Comments on: Working From Home vs A Home Office

By: mjgraves

mjgraves — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 02:31:00 +0000

The plans that I started out using isn’t offered any longer. Since then my employers entire US operation was moved to OnSIP, so any of their offers makes sense for us. We use the $99/mo plan and add a few extra features a la carte.

If you only need one or two phones/lines then OnSIP may not be the absolute cheapest deal.

By: mjgraves

mjgraves — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 02:24:00 +0000

For the past 15+ years my job has involved a considerable amount of travel to various places in the US and Canada. As such, it really doesn’t matter where I reside, as long as its conveniently near a major airport.

I do think that more and more situations lend themselves to working from home, or a mix of working from home and a traditional office. I’ve done a few interviews over the past year. In each case the terms were work from home 75% of the time. The rest of the time to be spent visiting corp office of customer sites.

Of course I use computers outside of office hours. However, my wife doesn’t like to spending a lot of time in the office in the evenings. It’s a little anti-social. Thus I tend to take my laptop, netbook or more recently my Nexus 7 tablet with me into the house.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 06:50:00 +0000

Could you discuss the onsip plan you’re on? After reviewing the offerings, it appears the plans are nice for an office environment where there’s a number of extensions/users/devices, but I can’t seem to locate a plan suited for a home office user.

Best,
Sean

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 06:33:00 +0000

Thank you for the article, you make great points about a home office.

In your situation, having a home office makes sense since your company has does not have a location that you can drive to. Do you foresee a day when high end jobs won’t require a physical building but allow the employees to have a home office? Obviously this won’t be practical with your standard computer/call center job, but maybe it could be the model elsewhere. My previous job was practically a work-from-home style job since the first day to meet my manager was my last day there.

Also, if your company were to open an office in your city or nearby, do you feel you would not be as productive since you’ve made this home office to suit your work style/environment?

Finally, outside of work hours, you do use a computer? From the sounds of it, you keep out of the home office which has two computers, so do you use a different machine for leisure and if you do, would you recommend that to others who have a home office?

Thanks,
Sean

By: mjgraves

mjgraves — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 21:40:00 +0000

It’s nice to meet you as well. The details of my abnormality reach beyond this site. I have written a post for a less technical site that details how, over the years and in many ways, I have repeatedly been reminded that I am not normal. That post has been on hold pending the opportunity to create some suitably abnormal art work

Now about that coffee…have you seen http://www.sweetmarias.com/

By: Judy Heminsley

Judy Heminsley — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 10:11:00 +0000

Hi Michael, I’m very pleased to meet you courtesy of Twitter and San Sharma of WorkSnug. I was on holiday when we were introduced, and am still catching up!

Love the article, very clear account of why us habitual home workers aren’t normal! And good to see the Teknivorm MokaMaster in all its shiny glory.

Just off to make a coffee…

By: xcom

xcom — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 14:27:00 +0000

Great Article. And I agree with you I do find the article offensive . I work home from often and I find my self to be more productive when working from home. I get to concentrate more on my projects than I do when in the office. I know company’s now days offer “working days from home” as an incentive.

By: mjgraves

mjgraves — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Thanks for the comment. I also used a local PBX for some time. That was early in the history of Asterisk. It cemented my admiration of the embedded systems/appliance approach to such matters. Eventually I found that I was better off letting someone else handle the hardware, so a hosted pbx (http://www.onsip.com) made the most sense. It combined major cost savings with fewer headaches.

By: Trimline

Trimline — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 12:51:00 +0000

Great post.

As I write this, my 2 Schnauzers are resting on the floor in my home office. June marked my 10th year of this arrangement, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I agree 100% with you in that the dangers of doing so often result in a 60+ hour week, and you really do have to setup some type of work exit routine.

Similar to your story, in 2004, I moved to VoIP. The expense of the analog phone from Bellsouth kept escalating. As a contractor, I had to keep costs in check. I setup my own PBX using a small footprint PC and have been happy ever since. My bill is 80% less.

If you spend a lot of time on conference calls using 800 numbers, look for a service that pays you. I can easily rack up 6 – 10k minutes per month on these calls. They don’t pay very much, but when you get a quarterly check for a few dollars, it will make you smile. It really defines the term, “dialing for dollars”.

Cheers.

By: mjgraves

mjgraves — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:46:00 +0000

I have also found that to be very comfortable in my home office circumstance has in fact bound me to my present employer. I put up with things (management behaviors, assignments, etc) that would give me pause if I were a more typical cubicle dweller.