Working from home

[tobyaw]

I’ve been mostly working from home for over a decade, with my contract specifying that I only need to be in the office one day per week. That one day was typically in the local Dundee office, and then I’d spend maybe a week each quarter working in the London office.

For a year now I’ve been working from home 100% of the time, and it has been a fantastic working year. I feel more productive and happier with my team working from home than I ever did with colleagues in the office.

Zoom calls, particularly for pairing, have been a great success. I find it far easier to work on technical tasks with a colleague on a call, than it is to sit next to them. With my eyesight, when sitting next to someone I struggle to read text on their screen.

Meetings are far more personal and egalitarian if everyone is on their individual connection. I don’t want to go back to the grim days of connecting in to a meeting room, where as a remote participant I can’t easily hear what people are saying, or for that matter tell who is talking. And worse, company meetings where a meeting room in London is connected to a meeting room in Dundee.

And as a result of our Zoom calls over the past year, I now know the names and faces of far more people in the London office. Which is good.

I hope we don’t lose the benefits of working from home when people start heading back into the office. Although my observation is that there is a significant minority who, like me, never want to go back.