[bosem123]

In my case, I've already had a freelancing job as a content writer since the past 8 years, so WFH is completely alien to me. I did start going to a co-working space 2kms away from my home in Noida Sector 8, and I do miss being there at times. Here are the things that happened:

1) Had the chance to click kickass pictures of the moon and Venus in line with each other in the evening

2) My wife and I have cooked a huge number of brand new dishes in the past 3 months. I even managed to prepare home made Tandoori Chicken

3) The wife gave me a super short haircut yesterday. Suddenly I can feel cool air passing above and into my head now

4) Have had 5-6 drinking sessions with the wifey and parents since lockdown started. It has led to some very interesting conversations, both on current topics and my parents' pasts

5) I now have the time write on a huge range of topics. Though overall rates for content have fallen, regular clients still prefer me..Yay!

6) Less tea/coffee and smoke breaks, like a lot of you have said

7) The after lunch period sometimes gets very difficult to pass. Both my wife and I take turns wacking each other to stay awake (well, sometimes!)

8) Earlier I would use bluetooth headsets only outside, especially on the move. Now I use them whenever I speak to anyone, on the phone or Zoom

The only sad part is not being able to spend much time in my Alto K10. I so crave a long drive these days

[51morris]

Perfect thread, especially since working from home here to stay (for a while, at least).

Originally Posted by GTO

I personally love working from home. Have a small office setup in a different room (to separate home from work).

Completely agree, GTO. I have a similar approach to working from home. I have been working from home 1-2 days a week for the past few years and have made it a point to setup a small office space in a separate room. This helps keep work and home separate. And at the end of each day, I make sure I down the shutters on the office (see picture below)

[philipmathen]

Owing to the nature of my job, never had an opportunity to work from home before. 2 months into it, I see more pros than cons, personally.

Pros:
1. My office starts early, so I have to leave home by 8. Now I can be up by 9 and still be prepared for the day.
2. I have a chance to actually ‘eat’ breakfast.
3. No commute related headaches and more importantly, costs.
4. We have a toddler at home, so this has been a god send in terms of being able to spend time with him and not having to depend on a nanny- something I am not fond of personally.
5. Have been able to unclutter my mind and my work, which would very often get side tracked with other discussions.
6. Have realised just how much we used to spend in a month, ordering in after a long day at work, the savings are just mind boggling.
7. Save on fuel and parking charges, impulse visits to the mall that ends up in a massive impulse buy.
8. Was never a fan of formal wear, now I dread the thought of going back to it.

Cons:
1. Miss office conversations, often a gold mine of ideas.
2. Miss driving/riding despite the maddening traffic and horrible road manners in Chennai.
3. You do need to be out and about to feel fresh and clear your head. Even a walk around your neighbourhood helps. In that sense an office environment, with coffee breaks, lunch, etc., does not really have a substitute.
4. The lines do tend to get blurred with respect to work timings, but I would put that down to added pressure in the organisation as a whole to ensure people are not seen slacking off, and work from home being a new concept, a lot of people who preferred long breaks at work before getting down to serious work in the evenings, possibly replicating the same at home. I’ve personally been someone who prefers to complete tasks well in advance and not overstay at office just for the sake of it.

My take way: I will be actively looking for an opportunity to permanently work from home or spend as little time as possible in an office. If that goes to plan, will invest in a small home office. Work from home gets a big thumbs up from me.

[recshenoy]

I was doing a casual survey of around 40-50 colleagues and friends for last 2-3 weeks on how their WFH is going on.

The Good

1. Be with family and have family food. It is raining heavily and I just had a steaming hot idly, priceless! The food variety never ends and with YouTube, I can see that most of my friends and colleagues have become "Master Chefs". Hope they will not become perfectionist like Gordon Ramsey and shout once we go back to office "Unbelievable, your application is half baked and mushy. can I see the code".
2. T-I-M-E, there is lot of it and people spend that on various activities like work, reskilling , Netflix , YouTube etc etc and the best one “peacefully sleeping”. Team-bhp can be opened any time without worrying about someone peeking at your screen and thinking “when will this guy work”.
3. People have realized the value of things which were taken for granted. I see some careless blokes posting about "conserving nature" , "amount of work spouse / mother has at home once I go to office" etc.
4. Long forgotten habit of sunset prayers/rituals are back.

