Work from home? If so what do you do?

I currently commuting into London and work in finance (risk management). I’m a qualified accountant but don’t practise any of it and never have really. We’re looking to move further north and quit the rat race, stop commuting.

I’m really interested in finding something that would enable me to work from home i.e. something that isn’t really location dependant and allows me the flexibility to work it around family life.

So, all of those of you out there that earn boat loads of cash and work from home….what do you all do?

Nerd.

Manage nerds with a bit of nerding myself if the need arises.

IT geek.

This, mostly;

I wfh a few days a week, IT stuff/project management/pre sales. It helps that I do a lot of my work with folk in the States/Australia so 90% of stuff is on virtual meetings anyway.

I’m starting next month – dipping a toe in with Friday mornings, it’s more of a work / life balance thing as I’ll have my daughter with me (8 months old) although she naps from 9-11 so I’ll be free to work bar 20 mins for a feed / change and have to suffer BabyTV for a bit.

My plan is that if it works well to increase it to the full day Friday and see where we go from there, although I would still need Child Care as I can’t work and be Dad full-time as I need to take appointments and I’m not prepared to plonk her in front of the TV all day.

Wait for it….. I work in IT too, but on the Sales, Marketing and ‘Consultancy’ side of things – in reality it doesn’t really matter where I work – I’m 10 mins from the office at home, I work on a separate floor to most of my colleagues all the stuff I need for work is cloud based and my VOIP desktop phone will work anywhere as long as I can plug it into a router. Most of them wouldn’t notice if I was as home or in my office.

90% of the battle is assuring whoever you work for that they don’t need to ‘keep an eye on you’

Home based nerd here with some travel. Location does normally come into it – Does where you live offer decent internet access as network aware applications (web and software)are becoming more bandwidth intensive? Also, if you do need to travel think how far away are you from the nearest airport/train station?

We have a guy who lives in the Outer Hebrides and it eats into his life when he does have to travel for work. flying on a Saturday as no flights on a Friday. Stuck in the city as flights cancelled due to weather.

Maybe best to research companies that are quite modern in their way of working and see if they have suitable home based jobs that match your skills. A complete career change might not give you the money you are looking for.

Slacademic!
Mix it up from home and work when I am not teaching or don’t need the labs!

Maybe best to research companies that are quite modern in their way of working

any suggestions from peeps to give me a headstart?

I used to have a boss who was very pragmatic and took the view that as long as the work got done and we were contactable (email & phone) during work hours he didn’t care where we were. He treated us like grown-ups. I used to WFH about one day a fortnight if I felt like it. It broke the week up nicely.

He was replaced by another boss who took the complete opposite approach – we MUST be in the office and we MUST ask his permission in advance for absolutely everything. Bizarrely, he was based in a different office to the rest of us so he never had any idea where we were or what we were doing anyway. He was a massive ****. I left.

So clearly the key is to have a decent boss.

Forum slave

Edit: not really, motion design and creative direction

An easy leap for you would be a risk management consultant, visiting clients, auditing processes Strategic risk, business resilience if you want to broaden it.

Bit of time on the road, but a bit of time at home writing up etc.

Depends if you want “home based” or “at home” not necessarily the same thing, I realise.

Does nerd = developer/programmer?

Sundayjumper – Member

I used to have a boss who was very pragmatic and took the view that as long as the work got done and we were contactable (email & phone) during work hours he didn’t care where we were. He treated us like grown-ups. I used to WFH about one day a fortnight if I felt like it. It broke the week up nicely.

He was replaced by another boss who took the complete opposite approach – we MUST be in the office and we MUST ask his permission in advance for absolutely everything. Bizarrely, he was based in a different office to the rest of us so he never had any idea where we were or what we were doing anyway. He was a massive ****. I left.

So clearly the key is to have a decent boss.

Definitely this, my last boss was like the former & the new boss is like the latter, more people have left/been off long term sick in the last 6 months, than did during the previous 8 years & moral is so low no one really gives a t0ss about doing the job right, just bums on seats now.

Programmer/Nerd.

plyphon – Member

Does nerd = developer/programmer?

Nope, figure of speech, I’m a support for 1000 servers I guess.

Technical Illustrator plus a bit of html/flash coding. I’ve been to maybe 3 face to face meeting in the last two years.

Basically I work from home and for myself so if someone offers to pay me to do something and i think I can make a decent job of it then I’ll do it.

I’m civil service, and they are getting keener on people working from home. Hoping to get the chance later this year, subject to our poor IT being improved. Must have a dedicated broadband and phone line installed because what we do is SO secret. 🙄

MrsMC works in child protection for the local authority and can work from as and when it suits. She doesn’t need the security in her role that I apparently do, strangely.

Making websites and **** and shit like that

Another nerd here/. I’ve wfh for 4 years. My boss is in Detroit, my nearest colleague is now in Ottawa. I develop IT training courses – teaching people how to teach people to install our ridiculously complicated portfolio of software.

Since we were assimilated I’ve discovered I no longer have permission to wfh and am currently battling an automated request system which will grant me permission to continue, once I get approval from God, possibly his boss too.

I used to have a boss who was very pragmatic and took the view that as long as the work got done and we were contactable (email & phone) during work hours he didn’t care where we were. He treated us like grown-ups. I used to WFH about one day a fortnight if I felt like it. It broke the week up nicely.

Did you work for me?

That’s pretty much my stance. I’ll do a day from home every other week and let my team do the same. We’re all on MS Lync so you can see if anyone’s been away from the computer for too long. 😉

Analysis/Project/Product Management in Financial services.

Being able to work from home is very nice but I wouldn’t want to do it all the time, interaction with colleagues in person is required to maintain perspective and build productive relationships. IMO.

all on MS Lync so you can see if anyone’s been away from the computer for too long.

