Do you work from your office or from home? Or both? (Boston: real estate, daycare)

[SpringMom3]

What do you do? I keep hearing that telecommuting is becoming more and more popular, but I have not seen much of a spike in my office. (actually the opposite.) Share your industry as well if you'd like.

For my personal position, I am able to telecommute whenever. (So I do a mix of home/office.) It's really a win-win for all. I am on 12 hrs+ the days I am working at home, but in the office I need to catch specific trains that work around daycare/school. I'm in the financial field.

It's very team specific at my company and many teams do not even allow 1 day.

What about you?

[Cape Cod Todd]

My wife and I own a real estate company and there are days when we don't go to the office and opt to work from home. We have worked deals in our pajamas, hiking in the woods, out on the water in the boat and even while on holiday out of state. It is the nature of our business to be able to work from wherever we can get cell phone service and or Wi Fi.

Of course being able to work from anywhere has its downs because we are always available. There is no 9-5 in the real estate world unless you make it so but our clients appreciate that we are available to them.

[BostonMike7]

Mostly office for me. I can probably do 1 day a week from home of strictly computer work, but for the most part I need my hands on the equipment we have at the office. I'm an engineer.


I may stay home 2-3 days a year, and usually it's due to weather in the winter. We use WebEx a lot, and usually call in to 2-3 meetings during that day.


For the most part, I'd rather hop in the car and get out of the house and go into the office given the choice.

[masshawk]

Unfortunately my office decided not to allow regular working from home. You'd think a computer graphics/media company would be on the forward edge of this sort of thing, but they found that since we're fairly collaborative and do a lot of prototyping, it's easier to have everyone in one spot during core hours (10am-ish to 4pm-ish). Starting and ending hours are flexible, and if you need to work from home occasionally or run errands in the middle of the day and finish up at home, no one's keeping track. During busy periods I work at the office during the day and also from home nights/weekends.

My partner is an engineer and works from the office 3 days a week, from home the other 2.

[00na]

Every job I have had since 2001 allowed a work from home option - usually 1 or 2 days per week. I'm in IT/software. I actually prefer working in an office. I tend to be more focused and more productive. At one job, I worked from home full time and hated it. I felt so isolated and filled my loneliness with endless snacks from the refrigerator.

[495neighbor]

I work on a consulting basis. I used to work from home more often. I found the isolation draining and have been working out of coworking spaces more frequently. I actually energize and focus better when I am surrounded by other busy professional people.

I recall you mentioned in another post you live somewhere along the Stoughton Providence line.

The coworking spaces I go to are in the 128 and Boston/Somerville/Cambridge areas. Not as familiar with what is available around your area. But if you want to DM me and pick my brain on the downtown spaces, feel free.

[NewfieMama]

I do not currently work from home. In a former life, I was a consultant and worked from home for about a year, but eventually decided it wasn't for me. I got out of consulting and went to an ad agency. I worked from home on an as-needed basis while there. When we got our second dog, I worked from home for a month or two until he was settled. I've since moved client-side and was very picky about the location. I didn't want to work from home, but I also didn't want to commute into the city, so I chose a company that was about 15 minutes from my house. Now I'm in the office every day (and love my coworkers), but my commute is completely tolerable. If I need to work from home on occasion, I can.

My husband still commutes into the city, but is able to work from home 1 day a week so he can spend a little more time with our kids (he does pre-school dropoff that day). Plus, we can have lunch on his WFH day, which is nice. Ideally he'd do 2 days/week from home, but he's an actuary and it's not ideal for WFH.

[ladyalicemore]

I work from office, home, airports, the beauty parlor....

I juggle a few jobs (one paying, 2 non-profit/volunteer) and it's difficult to get everything done sometimes.

[Parsec]

I'm in the office everyday (accounting & corporate finance department). I could do my own work from home since I don't deal too much with the paper pushing, but I need to be in the office because people always have questions and it's easier to have a face to face conversation or walk over to their cube to go through an example. Of course I also work from home for free on nights/weekends.

[lrfox]

I mostly work out of my office in Boston. We have a few offices in smaller cities and towns throughout the state and I'll occasionally work out of one of those. I do work from home at times too.

Working from home is nice on occasion, but I find that I prefer the office because it's so much easier to connect with folks.