You know what sucks?  Being home sick.
You know what sucks even more?  Working from home.
You know what sucks even more than that? Working from home… sick.

I'm definitely on the mend, but in general I dislike working from home, and being sick only makes it worse.  Oh make no mistake, being able to work from home is very awesome.  I can push forward on things I need to get done even if I can't get to the office.  If I suddenly get an idea for how to solve a problem I couldn't figure out during the day, I can immediately try it out, even if it is 3 AM.  If I have to rush home for any reason (being a parent this happens more often than I would like) it doesn't mean I'm done working.

But it has bad points too.  It makes me think about work more than I would like, for starters.  On a beautiful Saturday morning, I might plan to go out hiking and then think of that one last bug I was going to fix Friday that I never got to.  Then if I decide to let it wait until Monday it preys on my conscience and takes away from my enjoyment of the day.

It also breaks down the barriers between work and home.  When I get to work I'm in my “work frame of mind” and when I get home I would like to be in my “home frame of mind”.  I find it difficult to do all the “frame switching” necessary to go between helping my daughter with her math homework and then picking up the cellphone to work with a guy in QA to reproduce a bug and isolate the causal factors.

And finally, admittedly, my willpower isn't always the best, and there are a lot more distractions at home–particularly when I'm sick.  At work there are less distractions and it is easier to focus on my work.

All that said, for now, I am going to continue working from home as needed, because if I didn't have that ability my life would be infinitely more difficult.  Sometimes the solution to a problem creates other problems, but we live with them because the other problems aren't as bad as the problem solved–no solution is perfect I guess.

Anyway, I should, er, stop writing this blog article now, and um, get back to work.   Happy Friday everyone.