Oh really?
HKEY_USERS\%usersid%\Software\Microsoft\Communicator]”IdleThreshold”=dword=%some value that allows you to pop down the shops% 😉

I do 3 days a week from home, 2 days from the office.

As above, it’s about understanding managers. I did 14 years working in London for the same people, so they knew me pretty well. Basically said “we’re moving to Sheffield, if you want to carry on employing me, great. This is how it will work.” They thought about it and went “yeah, OK.” 3 years in now. It has it’s (major) downsides (office time), but the upsides are equally major (cheeky midweek rides in the Peaks)

I’m a lighting designer for an event company. I basically do all the pre-production work at home, then go down for meetings and the on-site stuff. The key is good IT support, a willingness to be flexible and understanding that you’re in a priviledged position, so don’t take the piss.

Qualified Accountant that moved into SOX and then into Oracle.

Now work permanently from home for a company that offers Oracle support and purely work on Tax and Reg updates for clients.

Perfect job for myself as it means that no more travel (once a qtr into the office in Canary Wharf for the update) and able to fit the work in around the family and other things.

Boss is great, as long as we get the work done then it doesnt really matter when we do it. Most meeting are held either via Skype or a GOTO meeting.

Am looking to move to either Scotland or Wales soon though to enjoy the riding even more.

Retail display consultant, self employed. I go to London a couple of days a week when not wfh.
Previous job introduced me to wfh which was doing strategic procurement.
Personally wfh works well if you have a specific task or deadline and you have regular phone and email contact with others. I found it very isolating if I just had strategic stuff too do which required lots of self starting.

Did you work for me?

Do you look unnervingly like Al Murray’s Pub Landlord, but with more gold jewellery ? 😀

As someone has mentioned above, I got a transfer in my current role to the North to allow me to work from home 3 days and do one overnight in London. I think because they got bored of me asking and several other people in the dept worked that way

From a lifestyle point of view it was great but it was career limiting as I miss out on a lot of networking and the company does seem to have a culture of presenteeism in the head office.

I moved roles in a sideways move to a different division in an attempt to spend even less time in London and now work 2 or 3 days in Manchester and 2 or 3 at home.

I work in a commercial role developing and implementing new propositions for a large utility

European marketing manager, haven’t had a desk for about 10 years.
Upsides – work from wherever I want to, including home
Downsides – Lots of travel, so there are periods when I don’t get a lot of time to work from home…

Have a look at This website[/url] for some ideas on companies that are involved in ‘smarter working’ or working from home. The company I work for is on there as case study.

If you fancy setting up your own business, then Arise[/url] are always looking for people to work in customer service

Chartered QS here and I get to work from home a fair bit.

It’s not really a company policy but more on a team basis. Luckily I work in team that is pretty trusting. We work on the basis that some days will be long and you’ll need to work late but equally if a meeting finishes early and you can get back early go for it.

Some days I find working from home brilliant and I get loads done…other days are not so good and I get distracted easily (this is more common now my other half is on maternity leave with the little dude). I’m not adverse to nicking an hour here and there for a ride in the week (paid back by working a bit later another day). The flexibility makes my life easier and I get to avoid the traffic into Nottingham on the days that I stay at home.

IT Consultant and Video Animations here.
I work from home 50% of the week and hotdesk in a shared office the other 50%.
Find the combination works well – otherwise working from home can drive you slightly nuts.

I do 3 days a week from home, 2 days from the office.

I’m hoping to do this sometime this year. Looking to move from Glasgow down to the tweed valley. Cheeky lunch hour blasts 8)

Oh really?
HKEY_USERS\%usersid%\Software\Microsoft\Communicator]”IdleThreshold”=dword=%some value that allows you to pop down the shops%

Or use the Lync mobile client and be able to respond to things if someone does need something (occasional stalling needed till I’m back at my desk).

IT nerd here. Our company helps other companies deploy and use Lync so we’re quite good at the WFH thing. How much I actually get to do it depends a lot on the customer and commitments – I couldn’t (and wouldn’t want to) do it full time.

I’ve just set up my own graphic design and marketing business ‘INDUSTRY COTTAGE’, base at home in my wee hoose 12 miles outside edinburgh. its been my plan for quite a few years.

early days and in truth, still adjusting to it but it beats slowly getting ground away in an position id had for 11 years that was frankly doing my tits in. plus no more 3 hours of sitting on a bus everyday.

of course it remains to be seen if the obvious mid week biking opportunities and other advantages out-weight the uncertainly / veggie feast / famine nature of a start up.

I’ve been self-employed for 9 years now.
Design of all kinds.
User interfaces, products, websites, identities, etc.

Some of my clients have remained the same for all 9 years:
http://pixelmagic.com/

Rare telephone meetings and very very rare face-to-face meetings.
Email does just fine 🙂

I could do with more money, but the thought of going back to work for an agency doesn’t tempt me. It would probably have to be my own business.

Quite happy for the moment, but I’m sure there will come a day when nobody wants to go to a 60yo freelancer 🙁

IT PM – Been working from home for years now, but that’s about to change (new job).
I actually think it has done me some harm mentally. Lone working with massive workloads and pressure isn’t good for me personally, I prefer to get out and speak to actual real life faces.
I can visit office once a week currently, but frequently it’s prevented due to cost, similarly meeting clients.

On reflection it has had its good and bad sides, time will tell if I miss it, but very much looking forward to a change.
I would go back to it, if I worked for myself.

Manage nerds with a bit of nerding myself if the need arises.

+1

Work from home 1 or 2 days a week. Here today, listening to Planet Rock, making endless cups of tea and throwing logs onto the stove now and then. Its good…