So over at dannychoo.com, there’s a competition to show off your desk and I have given my submission. Though I figured that I should expand upon this a little more than simply showing off my desk. As some of you know, I work as a web developer. As a web developer I only need 2 things. A computer/laptop, and an Internet connection. Oh and sometimes a phone line or mobile. Since these are the only requirements it means that I don’t have to be in the office 5 days a week.
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Before I only spent 2 days a week working from home which was pretty good. The benefit of working from home is that I can choose the timeframe that I want to work, so it can be the normal 9am-5pm, or perhaps even from 12pm-8pm. Or even 9am-1pm, take a nap for an hour, then go 3pm-6pm. Of course there is the occasional distraction of loot and anime to watch but I still manage to get work done. However recently the amount of days that I’ve been working from home has been increasing and it’s now its 5 days a week. I bet you’re thinking “sweet”, but I can honestly say, all is not “sweet”.
The reason I work from home now is that I’m waiting for the new office to be ready (before I was working from the boss’s house), so until then I work from home indefinitely until the office is ready. Whenever that is. The problem however is the mentality of working from home as it feels that I’m never away from work. Even though I do finish the working hours before 7pm, after then I still feel like I should do more work. Essentially this is driving me crazy and I can’t wait till I get back to the office. I also think it’s important that an office environment is important for productivity, and make me feel less of a shut-in otaku.
So do you work from home 5 days a week? Or do you even get a chance to work from home at all? Do you ever feel like you’re stuck doing work all the time?
Anyway just to note a few things in the photo above. Normally I run my MacBook on the other table, but moving between chairs gets annoying, so I utilise the pull-out bench. The MacBook is also used for testing sites in Firefox and Safari, though I wish I could use it more as a development machine. The other desk I use for indoor figure photography (which I haven’t done for a while) but for now my Erika sits there with my iPhone. I do use the desk for studying as well especially when needing to read books. You’ll notice on the top shelf of the computer desk is the main control center for my Logitech Z-5500. It was so big that I couldn’t fit it anywhere on the desk.
Its fucked up. But my room is waaaaaay fucked up.
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Erika looks real cute there. ^_^
Looks like my bro didn’t send a pic of my desk in the states in time. Here, I have no desk or room.
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I worked at home exclusively for a little over a year and couldn’t take it. The lack of social interaction, the feeling of never being away from work (anytime I touched a computer it felt as if I were working since I was in my “work” setting even though I may just be watching a fansub), and the extended hours got to me quickly. I left to go back to an office environment and realized that my mood and interest in activities away from a computer screen greatly improved.
I worked at home once, never liked it and don’t feel like doing it again. I will get the job done but when it comes to learning new skills, it just doesn’t work.
I guess for me, working in a productive environment with ur fellow workmates is the key to pick up new skills and be proactive at ur tasks at hand.
Now I see about ur bass just fitting under ur desk. ^^
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Wow isn’t it a hassle to climb up to the bed every time? Reminds me of college dorms ;_;
Nice room though!
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bugula: The lack of social interaction is definitely another issue. Before the boss moved the office, I always enjoyed the company of my co-workers, even though if some of their skills weren’t up to scratch, but at least I could bounce ideas off of them. Still doing that for a year certainly must have been tough.
Optic: I can still learn new skills if I’m at home since I do read up on development tools, but its more of the mentality thing. The whole thing that I’m “always at work” is what is getting to me at the moment. Oh and yes, that subwoofer makes a nice leg rest.
ProtocolSnow: When I used to work as a nightfiller, it did get hard to climb up just to sleep, but nowadays it’s not that difficult. I’ve been doing it for the past 8 years so its not so bad.
I think that “never away from work” feeling is really what makes or breaks people who try to work from home; some people can handle it, and others can’t. I started my current job working from home, and then we eventually got an office. But, I found that my own work attitude was still a bit “never away from work” anyway; some people could just go home at the end of the day and leave their work there, but I’m not like that. Plus, I despise “9-to-5″ with a passion, so I wasn’t going to work “regular office hours” anyway. So, nowadays, I’m finding myself back to working from home more just to save the travel time and expense. So long as there are pressing deadlines, I find that I can be more productive at home. But you do have to force yourself to take breaks and turn off the E-mail/phone; otherwise, it sure can drive you crazy. :p
But, regardless, the main thing is to understand yourself, your own work patterns, and what makes you tick. Everyone’s different and there’s no right answer. Having the sort of job that can be molded to best fit your personality can be a huge benefit, though, so long as you can handle the responsibility. Sounds like you’re figuring out what works (and doesn’t work) for you, and I think that’s the main thing.
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I understand what you’re saying - I’ve worked from home, five days a week, since 2002, although with the occasional trips to customer sites, and it does kind of blur the whole home/work thing and makes it easy to end up working all hours. I finally started just logging off the VPN at 4pm and forcing myself not to even log on to check work email after that at night, and that helped restore a little balance. It also helped to get out to lunch most days, and now that we have a five-month old we take her out for walks every day after work too - that way I avoid getting to the end of the day and realizing I never left the house, which definitely makes you start to feel like a hikkomori a little. I like working from home overall, and spend most of my day on conference calls on the phone so I don’t really feel isolated doing it, but there are times I miss working in an office and going out to lunch with co-workers and such.
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Yes, you really should use that MacBook for more than just FireFox and Safari…
relentlessflame: Traveling to and from work is never an issue for me. It’s the issue that I’m just constantly at home and I feel that I am never away from my work. I prefer if I could just leave my work at work and it’s probably also a good thing that clients don’t have my personal number, else they’ll be calling me at stupid hours.
suguru: In a way you’re lucky that you have a family to look after as you know you need to spend time with them and not at the computer. But given all I need is a PC and internet connection, all my correspondences are via email mostly so I’m feeling isolated quite a bit.
A.R.M: My development environment is Windows focused so I don’t have much use for a Linux type environment.
I like your room. Good idea having your bed higher, so you can have more space..
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I don’t know why but your room reminds me of Takumi’s room from Chaos Head.Only you have more stuff.
Wow! I like you’re wide variations of Anime collection! you need renovation. :))