Everyone appreciates the convenience of working from home, but some are luckier than others in this regard…
— from an email sent by Bianca Birsan, a Communications Specialist at StorageCafe.com
Lately, lots of people are talking about ‘remote work’, and working from home — not always the same thing, if you don’t happen to have reliable internet connection at home. Which is the case in certain situations. (Ask me how I know. Sometimes I have to be “remote” from a coffee shop, or the library.)
Other people are not only talking about it, but maybe trying to quantify the trends. StorageCafe.com is among those collecting the necessary data. Collecting data is one of the jobs you can do from home (or remotely.) Ditto, writing humor columns.
Here’s some data from StorageCafe, based around the general idea that everyone appreciates the convenience of working from home:
Three key stats emerging from our study:
- Jobs in IT, science and management, along with banking, insurance and real estate, are the industries that employ the largest numbers of remote workers.
- IT careers offer the highest earnings potential, followed by professionals in public administration, finance, insurance and real estate, all earning over $64K annually.
- Bellevue, WA; Frisco, TX; and Cary, NC have the highest percentage of remote workers nationwide.
There are certain conveniences that can be appreciated, by remote workers. Whether “everyone” appreciates them, I would highly question. For one thing, if you work in a company office, the company usually pays for the coffee.
On the other hand, having a six-pack of beer sitting on your desk is probably frowned upon at the company office. At home, not so much of a problem.
That’s not the reason I work remotely, but it would be a good one. The main reason I work remotely is, the Daily Post doesn’t have a company office. It’s published out of the editor’s tiny bedroom in downtown Pagosa Springs. So I have no choice in the matter.
But I do have a choice in what beer I drink.
According to the StorageCafe data, two of the top ten cities for WFH (Working From Home) are in Colorado.
Neither of them are Pagosa Springs.
If we had a list of top cities where people wished they actually had a home to work from, maybe Pagosa Springs would qualify.
Besides the problem of empty aluminum cans, we have the problem of a decent salary, which I am unfortunately forbidden to write about, by my editor.
But perhaps the biggest problem facing someone working from home is the dire lack of background noise, caused by fellow employees engaging in mundane, humdrum, mostly meaningless conversations.
“I can’t believe my mother-in-law posted a negative comment about that cute video I shared yesterday.”
“You mean, the video of your dog dressed up as a ballet dancer? That was so cute!”
“I know! The way she stood up on her hind legs…”
“My mother-in-law is the same way. Anytime I share a video of my cat, she posts some kind of comment that you can easily interpret as negative. But I don’t actually know if it’s negative, because I’m afraid to ask her. I might be reading things into it, that aren’t actually there.”
“Yeah, reading things into a comment that aren’t really there. That’s such a big problem, when you have in-laws.”
“Big problem. By the way, did you ever return those pink shoes that didn’t fit?”
“They fit just fine. But I think my husband didn’t like them.”
“Probably made a negative comment?”
“Just like his mother.”
“You can return the shoes, but you can’t return your mother-in-law.”
“So true!”
It’s exactly those kinds of conversations that make me wish I still worked in a company office. Eavesdropping on those kinds of conversations. Not having them myself.
I would never buy pink shoes.