The bad

1. Auto enthusiast miss driving to office though majority of them would prefer a long drive over cramped city roads wasting their time.
2. The team meetings are bit weird. While looking at the screen and talking, you won’t have the much needed "eye contact". You cannot counter the person on call but in a meeting room the body language will give an indication on "how comfortable are audience with the discussion point". Though there is virtual white board available in apps, they are not a substitute for "marker and white board" people like me.
3. No doubt home food is good and several of them used to get home food to pre-lockdown office but we had good amount of cheaters (including me) who used to get "diet food" from home and grab a "fried pakoda" , "Gobi Manchurian" for lunch.
4. Background noise is a nonsense to deal with. We can easily tell who has joined the conference call by background noise. There are pet Indian street dogs 2 houses away. As a birth right, they bark at trivial random things squirrel jumping on compound wall. Every time I get a call, common question is "do you have pet dogs near you", so much so that I have started hating dogs.
5. Log in and out time are undefined and you are not sure if person has left for the day or still working when you see "away for 10 minutes" at 7:00 P.M. At office you can peek and confirm "ok laptop is not there, manager has left. Let us also go", at noon "ok there is no lunch box, must have gone for lunch" but in WFH it is an assumption "mostly gone for lunch", "mostly on another call, messenger shows away for 5 minutes". This can be managed to some extent by using collaboration platform like MS teams / Slack etc. but there is no substitute for "get up , go and talk" which avoids lot of communication gap than "I pinged/ called you" for "ok I missed the ping/call" response. But again people who work on multi-location , onsite-offshore mode it is not a major challenge but an occupational irritant.
6. Not having an ergonomic setup at home with closed room causes issue while trying to concentrate on work. Thank God, I have one albeit not very ergonomic.

The ugly

1. If you are in a hot humid place, you will feel sticky throughout the day. Some of them were looking for cheap and best AC which don’t burn hole in their pocket but yet to find one. Some of them are using combination of mild fan + A/C to fight the A/C bills.
2. While some of them have managed to do exercise and maintain same weight as before some have gained weight due to sedentary life style. Careful jogging and some exercising should fix this but it’s a health risk on long term basis. People have to start moving around and should walk minimum 30 minutes per day.
3. Bachelors "dearly" miss the office. I was talking to one today and he told "I can finally see some colors in my life though they are masked" and one other person thanked me for choosing her as "office goer" from this week.
4. The internet goes blank unannounced so is electricity in monsoon and cyclones. I am sure this will be biggest challenge in Tier-II cities or people living in "single internet provider" area. One of the team member had both phone signal and internet issues at the same time during weekend support. Though we had a backup plan in place, it was an unpleasant and anxious moment till that person took parents SIM of different operator and did a one day data recharge. One other person who had frequent power disruption got a power backup for Wi-Fi router which saved him from awkward drop offs from client network and WebEx calls.
5. Cyber security and client information security is a threat across the job levels. I am sure in future data masking solutions to hide sensitive information will be in demand due to increased work from home culture.


TL;DR

"Homo sapien" is a social animal and it would definitely like to move around than sitting at one place.

So like someone has suggested here , it should be 70/30 WFH with flexibility to visit office couple of times a week to get much needed Vitamin-S (Social interaction). At the same time, with companies like TCS announcing ambitious massive scale down of "office for every one" and many of the tech giants looking to optimize real-estate costs, exciting time ahead for people who wish to escape from hustle-bustle of choked cities.

All said and done, big thumbs up for "Work For home" I mean "Work From Home"

[KGS]

I voted for "Work from Home" option.
If given a choice I would go for 3 days work from home and 2 days in office in a week.

Working from home has given me
1. Loads of free time which I used to spend on carefully selecting my formal shirts and trousers, sometime suit as well.
2. No tension of Ironing cloths.
3. Formal shoes are happy in the cupboard and no time/money spent of polishing them.
4. I was able to sort my finances in this lockdown. Rebalanced my portfolio.
5. Started reading a book again outside of my Job profile.
6. Spending lots of time with my 3 year old son.
7. No distraction from colleagues, who start with can you please check this for me and take good 30 mins to 2 hours.
8. Also, I made all the plans of the next car that I am going to buy. Read all reviews and discussions on this awesome forum.

