The Remote Life
-
Working at home is interesting. As much as it sounds like a great time, it can be hard. And it's not always a great time. Here's how some days go:
6:30 wake up, actually wake up around 6:00 and try desparately to squeeze in another 30 minutes.
6:35 wake up my 8 yr old and go get dressed, brush teeth. I do actually get dressed, mainly because I have to take my son to the bus stop. Definitely no shower, shave, or tie!
6:40 Wake son again and ensure he wakes up this time.
6:45 Try to check email and make sure the site is still alive.
6:50 Call to my son to be sure he's dressed and coming downstairs. Go make breakfast, get him eating. Luckily he's a routine kid, so it's decaf, waffle, bacon.
7:00 back to a quick check on the status of the newsletter send. Should be in complete retry now.
7:10 bug my son to get finished eating and ready to go.
7:15 drive to the bus stop.
7:25 back at my desk for coffee and continue to work through overnight emails.
8:15 My daughter usually wanders down and asks for TV, food, and occassionally a quick snuggle in my lap. The latter is worth the interruption.
8:30 Either back to work and email or going outside to feed horses and shovel manure. It's an interesting choice of jobs here.
9:00-11:15 Usually editing content and email work. Not quiet enough to write. Lots of interruptions from the phone and email.
11:15-12:15 Usually this is a time of constant interruption with me trying to convince my little girl a nightgown is not appropriate for kindergarten. Apparently this doesn't stick from day to day. Of course with the snow on the ground this winter, she's gone out sledding quite a few days and then I have to track her down for lunch. Feed her, drive her to school and pack my bag around email and closing down the editing. Plus I have to get properly dressed and showered to take my daughter to school.
12:15-2:30 Sometimes I'm working in the office, but a fair bit of time I hit the gym, have lunch with friends, or go to Starbucks or Borders to write. It's quiet for me with just background noise and I can get concentrated work done.
Back home for kids, usually working from 4:00-5:30 or so and again from 9:00-10:00 on lots of days. The weekends have me popping in and out of the office for an hour here or there, sometimes more depending on what's happening. So are you interested in this schedule? Want to work from home?
Actually it's probably more like this piece on remote DBAs for most people telecommutting. But it's not necessarily a great job. It gets lonely, it's hard to focus sometimes, and it gets hard to separate work from home at times. Plus interacting with people is more challenging.
I think there's a lot to be said for having people together in an office and letting them work together. But I also think for some jobs it makes some good financial sense all around to let them work from home at times.
I've yet to convince anyone to let me be a remote DBA, but it sounds like there are some jobs out there.
-
Hi Steve,
I certainly know what you are writing as I am in a similar position as well. I am a freelance and part time software design and architect and because of my family life I work a good 60-75% from home although I would say the most productive times are after the kids are snugged away for sleep or at an external office.
What I do miss sometimes being out of the office is the social and human interaction that can give you a bit of a break from all else. However I have yet to find an opportunity that pays me well enough to afford as little working hours as yours 🙂
Cheers
Stefan Morrow
-
Hi Steve,
I just wrapped up an 8 year contract, where I was able to work from home and go in 1 day a week.
While normally I have an introverted personality, I found myself on my days at work doing much more socializing than I have ever done. It seems that all the time alone, while wonderfully productive, actually worked to improve my (overall) social skills.
Of course, my day had one big difference:
2:30am - 4:30 am - wake up to empty the bladder. Can't go back to sleep, so put some time in on the jobs to do.
Wayne
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
If you can't explain to another person how the code that you're copying from the internet works, then DON'T USE IT on a production system! After all, you will be the one supporting it!
