I waited a full 15 years for home office.
It might be hard to believe, and today it's downright unimaginable, but back in January countless companies still did NOT give remote access to their systems. Because whoever isn't visible is dangerous. I work for a company like that too. Then in spring, from one week to the next, everything changed.
The sun was shining, it was pleasantly warm. After 15 years, for the first time, having overcome the obstacle of five different token authentication whatchamacallits, the poor content of my 17-inch office monitor finally appeared on my own laptop. Security first, of course, but also great joy that there's still work and I wasn't thanked for my contribution right away.
I expected that my colleagues and I would end up working less.
There'd be less stress and more happiness, since introverted programmers' comfort zone is entirely filled by the computer. No people around, no food smells drifting in from the kitchen (or worse, from the neighboring desk), and — perhaps best of all — no more two hours a day of hand-to-hand combat on the roads or on the bus.
You don't even have to shower. No need to spend a lot of money on bad canteen food. No need to get dressed either — pajamas and a robe will do just fine. All day in front of the computer, playing whatever music you like, and never getting up all day.
After a week, though, things started to happen. A stabbing pain between you and the chair (well, really inside you), a stiff spine and neck (guess I still can't lie down), evening and weekend work (since you're right there at the computer anyway), and I realized that even ordering pizza doesn't help with the monotonous diet (and it's not cheaper either).
If you're not a boss/project manager/I'm-everywhere type who hops from meeting to meeting, but instead earn your living as a programmer or developer, it's very easy to let about 10 hours slip by in front of the computer, having only gotten up once to heat up your leftovers in the microwave — which didn't even take more than twenty minutes — and having made two coffees. Or three, doesn't matter.
Still, going down to the canteen wasn't so bad after all — we always managed to put together an hour-long lunch break without any trouble, plus coffee. Maybe we'd even pop out to the pool hall. In-person meetings aren't so bad either, because there are more ways to sit there without actually paying attention. And it's nice, once in a while, to randomly crack an exhausted old joke and watch how the others suffer through it.
I'd say those 15 years weren't good, but this current setup — five days a week, 8-10 hours of solitary hunching over — isn't good either. If you asked me, I'd draw the line somewhere in the middle.
3-2, or 2-3, something like that — that's what a week should look like.