9. Only negative was around March end, I had a severe back pain due to bad posture of working on bed. I was not able to move for a day. From that day I moved to chair and table and doing fine.

Sitting with team and working has its own charm and advantages but somehow I feel Work from home has more advantages than disadvantages.

[Divya Sharan]

Voted for work from office.
WFH isn't new for me. I have worked for various firms over a decade in IT, and it does provide relief when needed.

Earlier, few people treated WFH as leaves and hence a few rules were brought in place like valid reasons for WFH/pre approvals etc. But rapport matters and adhoc requests were almost always granted.

IMHO, WFH works for a short duration and in the long run I feel morale and productivity both go down. Especially for people who don't live with families.

There is no human interaction, one is confined within a small space. People eat bad, work overtime, don't maintain proper posture due to a variety of reasons and communication over email/chats can never come close to a face to face interaction. Plus, everyone is entitled to interpret emails differently.
One cannot just walk over to a person to chat or seek help, rather book a slot in the calendar for their free time.

Then, you have noise. Be it kids (they get bored too), or TVs, or pressure cookers and the likes.

Electricity is another concern. Internet connectivity is poor many a time too. Nothing comes close to a company's infrastructure.

Therefore, I feel WFH is only good for some time. Maybe a hybrid would do, but only 1/3rd of the time at home and the rest in office.

[Swap_Abarth]

Definatly work from office for me. Below are reasons :-

1) I prefer to work from office with proper sitting arrangments with big monitor.

2) I don't really enjoy long calls. I prefer face to face meetings instead.

3) WFH has increased work time from 9 to 10 hours to 12 hours daily for me. Along with this, I have to help my wife in daily chores. This is getting hectic with no time for my 5 year old son.

4) I miss my drive/rides to office the most. My office is 23 kms away from my home and enjoy the commute.

[Achilles]

Voted for 'work from office' as I feel it as more efficient, since lab access is required for my role. I'm also enjoying 'work from home' since I am with my family eating homely food and enjoying monsoon in Kerala.
A flexible setup for work from home & office whenever I need would be more desirable!

[harmanjeet14]

Voted for Work from office.
As an IT professional who has just started his career in the industry, I depend a lot on my colleagues to understand the work and get things done. Although this is still manageable, what I miss most is networking with my seniors and peers. I am still in phase where I am understanding different opportunities which exist in my company and what suits me the best.
Yes, had I been 3-4 years into the job I would have preferred work from home as it has definite advantages such as having more time for yourself and saving tons of money on rent and commute.

[headbanger]

No commute. No traffic. No mental stress. No office cabs. No matching of shirts with trousers. No accessories needed. Just a simple T shirt and pyjama would do. More time with family. Seeing my young one grow. Cherishing her curious questions. Gives me enough space to shut down my brain from professional chores to experience the family time. For the driving enthusiast in me, gives me more reason to drive out on long drives rather than considering regular commute every day to satiate my urge to drive. It's a no brainer for me - WFH all the way.

[SLK]

I'm not from a profession that permitted WFH even as an acceptable option earlier, while we mostly do our work on laptops. Since consultancy is a people business, WFH wasn't considered an appropriate proxy for a physical work-place.

During the last 2 months, we have turned things around and have been effectively able to do EVERYTHING from home and most of us don't feel the need to go to office, even if it is starting to open now.

In my opinion, WFH is completely workable, it is different but a 99% substitute if you have and use the right tools.

What generally goes wrong:
1) People attending online meetings and keeping video off. (it is like speaking from under the table in a physical meeting)
2) Many (mostly our clients) are really struggling with video conferences because of sheer lack of computer literacy (none of these are IT guys) and often get into odd situations within video calls.
3) Many haven't bothered or can't afford a separate working space in the house.
4) Most don't know that it is the 2.4Ghz wifi with WMM (and conflicting wifi channels) that fails them during video calls rather than their ISP. (or just cheap wifi routers)
5) Almost no one in India considers having a second screen or a large screen, the smaller the screen the better it is for status symbol (we are not IT). But when you have 2 mid-size to large screens for work at home, you can almost have same interaction with your colleagues as office. MS teams is awesome, the way it integrates with MS office and your domain/ outlook.

