"In other roles, I've been in 4x4 high-wall cubes in windowless pens with 40 people where the brightest colors in the room were the red nubs on IBM thinkpads. That was a miserable working environment."
I work in one of those environments right now, and let me tell you, I am honestly 500% more productive on those occasional days where I work from home. Not just happier, but leaps and bounds more productive.
It's not just the change in surroundings, but also the change in attitudes. People seem to be less susceptible to the subtle inanities of "office mode" when out of the office. For instance: when I'm working from home, I can be efficient. I don't need to fritter away 4 or 5 hours straight in strings of pointless meetings. (That's not a critique of group collaboration, per se, but a critique of meetings-for-the-sake-of-meetings, which are quite common in corporate America and probably account for 75% of the weight of my meetings in any given week).
I work in one of those environments right now, and let me tell you, I am honestly 500% more productive on those occasional days where I work from home. Not just happier, but leaps and bounds more productive.
It's not just the change in surroundings, but also the change in attitudes. People seem to be less susceptible to the subtle inanities of "office mode" when out of the office. For instance: when I'm working from home, I can be efficient. I don't need to fritter away 4 or 5 hours straight in strings of pointless meetings. (That's not a critique of group collaboration, per se, but a critique of meetings-for-the-sake-of-meetings, which are quite common in corporate America and probably account for 75% of the weight of my meetings in any given week).