| I've worked remotely in various forms, for about 15 years. My remote work experience ranges from State Employee (Management) to independent consultant with large clients, to working currently for a small company who contracts me out. I am currently contracted to a Fortune 500 company as a software engineer and business analyst and have been here for the past 7 years. I guess not everyone is cut out for remote work, just like everyone is not cut out for open office spaces. I personally love working from home (or wherever) because it works well with my personality. I'm not into interrupting peoples workflows to gab on the regular. I generally get into a zone and once I'm there, interruptions pull me out of that zone and it takes me 30 minutes to an hour to get back into that zone again. Sometimes that becomes even more difficult if the interruptions happen in the afternoons. I've also found that not a lot of big companies understand how to support employees that work remotely. Everything rises to the level of a meeting (interruption) instead of just posting to a Slack/Teams channel. This pandemic has been interesting in some ways because the people that DO go into the office and actually like that setup, have been forced to work from home. What makes this interesting is that they STILL don't use remote tools for collaborating and my meetings (interruptions) have actually increased because of it. I would ask your potential new employer, what they do to help support remote employees and see what their answers, if any, are. You mentioned you have kids and are divorced. I cannot tell you how awesome it is to be able to take 5-10 minutes to help your kids through something or spend time with them during a workday. These kinds of little things add remarkable value to your quality of life. Another thing that makes remote work even more awesome, is if they're flexible hours. In other words, you aren't tied to your home office during regular business hours. This minimizes the interruptions (IMs via Skype or Teams for instance) and allows you to work a schedule that fits your workflow. For instance, I start really early because that's when I do my best work and I taper off in the afternoons and sometimes pick back up in the evenings. I am happy to answer any other questions that you might have. |