Things to Consider Before Working at Home

A lot of my friends envy me. While they’re stuck in their day jobs, slaving away in some office for hours that seem almost unbearable, I’m free as a jay bird, working where I want and when I want. I don’t pay any costs for food or transportation, and my income doesn’t get any deductions for absences or tardiness. Heck, I can never be absent or late. I also get to wear whatever I damn want to without my bosses raising a single eyebrow. Best of all, I can take as many breaks as I want, and of any sort too – video gaming, reading, binge-eating, alcohol – I can pretty much do whatever I want.

I understand how this may seem like living the life for sloths like me. It’s pretty much a big reason I shifted to freelancing full-time; super-mega-ultra-overtime until 3am does not a happy Marco make. What I’ve learned, however, is that while freelancing is technically easier than most day jobs in terms of work rules, it's still not as simple as it seems.

One major issue is the incredible amount of comfort I feel within these four walls. I work moments away from my bed; sometimes on it. In fact, working from home has got to be one of the most relaxing situations I’ve ever found myself in. The problem is, it’s too relaxing. I often need to resist the urge to fall asleep on the job (and unfortunately, fail at this at least half the time). It’s pretty damn hard to produce any output when you’re lying in your bed unconscious; and when your income depends solely on your output, well, sleeping on the job tends to financially screw you over.

(Aside – speaking of being financially screwed over, do NOT use a BPI account if you’re going to subsist on PayPal transfers. Not only is the service incredibly slow, but there are always these mystery deductions from the original amount. PayPal already deducts a percentage of what you withdraw, but for some reason or another, an additional Php100.00 or so gets lost in the translation to BPI. I’ve called them about it and they say they don’t make any deductions. I’m being forcibly bent over here, and I’ve probably lost around Php1500.00 as a result.)

Another issue with working from home is the suddenly-wide world of temptation that’s open to you. I’ve lost more than a few work hours to food, television, and NBA 2K9/Final Fantasy XII/Zombie Hunters 2. I’ve found myself cutting my work short to hop into a taxi and have a few beers. I can even do leisure surfing of the Vivid Video sort (and believe me, I have). Add to this the fact that my girlfriend is a freelancer too, and you’ve got a recipe for delinquency.

Being a freelancer, for all its liberties, demands a lot of discipline out of you. Yes, it’s a relatively easy job that pays fairly well, but it can get too easy, to the point where you find yourself doing anything but work. This is probably why some freelancers prefer to work at coffee shops and such; it restricts your freedoms by the slightest of degrees and helps you focus on the task at hand. I’ve found this to be particularly true, and if I weren’t consistently being screwed over by my bank, I’d happily invest 200-300 pesos a week in working at a nearby ztarvuckz.

Of course, the discipline issues aren’t the only difficulties in working as a freelancer. There’s also the matter of employee benefits; or, in the freelancer’s position, the lack thereof. You don’t get any overtime pay, or health benefits, or severance packages. It’s simply a matter of producing the required output by the deadline, and getting paid for it. That’s it. Sure, there may be the occasional bonus or two, but those are pretty rare (I’ve never gotten one myself).

There’s also the complete and utter dependence on the internet to think about. I have never found myself spending this much time in front of a computer in my life, and considering I’m a ginormous geek, that’s saying a lot. The internet is your lifeline – if your connection goes out, you’re screwed. If the connection is going at a snail’s pace, you’re screwed. If a virus enters your system registry and causes an endless loop of restarts at startup, forcing you to reformat your hard drive without being able to first back your data up, you’re screwed beyond any realm of understanding (yes, this happened to me).

Perhaps the biggest issue (and I’m sure my girlfriend will agree with this) is the insane cabin fever you can get. You may have all the free time you can possibly want, and your schedule may be as flexible as a circus contortionist, but all your friends are stuck in their day jobs. They can’t hang out during work hours, and often skip out on night-time activities because they have work the next day. It’s incredibly frustrating when you know you want to go out, but nobody’s there to join you. Weekday friends are a lot rarer than you think.

If you’re thinking of going freelance, take some time to think about this. Do you have the discipline to stay at your desk and work, knowing full well that you’ve got all the time in the world to enjoy everything else? Can you stand to work without getting any benefits, from simple birthday cakes to *sigh* Christmas bonuses? Are you prepared to become a semi-cyborg, seemingly attached to your computer in a desperate attempt to survive in this money-driven world? Can you withstand cabin fever, and do you have enough weekday friends to bail you out?

Most importantly – are you free for beers on weekdays? If so, when and where can we have those beers??? I need to get the fuck out of this house.