Working from home or hardly working?
No more waking up ridiculously early. No more road rage before the day has even began. No more small talk with the office idiots. No more distractions.
But more importantly, no more working from home for Yahoo staff.
New, well not really new at all, CEO Marissa Mayer has sparked international debate after banning her staff from working from home, with critics believing the company will suffer as a result.
Do these critics work from home by any chance?
The pros and cons of working at home and Mayer's decision can be exhausted, analysed, overanalysed, agreed and disagreed until the end of time.
Working from home is the norm for most workers nowadays, given the huge advancements in technology and BYOD devices.
Some argue you are free to do as you please, and depending on which worker you ask - this can be both a good and bad thing.
Free to do as you please for us hard-working folk means having a phenomenal, over the top adjective required, amount of self-discipline to get your head down and plough through the workload even when nobody is watching.
On the flip side, do as you please can literally mean just that. A bit of midday TV, spot of lunch with the friends, trip to the beach and a general neglect of responsibilities.
Granted, working from home means you no longer need to humour the office idiot. Wait a minute, we don't have an office idiot…if you think that, then chances are you are the office idiot.
So with no corridor shuffling and colleague dodging needed from the confines of your own four walls, what's the bad aspects of working from home?
Aside from the huge self-motivation needed, bouncing ideas off co-workers becomes harder, not impossible but harder than in person.
"Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussion, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings," said Mayer's memo. "Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home."
Even taking productivity out of the equation, from a selfish viewpoint imagine this.
Had a bad day at work? Can't wait to leave the office and relax? Fat chance. You live in your office. Forget taking work home with you, it's already there, kipping on your couch every night like an unwanted stranger.
However the precious timesaving aspect of working from home understandably plays a big part in most people's decision to uproot from their office cubicle. And correctly so. Why waste two hours a day sat in traffic when you could be doing something more productive?
But if advice can be offered to those mulling with the idea, ask yourself whether this style of work fits in best with your own personality and way of working.
Nail the answer to that and you have yourself a strong working plan going forward, at home or at the office.
Is working from home productive? Tell us your experiences below
