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I worked for home when our office was closed for repairs after a hurricane. I didn't like it, home is where I go to relax after work. It is where I go to get away from work.
We have a few people who work remotely. They're clearly not as productive as the people who come in the office. And they're commonly forgotten about.
It isn't for everyone. You have to be able to isolate yourself from anything else going on in the house. When someone comes to your office door, you have to ask them two questions:
1. Is the house on fire?
2. Are you on fire?
If the answer to both questions is "no" then you send them away.
You also have to firmly remind your spouse that you are NOT a "stay at home [dad|mom]" and reject any requests to do anything that consumes more time than answering the door.
For some, as zooer pointed out, home is an oasis where you get away from work. For that to be viable you have to have a job where work does not automatically follow you home, which rules out most IT jobs.
I think if I had a nicer workspace at the office I'd go in more, but what I have is basically a large closet with garish 1980's fluorescent lighting and no real furniture (there's desk-height shelving along two walls in lieu of a desk). When I do go in, I don't even spend the day there; I end up grabbing a free desk in the other building so I can interact with people. Inevitably I end up getting chewed out by the general manager for whatever issue-of-the-day he decides to use as an excuse to continue using me as his favorite punching bag. Fortunately I don't report to him or anywhere down his line. Home is much better; the people I normally need to interact with are at other offices (or their home offices) anyway; I've got a nice sunny window and a comfortable desk; and my co-workers are a couple of cats curled up on the seats nearby.
But again it isn't for everyone. It takes the right kind of job and the right kind of home environment.
I prefer working from home, mostly because I can actually focus.
I can't focus in our office. It's far too distracting, with people constantly pestering you about *everything* (business related or not).
It doesn't help that, for some reason, they felt a cubicle farm was the best place to put developers.
At home, I can and do focus on work. Melvin leaves me alone (and I have no children), I document everything as I go so nobody can say I fail to output much, and Things Happen.
But then, I got into this form of work habit from my previous job, when we couldn't afford an office anymore. For the most part, if stuff didn't get done, it would have been obviously my fault, and I wouldn't have lasted. And I don't have a mindset of just sitting around.. I *want* to get stuff done.
Working from home, for me, is brilliant. Best option for me.
I was on call while I worked at that company. Occasionally during the over nights I had to install software or make customer requested product upgrades. I would log on to the server at night to push these upgrades out. This did not bother me, it was working full time from home which bothered me. Too much of a chance to slack off.
Honestly, there's a lot of slacking off that happens at an office, too.
I was amazed how much people yacked at work without getting anything done.. talking about sports, politics, or whatever that didn't have anything to do with getting the job done.
I find I have fewer people to blather on about bullshit at home.
I work mostly freelance as IT plumber at a variety of offices. I only have a half-official desk at one of the client's sites, on all others I either sit at a computer I fix or in a rather public place logged in to the servers or fixing something. I can remote login to most locations, so I can do a lot of work from home, too.
I am home two days a week, taking care of hour child and working while he is in school. On the other three days, I am on-site where there is demand. And I have to say that I enjoy the mixture a lot. There is also some work on weekends or in the late evening, since I can't reboot servers during office hours. I enjoy and prefer the quiet hours for those tasks, since messing with servers while chatting is no good.
And I also understand this "no need for social interaction" feeling when coming home. That is the only thing that really annoys me. When I have been to lots of client sites and had a fair dose of chatter or work that needed high concentration levels, I sometimes get unnerved when I come home and my family begins reporting about their day. I love my family, but sometimes I just need half an hour of silence (and a cool beer) to get the day out of my brain.
You work with lawyers quite a bit... I should think you would have found those people far sooner by now.
Waiting for an online meeting with a vendor who is using a handle that reads "genuine genius".
I sincerely hope this person intends irony, otherwise I find that offputting.
Although one might be too many.
What is killing me are the University professors who really should never be operating a computer... really.. never... ever ... ever...
We start a GoToMeeting to see why they can't attach a document and then real issue is that they can't find their desktop...
I stayed calm until I got off the phone. Then I started yelling.
Hmmmm... a suppose a university professor isn't evaluated on core computer skills as much as their ability to perform research and/or teach some kind of course.
But... these days...?