about 50/50 on working from home. On one hand, I like the fact that I can get things done around the house while still working. On the other hand, my home is my de-stress location and if I have stressful day, I can't leave it at the office. Plus, I manage a team, so I've found it somewhat difficult to really oversee what people are doing. It's definitely an exercise in trust, but our entire management team will probably go to some type of rotating work from home schedule when our office does reopen.

Bingo. I started my business out of my home and kept my office there for a number of years. It didn’t take long until I viewed it as living at work with no home to retreat to.

[Questor]

I’ve grown to love it. I wish we would do more virtual work in the future but my gut tells me we probably won’t. It has me seriously considering an early retirement where I do something from home permanently. Maybe not right now but a while after the economy recovers.

[MadMonk]

Upper mgmt at my employer seems to have had their eyes opened concerning how effective my department can be while working remotely. There has even been talk of a change in policy that allows for more flexible WFH options going forward. Prior to the shutdown, working from home was generally allowed only by approval from your immediate mgmt and was limited in length (e.g. "my kid's sick, but I need to get xyz done" or "I have to wait for the plumber to show up to fix my shower", etc). It'll be interesting to see if the attitude changes after things go back to normal.