Telecommuting: Millennial Dream or Nightmare?

This post is part of TNGG’s Career Week

It goes by many names: hot desking, working remotely, telecommuting, but whatever you call it, working away from the office sounds like a dream come true. Men and women would kill (or, like in one episode of The Simpsons, eat themselves into disability) to be able to leave the office behind for the confines of the couch, coffee shop or bed. And because of laptops and the internet, telecommuting is a viable career move for our generation. With the number of telecommuters in the U.S. expected to rise to 100 million part/full-time workers by the end of 2010, it’s becoming a popular alternative to the traditional office setting.

From when I graduated college in May until very recently, I was an intern for a PR firm in Houston, but I did my work from the Midwest. Believe me, it’s not easy explaining how that worked in interviews (reactions usually range from, “Oh, good for you!” to confused, skeptical looks), and the experience taught me that working remotely has its advantages and disadvantages.

Working remotely has one huge perk: freedom. Freedom from the commute. Freedom from office politics, brown-bag lunches and a boss breathing down your back. Hell, even freedom from pants, if that’s what you’re into. When you telecommute, you have a level of autonomy that simply isn’t possible sitting at a desk. For the independent person who doesn’t need to be micro-managed, it’s bliss. Every coffee shop, deli or library is a potential workspace. (Of course, if you’re pants-less, I suggest sticking to your own apartment.)

However, if you’re not in the office, you’re missing out on a lot of interaction with your fellow employees. There’s no water cooler to talk around, no break room and no cute receptionist to pine after when you’re telecommuting. We’re a generation that likes to collaborate, so working alone may stifle creativity and leave you feeling isolated from the rest of the company. I now understand that it’s hard to feel totally connected to other employees when you’re always a thousand miles away.

For a young professional, the office is the primary place to make new friends. Working remotely means that you’d have to find other ways of finding people to hang out with. It was great when I was working in a city with all of my college friends because I was able to hang out with them whenever I wanted. Now that I’m not in that city anymore, finding new friends is a bit more difficult.

The already-thin line between work and life gets that much thinner when you’re working from home. We have constant access to e-mail and work networks with our smartphones, so it’s harder to disconnect completely from work. You know how a doctor is occasionally on call? It felt kind of like that, except that brands were my patients. Regardless of what time the brand was hurt, I was expected to make it better. Fortunately, I was comfortable fielding e-mails late at night, so it wasn’t a big deal.  Being “on call” is just a trade off you make for the freedom working remotely provides, but it’s not for everyone. If you like to keep work and life separate, maybe telecommuting isn’t for you.

For a fresh-out-of-college young professional, I’d suggest trying to start out in an office. It helps you create new connections and learn to interact with others in your industry.  From personal experience, working from home is a bit contradictory; at the same time, it’s fun and boring, liberating and isolating. Some people will love working at home. Some will hate it. It really depends on your personality and what you want out of your career.

Have you ever worked remotely before? What are your thoughts?

Photo by CNN