If the coronavirus lockdown forced you into working remotely, the novelty of being able to wear your pyjamas while working and holding meetings over a conference call may well have worn off by now.
You might even be welcoming some calls from some in government for us all to get back to the office. Even the morning commute might seem like it would offer some respite if you’re sick of working from the spare room.
If you’re hankering for a return to the communal kitchen and your open plan workspace, here are five things you might well be missing about working in the office.
Everyone wants to work from home, right? You get to avoid the morning commute, improve your work/life balance, and never have to put up with another second of office ‘banter’. But, believe it or not, there are some aspects of office life you might well miss when working from home.
1. Money for nothing
One of the biggest fears for anyone taking the leap from salaried job to freelancing has to be that there is no guaranteed income. When you’re in paid employment, you can effectively earn a wage by just turning up for work each day – it’s fair to say you might not last very long in that job if that’s all you do, but you’ll still get paid until you’re eventually fired.
So although you (obviously) still have to work when you’re in salaried employment, you’re always on the clock and getting paid even when you’re checking Twitter, Facebook or even wasting time reading things like this!
Being self-employed is a different matter though, and you may well have to work unsociable or long hours to make sure you get everything done and hit your deadlines and keep your customers and clients coming back to your business. This can also make it difficult to even take any time off, whether for holidays or sickness – if you don’t work, you don’t get paid.
2. Grown-up conversation
If you work from home, you can probably count on one hand the number of people you interact with on a daily basis – and even then you probably live with half of them. This can make it tough to get any kind of adult interaction, something that can be exacerbated further if you work at home with a young child or children.
It might even get to the point where you’re longing to be trapped near the water cooler by the office bore. One way around this could be to liberate the laptop and work from a coffee shop once in a while.
3. Getting out in the car
If you have to endure a daily commute, you probably can’t envisage a time when you’ll miss it. Take away that time to yourself, alone but for the radio or your favourite music perhaps, and you’ll soon start to miss the drive to and from the office.
Possibly.
4. Fewer distractions
One of the biggest pitfalls when working from home is the amount of distractions on offer – if you’ve not fully got your mind on your work, even the washing up can seem like an appealing alternative. And that’s before you realise you’re in the same building as your TV and all of your favourite box sets!
And if you’re constantly being distracted, you’re motivation levels can drop dramatically, which can lead to a drop in productivity. If this is a problem for you, check out How to stay motivated when working from home.
5. Someone else making the tea
You work at home, you make your own. Every time.
What do you think you’d miss about working from home? Let us know in the comments section…
