Comments on: How to Ask Your Boss to Work from Home

By: Jerry Vandesic

Jerry Vandesic — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:28:53 +0000

Re: “Do youwant to spend more time with a young child?”

As someone who manages a large team that mostly works from home, this sounds like a bad idea. I would never approve a request to work at home if the motivation to spend time with their children. If you are on the job, you need to be focused on your job rather than your kids. Anyone on my team that works from home needs to have a written child care plan that covers how someone else will be taking care of their kids. Of course emergencies can come up, but for the most part you need to be doiing your job during work hours.

By: David Weliver

David Weliver — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:52:33 +0000

You’re right, Hank, if successful, that could work. I’d be afraid it could also *really* back fire. As in “you just decided not to come into the office for two weeks without telling anybody!!!??”

I’d say trying that would take some serious stones.

If this has worked for anybody, please weigh in!

By: Hank

Hank — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:49:25 +0000

I really like how Tim Ferriss addressed this issue in his book, “Four Hour Work Week”. Maybe a great way to start working from home is just to do it on a trail basis for a week or two without telling anyone, and then take the idea to your boss with proof that it actually could and has worked.

Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

By: David Weliver

David Weliver — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:11:19 +0000

Yeah, it’s unfortunately not the perfect solution for everybody—especially those that need to meet with clients or team members regularly.

Imagine, though, having a day or two a week to *just* focus on getting things done, and consolidating meetings to the remaining days. This seems to work incredibly well for the people I’ve seen pull it off!

By: Wojciech

Wojciech — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:19:39 +0000

Although I’d love to work completely from home, the logistics of my personal situation prevent me from doing so. I interact a lot with clients on a personal level, and the live interaction of a design team is unfortunately lost through the Web.

I think, in the end, a combination of working from home and working from the office is about the best I can strive for.