Links:
For better assistance in answering your questions
Performance Problems
Common date/time routines
Understanding and Using APPLY Part 1 & Part 2 -
Hi Steve,
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to work from home as a private consultant. Although this scenario definitely presented a unique set of challenges/distractions, I found that by the flexibility to segment my work day resulted in me being more productive, as well as being a better husband and father. I would typically work for 5 to 6 hours during the day and then knock off in time to pick up my daughter from daycare and start dinner. After spending several hours of quality time with my family, I would work another 3 to 5 hours late in the evening, before calling it a day. The flexibile work schedule allowed me to be more responsive to the needs of my family. The main challenge was maintaining enough self discipline to block out the unwanted interuptions.
Pat
-
I have never had the opportunity to work from home, but my take on it would be this: It would be pretty cool during the school year but exteremely difficult during summer vacations from school (I have an 8 and 9 year old). It would be a challenge for me to balance life and work as well as I think I would have a tendency to stay "on teh job" a bit more. There is something about physically leaving the work site that allows me mentally to be done for the day. As much as an IT person can truly be done, at least.
Very good topic today, though.
-
Since my son is already in high school, so I don't get much interruption. When he comes home from school, the first thing he does is turn on his computer. These days I think the teenages talking to the computer more than human being, but that is a different topics.
I like the flexible hour and sometimes I feel liked I work non stop and sometimes I go out to buy some lunch and end up going shopping for a few hours. It really needs a lot of discipline working at home.
As for being lonely, it depends on which company you work for. I work for my company for a whole year, still I don't have any friend. Maybe I had a bad experience with my previous employments. These days you don't know who is your friend and who is your enemy. One time my Mom called me and we talked on the phone for half an hour. The next day my manager told me someone complained that I spent working time doing private stuff. My manager did not care. You have to do some private stuff during business hour, liked calling the doctor, the teacher....
My point is I learn that keeping my mouth shut is the best thing. So I am lonely working at my office too. Last week I took three days off and no one noticed that I was not there !!!
-
Hi Steve,
I've been a DBA for about 15 years and in my opinion I'd like to do about a 50/50 split between home and the office. Yes the interaction between associates is nice (and beneficial) but alot of times I can get more work done at home plus missing the commute is great.
I've never had a problem with remote access to any of my servers at any job so I wish I could convince mgmt working at home more often is a good perk!!
-Mike
-
-
I hope you're not complaining. You get to spend all that time with your kids, which a lot of people miss out on. I'm the exact opposite. My days at the office are filled with interruptions, where my days at home are way more productive. My kids are away though, so I just put on some music, get some coffee, and work all day.
-
I would like 2 days a week at home to get some relief from traffic and change the pace. For me that would be Tuesday and Friday at home, with the other 3 days at the office.
With that arrangement I would be a more productive employee:-)
Currently, I average about 2 to 3 days a month at home when personal business or family needs prevent me from going in at my regular time. Productivity at home is usually better than while in the office, but I like both worlds:-)
Great Thread!!!
-
I believe remote positions will become more common in the next few years. Let me contribute two things I have heard about remote employment opportunities.
1. I have heard of companies hiring part time remote DBAs, because they did not have enough work for a full time DBA. This gave the company the benefit of having a good DBA and the DBA the benefit of making extra money.
2. My previous boss read an article where employees of a company lived outside the city, where the cost of living was much less. The benefit for the employee was that he could work remotely and could live virtually anyplace he wanted. Often times, with a nicer homes and material goods, because money would go further. The benefit for the employer was that they paid employees a less expensive salary that was in accordance to the cost of living for that type of job in that area, which in many cases was an above average salary for the region.
-
I am very new here but your company issued laptop is your office because I work for someone in Alabama my go to person is in Elpaso and I am in Michigan, so you can work from home as needed. I just got an email about remote oracle DBA job but I was not interested because I can take everything apart in SQL Server as needed I cannot say that about Oracle. We use Oracle for the database while session is stored in SQL Server 2005 so I run both in my box.
Kind regards,
Gift Peddie -
No complaints here. It's a great life and great job.
But it can be challenging and it's not always easy. The kids are great and you have to balance the time spent with them against the need to work.
Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply