[Duff]

Note what it actually said:

"Spending less than 50 percent of the week in the collocated office affords more flexibility and aids in the balance of work and personal roles, which teleworkers find satisfying."

Less than 50%. When I was a more of a contributor versus my current manager role, coming into work 2 days a week and getting my stuff done at home would have rocked.

There are also many things that weren't said. I have a 10x16 office with a door and windows. The folks on my teams are in 4-person semi-private pods with plenty of room with attractive color schemes, reasonably high quality furniture and natural light. It's work, but everyone is pretty happy.

In other roles, I've been in 4x4 high-wall cubes in windowless pens with 40 people where the brightest colors in the room were the red nubs on IBM thinkpads. That was a miserable working environment.

Personally, I'd rather work in my current environment than home. On the other hand, I'd rather work in my basement sitting on a stool and using my furnace as a desk than previous, crappy office environments/cattle pens.

[jonnathanson]

"In other roles, I've been in 4x4 high-wall cubes in windowless pens with 40 people where the brightest colors in the room were the red nubs on IBM thinkpads. That was a miserable working environment."

I work in one of those environments right now, and let me tell you, I am honestly 500% more productive on those occasional days where I work from home. Not just happier, but leaps and bounds more productive.

It's not just the change in surroundings, but also the change in attitudes. People seem to be less susceptible to the subtle inanities of "office mode" when out of the office. For instance: when I'm working from home, I can be efficient. I don't need to fritter away 4 or 5 hours straight in strings of pointless meetings. (That's not a critique of group collaboration, per se, but a critique of meetings-for-the-sake-of-meetings, which are quite common in corporate America and probably account for 75% of the weight of my meetings in any given week).

[gexla]

Right, there are lots of factors.

I prefer working from the office, but I imagine I would have a different opinion if working from the office requires a long commute or scraping ice off my windshield in the morning. I also work for myself, so it's MY office. ;)

I also somewhat enjoy the feeling of being among the hustle of downtown. There is energy there. So many people doing their thing to carve out their slice of the pie and I'm among the relatively happy and successful. That's motivation and energy that I don't feel at home.

[Duff]

Another factor I forgot about is career goals. If you love programming and that's your chosen profession that you intend to practice, it's great.

If you career goal is to move up through the organization though, missing the chance encounters with people in the hallway or not being seen is a liability that may negatively affect you. I've noticed in my career that being in the right place at the right time means something.

[thirdstation]

The "out of sight, out of mind" treatment is hard to get away from if you work in a office where telecommuting isn't the predominant mode.

You have to work harder during your in-office time to create facetime opportunities. That may mean doing the rounds, spending time in common areas, talking to someone face-to-face instead of emailing and, unfortunately, going to meetings.

Making your schedule of in-office/at-home days public knowledge helps colleagues from scheduling important events on your at-home days (but not all the time).

It's also vitally important to follow-up on your phone and email conversations. It's too easy for people to ignore your VM's and emails so, you have to make them accountable digitally as well as in-person.

It's more work to make sure you're not forgotten but, for me, giving up the commute is worth it.

[StacyC]

Well said.

[Roboprog]

I find that working from home 2 days a week is a very good change of pace. I get to avoid the commute, and I can just hop on conference calls with people back east or overseas right away in the morning (I live in California, and work with people all over the US, as well as in Europe and Asia). I still get to meet people in the local office, have lunch, and so on a few days a week, though, as well as get away from the house.

I did end up putting together a large "standing desk" area in the garage, though, in our detached garage. The house was just a bit too crowded. Putting together the space in the garage, complete with air conditioner, was a good thing.