I remember the days when I first started out in life as a white collar worker. Fresh faced and out of university, I had a line manager who must have been treated really badly as a child – he seemed to hate the graduates in the office and took every opportunity to make them feel as if they needed to be chained to the desk, otherwise, they were clearly “skiving off” and not working.
Fast forward to today, and I’m my own boss. Have been for ages, well beyond 10 years. I spend most of my time sat in front of a computer and my productivity is my measure of utility and success. There is one major problem with this though – working from home…
“Problem?” I hear you ask. “Why is working from home a problem?”. It’s problem because of the amount of isolation you can get into if you’re not careful. I’ve found myself that I’ve become less tolerant of people over time, maybe that’s just age, but in the decade I’ve been a “remote” worker, my people skills have slipped. I think that’s what’s also made me a better people watcher actually – I don’t engage as much but do stand back and observe more.
A friend of mine who’s also a long term home worker struggles to get dressed during the day. Well, I say day, his day doesn’t start until about 2pm because he’s started working such strange patterns because he’s left to his own devices. He seems to be more productive at night, so he’s become something of a shift worker. But what this does is add to the isolation because he’s awake when everyone else is asleep.
This article also made for interesting reading when it stated that a recent study found that 42 per cent of highly-mobile and regular home workers dealt with insomnia, compared with 29 per cent of regular office workers, and 41 per cent of highly-mobile workers complained of stress, as opposed to 25 per cent of office workers.
I think I’m going to make a real effort to get out more in the new year before I turn into a hermit, or worse yet, my vampire C# coding mate from down the road…