Working From Home – What’s It Really Like?

I am sitting writing this blog at 10.35pm on a Monday evening. I should have finished work 2 hours ago. There’s nobody here to kick me out of work to lock up and (unfortunately) no cleaners here to tidy & clean my office when I do finally leave my desk.

When I first started working for Cruise.co.uk I wondered whether I would find it hard getting used to working in my own home after working in a team of other people for most of my life. Admittedly it’s very different to my previous working environments in high street travel agencies and working overseas as a travel rep.

Some of my friends were jealous, saying “Ooh…you’ll be able to skive and do your housework and watch daytime TV to your hearts content”. The reality to that is very different.

There are certainly benefits to homeworking – no commuting time to work, just a staircase to navigate. I don’t have to ‘put my face on’ every morning which saves on time and the cost of make up. I can log on at any time and clear work, answer queries or make bookings for my customers (providing I’m actually at home). I am away from office politics. There’s nobody here to steal my lunch from a communal fridge & no expensive meals to buy. But the best bit is in the winter when the weather is awful outside. I can look out of my window wrapped up all cosy and warm and watch the other poor people battling through wind, rain & snow to get to work, and on particularly cold days my work uniform is a onesie!

Don’t get me wrong there are downsides to homeworking. I can go for a fair stretch of time without actually seeing a person, although I do get to speak to my customers and the support of my fellow colleagues and managers is always there. You can pick the phone up to them any time if you’re having a bad day and need let some steam off. I guess the other thing is it can be hard to switch off. When you know that the laptop is only in the next room it can be very tempting to hop on and work during your time off and let’s face it – we all need some downtime.

Over the 3 years I’ve been working for Cruisedot we have expanded our homeworking team by almost 40%. If you want to see what our team looks like in the rogues gallery click here. Contrary to what my friends said I actually (through my own choice) end up working far more hours than are on my contract, but I think that is why homeworking is so popular now. It works for the employers for productivity as their staff are able to work over and above the hours of a normal working week if they choose to do so. Likewise it works for the employee as we are happy in our working environment and have the flexibility manage our workload without strict time constraints.

Everyone’s a winner!