Working from home is driving me mental

[Lockhouse]

It happened to me.

Working from home was OK at first. I'd start at 7.00, knock off for a couple of hours over lunch and go to the gym, start again at 3 and finish at 5 or 6. I'd set myself proper deadlines and report back to the client weekly. I was loving it.

After 18 months or so it all started to go wrong. I started to get really demotivated working on my own. I'd spend all day surfing. By Thursday I'd have a week's work to do to report back to the client on Friday. I started doing that semi-deliberately in order to incentivise myself otherwise I'd have done nothing at all.

The only way I broke the spiral was by going back to the client's offices for a couple of months. After that I split my time 50/50 - I never did as much work at home as I did when I originally started though.

[VectraMan]

Anyone had cabin fever working from home?

I ended up doing 5 months over the summer, and it certainly does feel good to be out the house and back in an office. It's not the most sociable place, but like you I think the isolation was really getting to me.

My plan was always to do more things to get out the house: do volunteer work / join a gym / go for a bike ride every day but in reality all I managed was to go down the pub at 5pm a couple of days a week and read the paper.

[d000hg]

I'm a lonesome kind of person, I love being at home where I don't have to feign interest in other peoples' lives and be distracted by them talking.

Maybe you can sub the work to me... what is it?

[expat]

I think I am starting to hate working from home.

I am becoming some kind of anti-social, sub-human ape creature.

I went out for lunch today, just to get out. I sat on my own in a a nice pub surrounded by groups of bright eyed office workers resplendent in fashionable business attire. All happily chatting and laughing.

That used to be me a while ago.

I suppose I'm saying I miss the social side of office life.

Thing is I'm sitting there unshaven for five days possibly, possibly looking like a tramp, and I can be pretty sure I earn more than any of these lot.

Anyone had cabin fever working from home?

I'm half way considering a paycut just to get some normality back.

Don't let yourself go. Never give up shaving just because you can.

[norrahe]

My work started dwindling near the end so I got out in my garden, finished off some planting and upped the number of hours devoted to volunteer work.

Working from home is good, but not full time. Need some social activity and access to cafe nero.

[DieScum]

Thing is when I handle it I can make it work - just easy to go off the rails a bit.

I sometimes get in to the same as you Lockhouse down the gym at lunch and that feels great. Have to stick to that.

Was doing some volunteer work earlier this year... but just kind of drifted out of that. I think I'll try that again. Just easy to think 'oh I can't be bothered' and not do stuff and bit by bit it all piles up when you don't have a structure.

[d000hg]

Working from home is good, but not full time. Need some social activity and access to cafe nero.

That's the one thing I'd change, we live in a village with no nice bars or cafes. I'd love to live somewhere I can grab my laptop, walk into town and work in a coffee-shop or a bar. Outside term-time, when the students go home, Durham is very quiet during the day and the few times I could be bothered to drive in to town and do this, it was great.

[DieScum]

Maybe you can sub the work to me... what is it?

I mainly do sysadmin work... easy really, but it's mostly about building relationships with customers and mentoring them. The technical stuff I could ship out to India but, ironically being isolated working from home, my main value is the soft skills customer facing part.

[NetwkSupport]

If you rate is ultra good why dont you just hire a fit secretary/house cleaner/pipe cleaner for a few hundred £ a day?

[deano]

To be honest working from home is my ideal!

I would knock off quite a bit from my rate (up to 20%) to be able to do that. I'm happy in my own company and can actually work better that way rather that be surrounded by people who, quite frankly, I am not the least bit interested in!

I am a systems analyst. The writing of specifications, UML modelling and the like can all be done at home. Even the meetings and clarifications can be done by email or teleconference, however I'm not sure that it will be acceptable to clients.

Still, I might try it after this current contracts finishes because in a recession, you never know. A lower rate may appeal more than having a body sat at a desk.