It’s funny. You say to someone “I am working from home tomorrow” and they give you that knowing smile or the elbow and say “right, working from home, Gotcha!”
Seriously though, when I say I am working from home, it almost always means a 12 hour day. It’s really hard to pull yourself away from the computer when there is no one bothering you. Sure, I’ve had 12 hour days in the office before (more than I care to remember), but for the most part I get into the office in the morning and I leave 8 hours later. The extra time on either end is spent commuting – and that can be anything from 30-75minutes in each direction depending on the day.
Although long, I’ve come to understand the value in my commute to work. I take the back roads, winding through BlueHills in Canton and Milton – it can be very relaxing so long as I don’t have some putz on my tail upset that I am doing the speed limit. It’s my time to relax – catch up on the news, think about the plans for the evening, and (particularly in the evening) it’s a time for me to just unwind before I get home. The commute home allows me to mentally switch gears before I walk in the door.
When I work from home I don’t have that same break. On the one hand its nice to be part of the hub-bub, and on the other, it’s really hard to just get up and walk away from “just one last email”. Now that I work at home every Friday, I’ve gotten better at starting and stopping my day’s work. But on a day like today where I ended up working from home unexpectedly? Well, let’s just say it’s 730pm and I am just getting to Twitter and my personal email for the first time since I logged in to work at 8am.
So yeah… If someone says to you that they are working from home, instead of doing the “wink wink nudge nudge” routine, try saying “Oh wow – make sure you take time out for lunch!”