Working From Home: Pros, Cons

Lately, due to a series of minor maladies and injuries not healing in the ways they should, I've been spending a lot of time working from home. It's actually gone very well; I think I get more done. While the repertoire of things I can do that are not my job is larger, my good ol' Puritan Work Ethic kicks in much harder when I'm not already at the office for some reason, and the "in by 9 out by 5" that I try to stick to is totally out the window. So if I find myself spending twenty minutes reading the news at the office, I say "Well, I was at the office," and whatever. But at home --- where I probably started working at like 8 anyway --- I say "Oh well I spent that time not working so clearly I need to do something extra" and at 6:30 PM I'm still logged in and working on documentation. I suspect my boss has figured this out, and this is part of why he is not stopping me from working from home so much. :) (In addition, much of my work can be done over the phone, since most of the people I work closely with are in DC or Houston anyway.)

In some ways this is great for my sanity, too; I can spend my obligatory staring-into-space time doing laundry or hanging art on the walls in the office finally or talking to the cats, who are much cuddlier than my coworkers. (As it should be.) My favorite perk is that I get to make my own hot lunch every day --- it's cheaper than going out with coworkers, it's less time-consuming, and it's at least a little bit better for me. However, having worked from home three or four days a week for the better part of a month now, I have started to notice longer-term problems. Specifically, as I was making my lunch today, I realized I was talking to the lunch. Specifically, I said: "Join me, smoked red chipotle pepper! Let us usher in a new era of burning flavor across the earth! Muahahahaha!" as I added flavor to the pasta sauce.

bossgoji , I blame you for this.