I think it is a new way of life and there is nothing wrong in this change. It like ICE vs Electric cars, what's got to go, is got to go and there will be a new normal with more potential.

Sadly, I also think that this generation will not be able to adapt to this change and most will come back to normal after the crisis is over.

One BIG shortcoming for WFH is, what about the new joiners?, specifically who are starting their career, it is a BIG BIG miss for them.

[mmxylorider]

Voted for Work from Office. My role requires me to be in front of my clients, whiteboarding, dining and what not. That is not effective WFH. Additionally, one needs to get a pulse of what's happening by going to the floor and meeting with people. WFH means mostly everything has to be scheduled and gives the other party an easy way to decline.

Lastly - some people do not have the setup at home for extended WFH and that in itself can cause problems. COuld be space wise, big family etc.

[ThePatientMan]

Voted for Work from Office. Being in media sales our nature of job is such that it requires us to physically meet clients, find their requirements, suggest solutions, and (if required) try to get some data on competition from them. Also we have everyday ideation sessions in office (pre-covid) which require us to be physically present with colleagues from other departments (creative, prodn, edit etc) as these discussions just don't work when doing it over a video call.

Also now with working hours stretched to include the commute time as well (1.5 hours each way) we have been forced to work 12 hours straight on all 7 days (not the entire lockdown duration but the last couple of weeks). Bosses have been piling more and more work with the usual dialogue "you are anyway at home" so might as well do a con-call at 10 pm on Sunday night.

Waiting desperately for offices to open to regularise the work timings.

[TurboOnTarmac]

This is a question which is very subjective and depends a lot on the personal situation at that time (it may vary time to time). Best option i think is the 'flexibility of working from home or office with ideal ration being 50-50. Any possibility to increase beyond should be in favor of WFH. So, by using democracy principle, I voted for WFH.

COVID has really changed our world and our way of life. When i stepped out last weekend for some work related to gas connection, it felt surreal and suddenly i felt 'alive' along with a bit of nervousness to integrate back into world. I battled depression and loneliness in these three months (felt ages) of @home period. Some life started coming back to me when my apartment RWA allowed walking inside the complex earlier in May. Now, with government allowing people to come out during day, I think we would be able to slowly regain connections with this world.

I think the negatives for WFH are (many could be a repeat):

- Workload increased tremendously and work days have become longer.
- No regard to private hours with me having to attend calls starting as early as 7am or as late as 9pm
- Even after long work days, we always have 'homework' keeping us working to catchup for the next day
- Virtual communication is not as effective as that of 'face to face' communication as we miss many non-verbal cues
- Team bonding is taking a hit and emotional attachment to office & your co-workers is reducing
- There is a different kind of mental state that we get when step out from home, commute and then enter office. I cant explain in words but i think this makes a bit of difference.


In my view, the Positives are:
- 3 to 4 hours of daily commute time is fully saved. I try to use this savings for my long walks and a bit of physical exercises.
- I understand appreciate the pains involved in maintaining a home and cooking all the time for self. I fully understand how my 'Mom' manages and how difficult it is to do this day-in and day-out. Next time when they join me, i am going to help her as much as possible
- Extra savings in fuel costs, outside food, coffee's, clothes & mens accessaries...etc.
- If you are with your loved ones, i think WFH is a beautiful thing as you can care for each other and use non-office hours to be 'alive' once these restrictions are fully eased.

As mine is the same boring work, i cant much comment on concentration. I often feel like wasted and that adds to the gloom.

Silver lining for now - Looking forward to get my hands on to my new Nexon. My dealer, this time, says he will give it to me by 15th Jun. I know many promises from this dealer were already broken but again 'Hope' is our biggest strength, right.

[mmxylorider]

Will add that there is no longer any 'Work-Life Balance' - in the sense, no boundaries when work ends or starts. It's all about 'Work-life Integration'. If you are not working, it's personal time. The only thing I've enforced is at least 7 hrs of continuous off time. Other than that, take a power nap between calls, do a grocery run etc. New normal indeed.