I believe this has been discussed here before, but with the bad weather across the country here lately, it had me thinking about it again. I was talking with a good friend, and he was having to work from home, and he was "remoting in" to his desktop, and it was painfully slow as he put it. Very frustrating for him.
I am solo, and my office is a small, approximately 336 sq ft building that is about 50-60 feet from my back door. It is very convenient having everything at one place, and not having to jump in the truck to run to the office to get something.
If and when my wife and I build a house in the next few years, my office will be a small wing off of the main house.
I don't have any employees, and have only had one or two clients stop by my office in the 7.5 years I have been in business.
What do you have?
Currently, I work out of a room in my home.
I am in the process of building an office behind my house, but I have been doing that for two years.
I can't seem to find the time to work on it!:-/
I have been working out of my house since 1987 - started out hand drafting on
the kitchen table, calcs with an HP 32-S with hand entered cogo routines by D'ZIGN, also a little HP thermal paper printer.
When my sons left home appx. 17 years ago we converted a bedroom.
In all of those years only 3 or 4 clients have visited.
I drove to an office for 30 years to work - now I do the "slipper" commute and
work in my jammies often.
On the south side of the house is our master bedroom. Next bedroom is now my wife's office, next to that is my office, and next to that is the dog and cat's bedroom (they are good about sharing).
There has always been an office in the home.
When I did work from a store front, the office at home was a very productive environment, away from people coming in and out all day, where I could crunch for 2hrs and get some real work completed.
Since that time, I actually see 10% of my clients in person.
Usually they are too busy during the week to be able to do anything between 8am and 5pm and with modern communication, eye to eye communication is not necessary.
I've been working exclusively from home since 1991. I range from solo to as many as 3 helpers.
The only drawback is that for the last 5yrs things have been very crowded. I really need some shelves and cabinets to get things off the floor.
Primary office space is one room of my house that some people might refer to as a den. Garage houses supplies and gear. This is much too convenient to give up without a really good reason. I have a building a few miles away where older survey files are stored and which could be converted into an office if I ever felt the need.
It's not the perfect set up but it works quite well for me.
> What do you have?
Nice space in a local office complex...
"Salt mine" for the hired help (complete with lots of plotters and scanners and files and desks and work stations) AND a nice conference area to meet with clients, complete with fridge and coffee pot...a perfect setup.
But I'm hardly ever there much. I have my niche here at the house where the dogs are snuggled safely at my feet. With remote server and storage I can screw up stuff at the office without ever leaving the house...;-)
Home office here, too, a converted bedroom, with supplies and extra equipment in the garage. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to meet clients here in the last 20 years; almost everything is done by phone/email, and what isn't is done at the client's office or jobsite.
Home. Love it. Especially at nap time.
Home office (converted den) before I gave up all that freedom to go back to being a wage slave for "The Man". :-S
I live in an area where home office for professionals was very prevalent up until the early sixties and never really totally died out. Within a ten minute walk from my house I can get to home offices for dentists, doctors, accountants & lawyers. We still have a @39.657981,-77.706238,3a,75.2y,247.52h,86.08t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sVMR-Lj55jwmpm4wprkiEyQ!2e0?hl=en">small family owned grocery store right in the middle of a residential area that's only five or six blocks away (depending on whether you take the "scenic route" or not).
I'm surprised the zoning folks haven't "remedied" that convenient situation.
I did the home office thing for 12 years. Started off with a table in the bedroom corner with a computer and an HP 4V printer. I guess my area is different, most of my clients insist on meeting me at an "office", so it became very inconvenient to meet in my living room. When we were sitting down to eat Thanksgiving dinner and a client drove up trying to get me survey their property by the next Monday, that pretty much made the decision easy to get an actual office. Been renting space for over 10 years now and wouldn't even think about going back to the house unless that was the last resort. I average 15 to 20 people a week coming to meet with me or to pick up their paperwork and pay their bill. Its also nice to be able to lock the door and get away from work for while.
Client "meetings" at the office
"Its also nice to be able to lock the door and get away from work for while."
Ain't that the truth.
I agree that most survey work can be performed in an "off premise" environment. I mean, the actual work occurs in the field with doc prep at a convenient locale. My conference area has provided something that I would have never thought of originally. For example:
A great deal of my private rural surveys are done for individuals that, well, are rural. They love to come to town and hit the brick-and-mortar shops. If it's in conjunction with a trip to town to visit their attorney also; they can kill two birds with one stone. The office is within a quarter mile of the interstate and makes an easy trip. My private clients always enjoy soft chairs, a clean bathroom, refreshments and the old maps on the wall.
My corporate client contact is generally made up of people that work in AND out of their office also. Much like surveyors (in fact some of them ARE) they enjoy dropping off plans and documents with an opportunity for us both to lay our eyes on them as we consult. Plans and docs can always be emailed, but sitting with hard copies in front of both of us is always a little more productive.
Besides...there are also steak houses, BBQ and some fine ethnic restaurants right close here. They always seem to make it here around lunch....;-)
Store front. I try to leave my clients at the office. If not, they call all times of the night and come to my house. My dad always told me to put surveying down when you leave the office. I know it's hard to do, but you need time away for yourself.
I work for a large organization so it is an office downtown. We do have access to our network through a Virtuial Private Network so telework is the way to go on ice and snow days. My boss and I have a deal that at 35 degrees and the mention of rain or snow that I can work from home. I worked from home for 3 months last winter thanks to a small patch of ice on the sidewalk.
VPN is a little bit slower than being at my desk. It would be faster if the Internet took a direct path east 8 miles to our office, but VPN goes West to get there. If I had a company, I would want a brick and morter lactation with a different address than my home, but I would also want remote access. Getting quick remote access is possible, you just need to plan for it and invest in the thechnology.
It is very important to separate work and home when working from one's house. This is very important. In the 1980's when the agricultural industry was going through absolutely horrible times many farmers ended up losing property, equipment and livestock that was the product of several generations of hard work. They were losing far more than just what they had built, they were losing what their ancestors had built as well. There were far too many suicides during those years brought on by guilt. One psychologist blamed the high level on the fact that the depressed farmers couldn't escape their problems because they were directly outside the windows of their home. Everywhere they looked they saw their failures.
> If I had a company, I would want a brick and morter lactation
Sounds kinda kinky to me...
Remember the old Wonder Bread slogan
"Helps build bodies 12 ways."
Talk about being built like a brick ****house.
(lactation refers to milk production inside the female body)
That might be called
a 'Freudian slip".
That might be called
> a 'Freudian slip".
"Isn't that where you say one word, but mean amother?"
Cliff Claven, Cheers