The Good & Bad of working from home {mostly good!}

I work from home full time (7:30-4:30; M-F) every day & never have to go into the office. I have worked for ADP for 11 years now - I was in the office for the first 5 years and then came home about 6 years ago, along with the rest of my co-workers in the Clifton, NJ office. It was a way to cut costs for our company (as opposed to laying off in that very bad economical time) and it has worked out well for everyone. I get to meet up with my coworkers in my group once a year for our annual meeting- but other than that, I am home. It's good & bad. Mostly good.

The dreaded commute
I don't have a commute. I used to drive 38 miles (each way) which took me upwards of 1.5 hours each way with traffic (hello, welcome to NJ!). Now, I walk to my dining room office for my commute. I don't spend $7 a day on coffee, $10 a day on lunch and easily $75+ a week on gas. Overall a win win situation!
But, since I don't commute, I don't leave the house very often during the day, so I do feel cooped up after a few days. Even taking a ride to the store hits the reset button for me when I have cabin fever. Certainly beats commuting.

Weather
Ohhh how I dreaded those rides home from the office in bad weather. A bad rain storm or snowfall could add an additional half hour or more of sitting in never-ending traffic. On those nights, getting home felt like it took 4 hours sometimes! Now when it rains or snows, I am comforted looking out my slider to my deck watching the wet stuff collect outside, knowing I do not have to go out in it (Except to pick up my kids after work from the babysitter).

Less hours for kids to spend at daycare/babysitter 
That's a no-brainer. The less time the kids are away from home, the better for us and them. I love the woman who watches our kids, she is great and so happy we have her! Her house is a mile from us. They get dropped off around 8am and picked up around 4:45pm. If I worked in the office, it would be easily 2-3 more hours a day.

The kids are very near
If something goes wrong, like one of the kids gets sick, or our babysitter has an emergency (which doesn't happen often), the kids are close by and can be picked up very fast by me or my husband.

Household chores
This has a good side & a bad side. The good side is, I can race around on my lunch hour and clean, vacuum, mop, do laundry, make the beds, straighten up. Done. Don't have to do it after work! The bad side is - there goes my lunch hour!

I am home  
It's nice to be home. In my own house. And home when my husband gets home. It's easy to start prepping for dinner during the day - like chop up ingredients & put them aside - or get the crock pot going. All very convenient.

Run local errands on lunch
I can easily run out to the food store, Walmart, Petco, Babies-r-us, etc...  on lunch time - I have to hurry but I can do it and get back in an hour if I need to.

I get to pick up my daughter from school
I don't feel like I miss anything. I can also attend school programs and other things they have for the parents to attend (parent/teacher conference, Mother's Day tea party, field trip to the zoo). I get to pick Julianna up from school on Tuesdays & Thursdays. Our babysitter drops her off in the morning since it's not far from her house, then I get to pick her up and drop her back at the babysitter's house. Perfect set up for all of us.

I love my job 
I really love my job, and love that I get to work from home. We have some big changes coming up at the end of this year for our company, and I am so glad I get to be a part of it - along with still getting to work from home.

I forgot to mention the view
I don't have to sit in ugly grey office cubes desperately looking at the back of someone's head - or out a teeny window that's up to high to see anything anyway. Instead, I get to look out my slider - and this is my view of our deck. Pepper enjoys sitting out there on nice days too.

The one thing I really do miss
 ...is the daily interaction of my work friends. We all chat through work email and work chat groups now - but it's not the same as all being there together. I  do get more done working from home since there isn't a lot of 'stopping by someone's cube & talking' going on.  I do get to see some of my work friends occasionally- but not as much as I would like.

Routine 
I really enjoy the routine of working from home- I find it pretty easy to stay on track with eating healthy and good. I don't keep any bad food in the house- so even if I get a craving, I can only eat what's here. Makes it very easy when you don't have access to a cafeteria with tons of fried food and garbage.


Many people think because I work from home, why do I need daycare?
My job is the type of job I need to focus on things and sometimes need to be on the phone with clients for a while, or I can easily get stuck working on something for 2 hours... It is just not possible to watch 2 active children all day while trying to work and produce for my job. When one of them is home sick, or my babysitter is on vacation, it is very hard to get anything done. I could never have them here with me on a daily basis.

Do you get to work from home ever? If so, do you like it? Was it hard for you to get used to? It can be a big adjustment to say the least.