Monday, December 29, 2014

Work from home - Does it Work?

Work from home. Should I do it or should I not? The tempting answer would be yes if you really want to have such a dream feature. However, there are a lot of negatives on working from home; at least I have faced a lot of them. Let me list them one by one. Before that, lets go through the Pros first
  1. It is a dream come true. This is a very fascinating aspect to have it in your job description. Working from home is almost a dream realised. You have the liberty to relax and still able to deliver on the tasks assigned to you.
  2. You can receive packages/posts being at home. Certain things like cheque book, credit cards, debit cards etc., could be collected at home being in-person
  3. You can over look house hold repairs by third parties. This is a boon where you can be present at home and supervise the repair items and chores like Plumbing, electricity fixes, AC fit etc.,
  4. Hot food, coffee when you like it, even you can cuddle your baby, pep up your wife and even do a quick grocery visit to a nearby store. 
  5. Working far away from office. Since work from home does not put any restriction on where you need to be, you can very well be thousands of miles away from your workplace. All you would need is a fast internet connection and a relatively quieter environment. Which means you can take short vacations clubbing few work from home days thus commuting and being with family at your native place a bit longer. 
  6. Watch that cricket match or at least take a peek happily

Now to the cons,
  1. Work from home means Distraction from work. Talk about all possible distractions. All the ones said in the Pros are indeed distraction in one way or the other.
  2. Physical presence takes a hit. Since you can achieve a lot of things by running at colleagues desk and do items quickly.
  3. Silent Partner in meetings. Meetings you will miss a lot of items because you will be sitting in a separate room where you will not be able to participate the same way you would have in a meeting
  4. Reduced productivity by subordinates. If you happen to be a lead or manager, there is obvious reduction in productivity of your subordinates since you are absent.
  5. Extension of fights and brawls at home. There is a good chance that you will involve in a quarrel with your wife. This will not only upset your mood, you work will also take a hit.
  6. Careless mistakes. Again this is a result of distraction where the chances of you mistyping an email or only skimming on items which would result in catastrophic failures based on the intensity of the mistake you commit. 
  7. Addiction. This will soon become an addiction and you will detach yourself more from your work life thus having a reduced learning curve.
  8. Spoilt subordinates. If you are a lead and you do work from home on a regular basis, your subordinates may follow suit and it will be difficult for you to stop spreading this disease across the team
  9. Detrimental from Company's point of view. Any company gives this option as an emergency/backup for its employees and not something to be abused or over used. This may come back and haunt you at your performance review/ratings.
Overall, use this option very carefully and avoid it unless and absolutely necessary. That way you would have respected on why this was provided in the first place as well as making the business continuity going smooth which will make your superiors be happy and in peace.

Cheers!
Braga

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Not a very merry christmas

2014 Christmas Eve is not a very merry one to begin with. It is all because of trusting my subordinates' word for something and not verifying the validity of the statement. It is indeed upsetting that I had trusted someone and taken the word as a Gospel. However, one thing I learnt here is never to Trust anyone's word for that matter when you become an interface for the outside world or to a set of highly trustable recipients. With my trust broken, I have committed a sin of breaking many other's trust. It is time I stop skimming on items where I am the most responsible person. It is indeed a good lesson for me not to repeat this mistake again in Future. Best lesson to start new year 2015 !