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Your posts and reasoning are throwing up a LOT of red flags, and I have seen people make the mistakes you are about to.
First off, using your commute as a reason to telecommute once per week is not a good idea. You knew what the commute was when you started the job. Making it an issue now is likely to irritate your boss.
Secondly, trying to work and take care of two children at the same time is a terrible idea. You will not get as much done as you would in the office, and your manager will notice.
You haven't mentioned what your company's telecommuting policy is. Have you asked HR? Looked in the employee handbook? I would do that before approaching your boss.
I would wait until you have been on the job at least one year before asking your boss about this. Asking for special accomodations 6 months after accepting the position is not a good look. What your co-worker is doing should have absolutely no bearing at all on your decision. If you think your boss would be annoyed by the request, is it a good idea?
Bottom line is you knew the demands, hours and location of the job when you accepted it less than a year ago. Deal with it or find a new job. I have seen a LOT of people fall into the entitled trap you describe and it has permanently damaged their careers. Tread lightly here.
Your posts and reasoning are throwing up a LOT of red flags, and I have seen people make the mistakes you are about to.
First off, using your commute as a reason to telecommute once per week is not a good idea. You knew what the commute was when you started the job. Making it an issue now is likely to irritate your boss.
Secondly, trying to work and take care of two children at the same time is a terrible idea. You will not get as much done as you would in the office, and your manager will notice.
You haven't mentioned what your company's telecommuting policy is. Have you asked HR? Looked in the employee handbook? I would do that before approaching your boss.
I would wait until you have been on the job at least one year before asking your boss about this. Asking for special accomodations 6 months after accepting the position is not a good look. What your co-worker is doing should have absolutely no bearing at all on your decision. If you think your boss would be annoyed by the request, is it a good idea?
Bottom line is you knew the demands, hours and location of the job when you accepted it less than a year ago. Deal with it or find a new job. I have seen a LOT of people fall into the entitled trap you describe and it has permanently damaged their careers. Tread lightly here.
The kids are in school; not at home.
My company has implemented a flexible schedule for various employees in different departments.
I have been given the opportunity to work at home on a few occasions (kid was sick; bad weather) and it went just fine; no complaints. So I don't think I'm making an unreasonable request.
I'm an editor and work 40 hours in the office. I share an office with my boss and another (new!) coworker. I have been there for 6 months and my coworker, just over 3 months. There is another remote editor that has been with the company for a couple years (became remote after being at office for 9 months). 99% of my job is computer-based. I attend a meeting once a week. At my last "check-in" with my boss, she says that I'm doing great so far.
I am wanting to ask to work from home once a week (trying to better my work/life balance). I realize that I'm still new so I'm thinking of waiting until I've been there for 1 year. I have a problem with my plan: my new coworker has become THAT employee... the one who needs this day off bc blah blah; "can I leave early..." It's become apparent that she is very needy, very early in her employment here. She told me that she's planning to ask the boss to work from home 3 days a week for 2 months for family reasons. I'm pretty certain that she'll be denied and I'm worried that if I wait to ask after she does, my boss will be super annoyed and deny me too.
Should I ask before my coworker? Or still wait until my 1 year anniversary?
Also, our company is doing yearly performance reviews this week (they're super behind on this!) and mine is this week. They are requiring employees to write down a list of goals for the year: I'm thinking that this is a perfect chance to approach the subject. Perhaps write it down as a goal and discuss.
You have great advice from other people who answered.
"Present it in a way that shows benefits to the company and it will be received much better".
Also, I work from home 100% of the and 3/4 of my (16) people work from home as well. The other 4 work from home 2 days per week. Every single one of them just instant messaged me or called me or brought it up in their one on one "hey can I work from home?". I just tell them what they have to do to start working from home part time and if that goes well I send them home full time (if they so desire). There is certainly no formal "this is a goal of mine and here are the reasons why it benefits us both"
There is certainly nothing wrong with saying "hey mr/ms boss is it possible to work from home one day per week". They'll tell you if it is an option and what you need to do
There are studies out there which seems they might work to your advantage, if you want to present backup.
For example, though I've temporarily lost the link, there's one that says that something like 70% of people who claimed when asked overtly, that they are not distracted by extraneous noise; when test results were done based upon concentration-span tasks, these people were in fact bothered and their productivity did go down based upon extraneous noise. May be findable in the footnotes here:
Good luck, I'm interested in this myself and hope you will update us as to how/if it works. (I mean, I do warn that to some extent I feel sure workplaces know this and don't give a hoot because it's still easier, read cheaper, to warehouse us like cattle in stanchions - I was just thinking aloud to myself how long it had been since I even had a cubicle with walls that went above my breastbone - but you might know better, if concrete research would be convincing to your supervisors.)
I also would not frame this as "work/life" balance as that gives the impression you would not be working while home ("life"). Come up with a good reason why it benefits you and benefits the company instead of the generic "work/life balance" statement. State that you'd like to work with fewer interruptions, log-in earlier without the commute, etc. etc. Present it in a way that shows benefits to the company and it will be received much better.
This
You want to take the position that you're more productive at home. You don't have the distraction of the chatty office mate. You aren't spending all those hours in the car every day commuting where you need to get to the office and coffee klatch to unwind from the drive.
I've been telecommuting for the last 7 years 2 or 3 time zones from the office. I've done it before in my career. When you telecommute, you need to actively manage your public face. You need to launch a few emails early before the normal start of the office business day. You need to launch a few emails after hours. Above all, you have to get your freakin' work done.
Your posts and reasoning are throwing up a LOT of red flags, and I have seen people make the mistakes you are about to.
First off, using your commute as a reason to telecommute once per week is not a good idea. You knew what the commute was when you started the job. Making it an issue now is likely to irritate your boss.
Secondly, trying to work and take care of two children at the same time is a terrible idea. You will not get as much done as you would in the office, and your manager will notice.
You haven't mentioned what your company's telecommuting policy is. Have you asked HR? Looked in the employee handbook? I would do that before approaching your boss.
I would wait until you have been on the job at least one year before asking your boss about this. Asking for special accomodations 6 months after accepting the position is not a good look. What your co-worker is doing should have absolutely no bearing at all on your decision. If you think your boss would be annoyed by the request, is it a good idea?
Bottom line is you knew the demands, hours and location of the job when you accepted it less than a year ago. Deal with it or find a new job. I have seen a LOT of people fall into the entitled trap you describe and it has permanently damaged their careers. Tread lightly here.
Bingo!
You needing to do laundry is not my problem.
You took this job knowing the commute was an hour.
You taking care of your kids is a HELL NO.
Let me guess. You're a millennial.
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