1

I’ve become increasingly interested in this topic ever since I read the 4 hour work week. There are arguments on both sides, for and against this style of working. However with how we use technology today, I personally see a lot of benefits of working remotely. Simply thinking of the commute over the life span of your career is huge.A 30 minute drive twice a day for a year is 240 hours of your life. Not including the extra hour to get ready for work plus getting the kids ready etc. In my mind that is a lot of wasted time among other things. My question is what careers enable this life style now? Do Any spiceheads live this? Will this trend of remote work expand and if so what area?

50 Spice ups
2

you have kids Duff?

Side note, why do all of your profile pictures have migraines?

added benefit, I drive an hour to work both ways, that’s 480 hours a year.

9 Spice ups
3

I was a remote Wall St. worker for a long time.

2 Spice ups
4

Do to technology advances, remote work will increase. There will still be some need to work “in-office” due to a need to be physically in the same place, or because of preferences. Many tech companies, Spiceworks included, value the relationship and culture that working together brings.

I have worked remotely, and personally it was hard to stay motivated. My main problem was easy access to my kitchen. I snacked a lot. I personally prefer work and home to be separate.

7 Spice ups
5

It doesn’t apply most days but I got my wisdom teeth out today. So it does today lol

6

I always wanted a remote job, but that’s mainly because I have friends that work remotely, and they literally sat around playing video games all day, taking a work call once every couple of hours. They were rewarded for solving problems quickly by being able to get off the phone quickly and back to gaming. I don’t mind the drive to work (unless it’s icy or a foot of snow out). In fact, I really enjoy the drive. It’s nice to get in the car and jam out to some good tunes on your way in.

If you want to be a telecommuter, remote support type of person, you need to get into a big corporation that either does remote help desk support for other companies, or work for a company big enough to offer it. It varies a lot as well. Some companies put you on a shift where you are on call, and you may be busy literally 90% of the time you are on call. Others may have you on call 24/7, and if your phone goes off, you answer, no exceptions.

The bad thing about working remotely is that you have less real human interaction every day. Also, personally, if I don’t get up and get going in the morning for work, I tend to sit around in my pajamas until noon. Not exactly conducive to good hygiene. YMMV of course.

1 Spice up
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Remote work is great if you can get it. There are some positions, as Rob indicated, that will require someone on-site. Not to mention, how the employer defines the job may not allow for leeway for an employee to work remotely. For example, many of the functions of my job could easily be done remotely. However, I am classified as an hourly employee and am not entitled to work remotely.

1 Spice up
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SAM how was your experience working remote pros and cons?

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kb2334 I think you just talked any employer out of ever hiring you as a remote worker lol.

9 Spice ups
10

I think as time goes on and technology advances this will become the norm. I would love to work from home although I worry about staying motivated. There are a lot of distractions at home but working from there would save me a ton of money. I have a 1 hour commute into work everyday and I drive a fricken Tundra, not exactly great on the gas mileage. I love my truck though. Not to mention I could keep the kid home and out of daycare and/or after school care when he starts school.

1 Spice up
11

I have a friend that was able to convince his employer that since he provides remote support to his customers it did not matter where he was located; he moved to Japan for a couple of months and his customers were none the wiser.

Our company has scaled back on remote workers. We find that the remote workers end up not being part of many of our projects because they were not part of the many impromptu meetings.

12

I have tried working from home regularly and it did not pan out well. Tried 2 days a week. The problem is that 1. I have 6 daughters and if i’m home they are going to take up my time…

The other issue is that even through I am “working” from home, my wife only sees the “I’m … home” part and forgets all about the “working” part. She would send me out to the supermarket, help her with stuff around the house, etc.

In the end, working from home was becoming more work than it was worth. Besides, my 30 minute commute each way is on my motorcycle and I don’t consider that a waste of time one bit.

10 Spice ups
13

I’ve been working from home for the past 2 months and made about $10,000 in that time. I setup RSS feeds that email me jobs posted on freelancing websites that match keywords that I like such as “network” “cisco” “voip” “pbx” “virtual”. I get emailed about 20-30 interesting jobs per week. I hand pick the ones I want to work most and set my own rates, currently about $75/hr. What motivates me to work is seeing the fast turn around in actual cash on-hand. I’ve been able to catch up all my debts. Remote work fits perfectly for the IT industry. Network/System Admin work and consulting can really be done from anywhere. I have saved unknown hundreds in gas dollars and commuting time by stopping my old 45 minute commute. Working from home is easy and convenient, and I can work when I want and as much or as little as I want.

I do find that working at home has it’s distractions; and now I’m actually thinking about renting my own office space (single office ~$275/mo somewhere REALLY close like 5 minute drive and then I can have a place to work that’s not at home.

