It’s been a little more than a year since I put in my resignation at my last office job. It was my first job in an office, and I didn’t anticipate it would become somewhat of my last.
We’re at an interesting intersection in time, where the inbound generation may never even need to step foot into a traditional cohabited workspace in order to earn money.
An increasing number of white-collar folks can work from the comfort of their homes, even in those occupations we couldn’t have previously fathomed being done from home.
As much as I’ve enjoyed the flexibility of remote work, there have been occasions when I have missed the office camaraderie.
Here are some merits of working from an office as opposed to home.
No Nap Zone
I almost always get tired after lunch. Being in the office, I had no choice but to push through and drink an additional coffee if I had to to get through the tasks I had for the day. I knew that by 4 or 5 pm I would be free as a bird, ie. physically move away from the office, so it gave me enough drive to push through the urge to nap.
When I’m at home, the urge hits and I usually let myself succumb to this need to sleep. Even though I slept a full eight hours last night, I can’t help but feel the urge to around midday. Usually when I do this, it means working later than I have to. As I mentioned here, when we consistently have to go over into our personal time, it can lead to burn out in the long run.
Office Accountability
I adamantly believe that having someone or a team to remain accountable to is one of the keys to success. Research shows that committing to someone that you’ll do something equates to a 65% probability you will accomplish that goal, and this number swings up to an impressive 95% when you have an accountability appointment.
Even when I wanted to slack off, I always knew my manager next door was ‘watching’ me. I didn’t want to let her down, so I clapped away at tasks even when I was tired or bored.
At home, the way I deal with boredom is I go on my phone, I go for a walk, I clean; basically anything that’s not the work itself. Again, when you work for yourself, not having someone to stay accountable to, is arguably one of the hardest parts of it.
Solving Problems as a Team
If you’re facing an obstacle at work, sometimes all it takes is a quick interaction with someone to come to the root of the problem. Rather than waste time sitting there yourself trying to figure it out, it’s often faster to get a second opinion, especially from someone who has a little more expertise in the area.
Having a team of people to interact with also boosts the rate of collaboration, creativity and opens the door to more perspectives that can enhance the final product.
One-to-one interactions
Just like in high school, we rarely befriend the whole clan, but only let a select few into our periphery— and research shows that proximity has a large effect on our social bonds. Office chatter can be seen as wasteful, but the reality is it’s what can get us through some of the toughest periods in our lives. If we’re having a bad day at home, the only solace we have is our bed. If we’re having a tough day but we need to show up somewhere, sometimes, a friendly interaction is all it takes to bring us out of the dark clouds.
My manager once said, “It’s depressing out there (the weather), but at least at work we’re depressed together.”
Reputation Building
We know that Susie from accounting always packs the same tuna sandwich for lunch and that Hannah is the happy hour organizer. We associate people with their actions, the way they style their hair, their sarcasm, and their quirks. And sometimes these seemingly little attributes are what create long-lasting bonds between people in a workforce. When you work from home, many of these characteristics are stripped down to what emojis you tend to use on Slack. Even Zoom disrupts our ability to fully express ourselves through body language— imagine a soft touch on the shoulder to indicate sympathy.
Our actions, especially notable ones contribute to our reputations. Many times, when managers are looking for promotions, they’re not solely looking at the numbers. We make emotional decisions based on how we feel about a person. Whether they feel comfortable with promoting someone to a leadership position based on their personality and EQ.
It’s harder to demonstrate these traits through online communication as opposed to physical presence.
I know right now the trend is that everyone desires the lifestyle of working from home. Quite honestly, working from home is great for individuals that have a great deal of discipline. It’s easy to let more interesting things take over our time— the nice weather, the magazine on the counter, Netflix, but it’s important that you leverage the flexibility to your advantage, rather than against it.
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