You don’t necessarily need extra rooms, just be smart about integrating a desk into an existing room. We added one desk in the living room and one desk in our bedroom and both work from home without issues while the kids are in school.
I mean when the pandemic hit we all made do with what we had, and put a office setup somewhere in the house. But not everyone likes or wants the aesthetic of living room/WFH office. And then when you're off work, your office is right there looking you in the face from the webcam when you're trying to relax in your living room.
> I mean when the pandemic hit we all made do with what we had, and put a office setup somewhere in the house. But not everyone likes or wants the aesthetic of living room/WFH office.
The home office I have shoved into a corner is better than what any employer will provide.
I too wish for a raise, and the financial ability to afford an entire room to dedicate to work, and the crazy things I might be able to put in there, like a whiteboard.
> And then when you're off work, your office is right there looking you in the face from the webcam when you're trying to relax in your living room.
Post-It that webcam. But I agree, here, it does make it harder to disconnect.
But "the commute" is such a heavy negative, I think it outweighs it, still. Having so many weeks per year of my life back is wonderful.
> The home office I have shoved into a corner is better than what any employer will provide.
> I too wish for a raise, and the financial ability to afford an entire room to dedicate to work, and the crazy things I might be able to put in there, like a whiteboard.
How can you claim that your home office is better than your employer's when it doesn't even have a whiteboard? To bring it back to the point of the article, bring back private offices. Employers that want employees in the office should invest in offices to the point that it is a better office than a corner of your home. It won't be able to complete with your commute, as you pointed out, but why do you claim that the home office you have shoved into a corner is better than what any employer will provide?
Yeah, I really like my home office setup, with a curved ultra wide screen monitor and my special chair. I don't think that it's unreasonable that, if they want me in the office, that I have the same sort of set up there.
> How can you claim that your home office is better than your employer's when it doesn't even have a whiteboard?
Because "better" is a function with multiple inputs. The whiteboard was better, true, but by comparison the commute sucks, the noise sucks, the desk sucks, the chair sucks. The whiteboard is a pretty minor thing, in the scoring of it all.
(I actually do have a whiteboard at home, but it's ~8x11". Pen and paper, and Krita, make up the difference, I suppose.)
> Employers that want employees in the office should invest in offices to the point that it is a better office than a corner of your home.
… they should… but they don't? I've worked the majority? all? of my career in offices on 4ft desks, most of it on open office floorplans. The "best" in half-height cubical. Best I ever got was a summer internship with a full-height shared cube.
> but why do you claim that the home office you have shoved into a corner is better than what any employer will provide?
Because we, as an employee group, put up with that. If only there were some way we could band together and say we don't like these working conditions. some sort of disjoint set of a group of people.
I think what they meant was that you can build home offices which can sort of be “folded” away once you’re done with them. I have an office space in the living room which is what you wouldn’t want, we’ve sort of hidden it with some book shelves and some walk decorations and plants, but still, I don’t think you would want it.
Anyway, my daughter has a “gaming” setup at the wall next to it and it’s build into a bookcase with a folding table. When she’s not using it you genuinely can’t tell it’s there. It did require some woodworking and some creative furniture “hacking”, but neither my spouse or I are great craftspeople and I think most people would be able to do it. We found our inspiration on YouTube and some actual woodworking help for how to integrate a folding table into a bookshelf on DIY web sites.
It’s not for everyone, but you can do it.
I don’t work from home more than maybe once a week myself. I don’t really want to. I use it ti work shorter days and then do the rest of my hours at nights/weekends.
