In Person vs Remote
If there’s one topic that’s gotten a lot of people riled up in the professional world the past few years, it’s debating in person versus remote work. As someone who has done both, here are my honest thoughts on the pros of each.
Remote
· No commute: This one speaks for itself.
· Flexibility: While working remote, I was able to sneak in a few loads of laundry, hit the gym, or run quick errands throughout the day.
· No office distractions: When working from home, there weren’t any helicopter managers, loud coworkers, endless watercooler conversations, or “enforced fun” outings.
· Dress code: Unless I was hopping onto an important call, I enjoyed a much more casual dress code than I would have in the office setting. I also saved money not having to maintain a professional wardrobe.
In person
· Hardware: It turns out one of my technical niches involved being hands on with our hardware, which isn’t really feasible remotely.
· Work setup: When I was working from home at the beginning of COVID, my work from home setup was a laptop on my kitchen counter in a one bedroom apartment. My current work set up is a) huge b) has several very nice monitors c) is supported by onsite IT resources. This will vary based upon your home and your office, but with how the chips fell in my situation this was a major drawback.
· Work/Home distinction: For the most part, in my current onsite role when I leave work at the end of the day, I get to actually leave work. When I was working from home, I felt like home was always a little bit my office too.
· Coworkers: I’ve made some really close friends from various in person roles I’ve had, and I absolutely would have missed out on that had all my roles been remote.
· Ease of Communication: Especially when spooling up on a new project or in a new group, unfortunately nothing beats being able to speak face to face.
Do you prefer in person work, or remote? Let me know what you think at YourSTEMMentorBlog@gmail.com!