I’ve never had a WFH job and I generally don’t think I’d personally want/be successful with one. My sister is fully remote and she actually hates it, but I think its more the job she doesn’t like than the WFH aspect. She says its lonely and isolating on top of disliking her daily tasks. I’m not anti WFH for others at all, to absolutely clear.
Oh, yeah, I’ve been self-employed from home for years. Go to bed when I want, wake up when I want. I usually get my work done before noon, and have the rest of the day. On the day of an event, I might put in 12-15 straight hours of hard work at a job site, but that’s only once or twice a week, and it’s actually the fun part of the job.
I don’t miss office politics at all, and it only sounds like it’s gotten far worse.
Fully remote for years now and never want an on-site job again. I don’t mind going for a couple of events a year, though.
I can take my “smoke break” to change loads of laundry or do something else around the house. I have no commute time nor expenses. I am always here for deliveries. I regained so much of my time that I can use for study or entertainment. (Assuming a 1-hour commute, even if most of that is on a train, that’s 10 hours a week back from that alone).
For success, your company and you need to have good communication and planning. It’s also not for everyone, especially more social people.
Have done wfh full time for about 6 years now (since the rona), I would never go back to a full time or even hybrid role unless forced. I would sooner quit my job if they forced me into a hybrid position.
The freedom is so much greater and I get so much more done than when I do occasionally have to go into an office for meetups or workshops (maybe 5-6 times a year).
The style of working is different to that of being in office, you have to be self motivating, semi-solo problem solving and you need a reasonably quiet workspace. This can be hard to get in some situations so I feel very lucky to be able to do it.
The company also needs to be setup to promote and support remote working, so having regular check ins with people and making sure people have support in place should they need it. Plus policies that work for remote workers as opposed to in office workers.
13/10 would recommend.
Totally love WFH. I can hang out with my dog while working, get laundry done on breaks, and no commute leaves way more free time in my life. I would never go back to working in an office unless I was in dire straights.
I work from home for about 75% of my work. Today, I have to drive somewhere this morning, and then again somewhere this evening. I will spend in the realm of 2.5-3 hours in the car today. I do not get paid for travel. I will not be able to get in my daily run today. I probably won’t see my kids after I drop them at school. I’ll get home around 11pm tonight.
So yeah, I love wfh. But for the case of my job tonight, it’s very good money, and not the perfect use case for remote (although certainly doable considering we did for years), and so I eat it, it’s whatever. I generally have 7 or so jobs a month that I need to travel. Twice the commute is about 40m each way. The other five are 5-15m commutes so they’re fine.
WFH is awesome.
Can take breaks from work to drop off/pick up kid from school. Saving like 15% of my paycheque that would go to daycare otherwise.
Car insurance is cheaper, because no matter how much I drive I’m not commuting to work so the insurance company counts me as “occasional driver”.
I can loudly and violently swear at bullshit emails.
I can listen to my own music on speakers while working.
Minor cons though:
I’m getting weirder due to the lack of minor social interactions that otherwise I’d get on the bus, sidewalk, office, cafe, so on.
Some cabin fever from being in the same space all day. I live in an apartment so I don’t have a separate room for my work computer. Turn off work computer, turn on personal computer, and it’s the same screens while I sit in the same chair. On the other hand this does motivate me to get outside after work to exercise or do errands.
As an engineer, hybrid works best for many of us.
Design phase can be wfh with some in-person idea sessions or important meetings because I have yet to be at an online idea session that was as productive as in-person being able to draw things out and visualize better, and people tend to not speak up or just check out and agree at the end in online meetings.
Testing phase has to be mostly in person for lab tool access and collaboration on physical things.
I have worked with a contractor that did everything from home and had a whole home lab, but it was a big time sink and cost shipping parts back and forth 5 times and you couldn’t physically probe behaviors together which leads to slightly different setups and sometimes different results.
Socially I moved to a place where I had no friends so I like getting social contact at work since in Belgium, it is extremely difficult to make new friends after you are done with school because of a culture of not talking to anyone else unless people are obnoxiously drunk lol. I like wfh on overwhelming days and in-person on days where I want more social contact.
That being said, I work 100% in office now because I live a 12 minute bike ride from work, so very easy.
Single father with two school aged kids, mom lives in another state. I’ve turned down a couple higher paying executive roles that have been offered to me the last few years because I don’t know how I could make it work. I get my kids up at 7 and the latest one can’t be to school until 9. I have to start getting them from school at 3:30. I’m sure I could figure it out, plenty of people less fortunate than I am but I guess that I’ve decided that I’m incredibly fortunate that I can always be around and available for my kids and I don’t think I would disrupt that for any amount of money as long as I can provide for them this way. I do miss the social aspects of my colleagues sometimes though which really surprised me.
I found volunteering as an outlet for this. Now I have high school club i run on the weekend. Its great!
That’s a great idea, thank you for sharing!
I work part time from home and part time in office
Pros
- I can concentrate better at home (Open space in office)
- Save time driving to and from work
- My own toilet
- Family cat can hang out with me (if I deserve his attention)
- Can chill out on the couch/bed when taking a break
- My own internet connection
Cons
- Harder to get in touch with collegues
- When I work from home for a longer time period, I feel sometimes isolated.
- Various household tasks trhoughout the day, which breaks my concentration
I dont. My appartment is small. And i cant focus. I dont have a “hey i am at work” mindset. Because of that i take the way 1 ½ hours to work
I’d be honest. I’d personally love a dedicated WFH day(s) it’s truly the best of both worlds
I love it. No commute, optional shower, no pants. I’m not a very big pants guy, and that’s a huge seller.
Trousers are a government conspiracy
I used to get overstimulated a lot at office jobs. Turns out I can prevent it just fine from home. For my own mental and physical health I’ll pick working from home any day of the week. Some meetings are more useful in person though, so I do go to the office for those.
Love it! Clients have better accessibility; lose less of their days in commute, they are now able to see a niche professional state / nation wide, and I can charge 40% less in not having an office.
At the moment it seems like market forces are pushing me back to an office. I will pass the increased costs to consumers.
On ocassion yes.
But as you said it feels kinda lonely.
And I get really easily distracted. Last time I had a major side quest I did instead of doing my actual job.Edit: And I have no office. I value my mental sanity by segregating my home/living space from my working place.






