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Recently, I received an official mail from my employer that my office might be opening in the month of January next year. Of course, there are conditions, such as that all employees must be doubly vaccinated. A survey sheet was also linked for gathering data about the number of people who wanted to come to the office.
Reading that official message made me kind of eerily sad and utterly disappointed. Yes, I am one of those few people who enjoy working from home. Working from my room, rather than a cubicle, where I spent a lot of money on a decent, good-looking desk, a gaming chair, smart lights, and an Alexa Echo device, makes me enjoy my work more.
I work as a software developer for a leading financial organisation based in the United States. The current project I am working on is a critical one. Hence, everyone in the project (except my small team) always looks extremely serious and/or grumpy, as if they are at war, literally. As someone who is in his late twenties, I don’t want to see a grumpy face first thing in the morning every time I enter my workplace.
My philosophy for work is plain and simple. If you don’t enjoy working at what you do, then you must not do it. One must always find their calling. Yes, there are bills to pay. Jobs are scarce. And it’s risky to leave jobs in these times of inflation and pandemic, although, about 20.2 million workers left their employers from May through September this year.
A True Phoenix Story
Here comes my pitch for why working from home may prove to be a boon, at least for some. One of my friends was extremely fed up with his life. He recently got divorced, which took a toll on his work, letting him miss deadlines continuously for the tasks he was assigned, which eventually resulted in his job loss. Some organisations have performance reviews where they want to keep the top talent while asking the weak performers to leave. And then the pandemic happened.
At first, my friend was deeply hurt that everything was going wrong for him. Soon, he realised that he needed to use this time to invest in improving his skills and explore other things that would divert his mind from the recent marriage failure and humiliation in the workplace.
In just five months, my friend read eight books, learned new domains in technology such as cloud and blockchain technology, and started documenting his learnings on different platforms. He started taking up freelancing projects on popular sites such as Fiverr and Upwork. Did I tell you that he makes approximately $8000 every single damn month? And this was just last year.
In fact, he inspired me to write again. When I asked him how he did it, he said that this is what he always wanted. He always wanted to work from home. He wanted to stay with his family, which he never did. He never lived his life with his wife. He always took his work as the highest priority and worked for his employers selflessly. These are the same employers who threw him out when he was in distress. This hit me hard when I heard this.
It was damn motivating to know someone who did so well for himself with sheer determination when his chips were down. This time last year, I was dealing with some of my own personal turmoil. Lost all of my money in some of the businesses I tried, my friends ditched with when I was in need and lost some close ones due to this deadly virus.
The dejected me then decided to type a short piece as a reminder that I should work on my goals more aggressively this year. This was only possible due to my working from home. With fewer distractions, I was able to achieve some of the things I could never have imagined if I was strictly working 9–5 work from the office.
Working From Home Has Its Perks
Honestly, I found myself more productive at home than when I was at the workplace. It saves a lot of time for the introverted me from going to social gatherings. I mean, I can simply finish my tasks as quickly as possible and then do my side projects or hobbies. Also, working at home gives me the power to complete my work on my own terms — at least it makes me feel that way.
One of the other advantages is that I don’t want to commute every day. I wasted so much time and energy on traffic. With that saved time, I read books, write articles, learn new skills, or just stay home and be with my family.
I feel much happier at home. I have lived away from my family for 12 years and this is the longest time I have stayed at home. With more time saved, I can always plan dinner or movies with friends in any of our respective homes. In the end, it is all about the memories and experiences we have with our close ones that stay with us.
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