9 Spice ups
14

NONSENSE! Hire me to play video games all - I mean take care of all your remote support needs! I think it’s good that I work in an office where what I am doing is plainly visible, so there is no temptation to be goofing off while at work. Also, I am free to watch training / educational videos at work, so if I have down time I do that a lot. I would never do this at home. If I didn’t have work to do while i was “at work” while at home, it would be video games all day.

15

In my position it would make it harder to work from home because I would have to remotely control everything, whereas now, I’m in the habit of walking up to the user’s cube and taking a look at the problem. I think I would start to miss out on the personal one on one interaction. Also, I only live 5 minutes away from my job. If you like working from home that’s cool and all, but I get so stir crazy if I had to be at my place day after day…

1 Spice up
16

To those of you with the 1 hour or more commutes;maybe you can give me some insight on a few things. I just started a new job. I drive about 26 miles each way, but a portion of the drive is heavy traffic. Which means it’s taking me about 45 minutes to an hour to get home. A lot of my frustration is due to complacency at my old job as I was able to leave earlier in day, plus a different route. But now I get off an hour later than usual. It’s practically dark by the time I get in the car, and completely dark when I get home. How do you all manage your personal time? Especially when daylight savings time ends and it’s dark by 5 pm.

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I am a developer and support one sites IT. I am remote and visit site (275 miles away) once a fortnight. I’ve worked from home / home office pretty much since I started being a developer. The key is to be ultra responsive and give a better level of service than if I was in the building. The client has 35+ users onsite, a server, couple of routers etc. I have a couple of safe pairs of hands there who I know will do exactly what I ask if I lose connectivity.

As for “home”, apart from at the beginning when I was in a bedsit, the important thing is to have a separate area to work and be able to close the door. My family enjoy the benefits of having me about so have to respect (and do really well) that I am working.

Various configs have worked:

  • spare room with a desk, kids would come and say hi after school, bounce on me for 10 mins and then go off.

  • log cabin - as they got older, they skype or would run down and say hi.

For me remote work and working for myself have gone hand in hand, so the flip side is “always working”, but I think this affects more people now regardless of remote working as most people seem to be remote working to me (calls after work etc).

Really it boils down to discipline, I don’t doubt the “game playing” anecdote, but for me it is work, I bill by the hour and only bill for the work I do, BUT it means if I get to a sticking point and want a break and decide to extend that into a shopping trip to TK Max, then as long as I have my mobile on me, then that is great. Also, it is fine for me to work from the car in a car park while one of my kids plays football, it counts as work as I work remotely.

Cheers,

JAC

2 Spice ups
18

I have had a home office for 8+ years providing software support, and its just great. You are more flexible and have a lot more time with the family.

19

What are the cons against the ideas presented in the “4 Hour Work Week?”

It is a great idea - although what Ferris discusses has little to do with being a telecommuter with a job. He really is promoting becoming a marketer with off-company distribution/fulfillment channels and moving to a product economic model. He isn’t really advocating getting a work from home job.

To the point of working from home/telecommuting.

I have telecommuted to a greater and lesser degree since 1992 and primarily since 1995 when I started consulting.

Back in 2003 The Wall Street Journal published my article, “The Boundaries and Benefits of Working From Home.”

Later, some of that material, expanded, became a chapter in my book, “The I.T. Career Builder’s Toolkit”. It is expanded further in this year’s, “Building Your I.T. Career.” You can read the chapter for free at Cisco Press and Informit.com
The IT Career Builder's Toolkit, Chapter 17: The Boundaries and Benefits of Working at Home > 17. The Boundaries and Benefits of Working at Home | Cisco Press

In short, working from home, particularly with a family, requires a specific type of discipline on both your part and that of your family. There were times that the struggle - with small children and a busy life - for the family to frequently interrupt working time. You become an available resource. It can be hard to say no but we had to establish ground rules for what constituted enough of an emergency to require my attention.

As far as the “4 Hour Work Week” - I love Ferris’ ideas. I’ve been discussing product ideas with a potential partner and would love to launch something this next year. My allocation of time is my biggest challenge… ie: parenting my 15 year old daughter, expanding my consulting company, a few coaching projects, two writing projects for 2014 plus a smattering of articles, and some song placements - will drive much of my calendar.

20

I did remote work for about two years. In the beginning I found it incredibly rewarding. I was ten times more productive and was able to do necessary at-home things like pick up kids and swap loads of laundry without interfering with my work.

Eventually the disconnect from people took its toll. Aside from just not having real conversations and missing out on office socials, I found it detrimental to career as well. No matter how connected you are, you tend to get categorized as a resource instead of an employee. There’s not a lot of difference between you and any outside hired service in the minds of co-workers. You get left out of a lot of impromptu meetings and discussions. There’s a disconnect in personal relationships with superiors that is hard to overcome when it comes time for promotions.

In the end I voluntarily returned to the office.

1 Spice up