Input desired: working from home/telecommuting 60% of the time.

I'm looking at taking a new position that would have me traveling 40% of my time and working from a home office the remaining 60% of time.

The back story: the company I work for is selling out to a much larger organization that is based out of BC, but has locations in WA, OR, GA, and BC. I've been approached to take a position with them as a project manager for a big new IT system that would span their whole enterprise, and the director who interviewed with me indicated that I would work from home when not on the road at one of their locations.

The sticking point: I have a 3.5 year old daughter, and we have a small house with a big attached shop/garage. My daughter has no boundaries around "daddy is on the phone" or "daddy is working". She would get all kinds of hurt feelings if I had to tell her to go away all day long, as I would if I set up office in the house. We've got one room in the house that we use as an office now, but I've never worked from home in any serious fashion.

I've got a room in the shop that I use as a storage locker for all my tools and anything I want to lock up- it is insulated and has a workbench and would easily convert for office use. I'm envisioning setting up there, so I'd be a little more out of sight (and out of mind) for my daughter.

Bonus of working in the shop: I could take frequent work breaks to get some work done on the Fiat and other garage projects.

I honestly have no idea how running a project remotely will work out- it makes me nervous, especially as I am a relationship building sort of person. Starting with a new company and not being able to walk down the hall to get to know just how someone ticks will make this task a little hard for me.

So my question: what is it like working from home, especially with kids? Is a company asking me to set up at home a code-word for "we expect you to work constantly"?

Any PMP sorts on here have remote project insight to share?

TLDR: How do you work at home with young kids?

Close the door. Seriously. That's the only way. You're at work and you have to establish a boundary. No boundary available? You probably won't be successful at it as your concentration will be divided.

I used to work for HP and we always joked that it wasn't an official conference call unless someone's dog was barking or their kid making noise in the background. So it happens and most understand that and cope. There's always a mute button on the calls, etc.

I did it for a year and a half. Wife was good about the kiddo, but once and a while E36 M3 happened and my boss got.to hear my kid. She liked him so it was cool. I was brutally efficient. To a fault, so as long ad my shot got.done no one cared.

Well, the obvious bit is that you can't be the principal caregiver for a young child while working from home. This means there needs to be someone else present to care for your daughter, and that person needs to be the one to drive the "office door closed == don't go in there" rule. If you're repurposing a room that your daughter could previously come and hang out in while you were there then there may be some confusion and tears while setting new boundaries, but then again she may surprise you, kids are pretty adaptable. She's presumably used to you not being home for much of the day, and going from that to home, but not generally available isn't a huge leap.

I have two kids, 5 and 9, and work from home on average 1-2 days week (although not on any particular schedule). I have an office, I close the door, it's just not an issue.

Regarding "work at home" = "always at work", I'm sure that varies with the company culture, but that's certainly not the case for our company nor any other people I know who work remotely.

I did it for 14 years in sales. It was hard and I did a lot of hotel nights. All points above are great.

There are no breaks. If I missed a call from the boss I still got the "you on vacation today?" smart aleck comment from him.

Close your door.

Some folk are very good at it, others not so. Similar homes, family members, and other extraneous things. I've tried it, living in a small house with a small child, it didn't go well for me. Nowhere to hide, so I was always available for interruption. Wife was pretty good at interrupting me too. But really, I was terrible at finding excuses to interrupt myself. Refrigerator and pantry shelves were dangerous distractions.

I actually did my best when I'd take myself down to the local library. Then I would shift mental gears and go into work mode far better. Less external distractions as well.

You might want to check around your area for telework work sites. I was surprised to find there were many in my area, almost all available for free. The Armory, Salvation Army, county government building, library, fire hall (I think) all allowed people to use a desk space to work from. Seems I'm far from the only person who has a hard time actually working at my kitchen table.

I do just what you are talking about. I'm a PM for Dell and I work at home a lot.

They whole separate place to work thing is very important. You do have to set the boundary both for your daughter and your sanity. It's easy to get caught into the working all the time trap.

As far as running the project remotely, The key is to take advantage of the time you do get when you are together. Build those relationships when you do have face time. My primary project right now has people on 3 continents and 14 states I work with. I think people are a lot more use to the whole working with someone remote. Find a champion in each org/location that can help you. I find that very important especially when working outside the US.

I worked from home for a year and a half. It didn't work for me- I couldn't make the mental shift from home to work without walking through a door somewhere.

I don't WFH as frequently as I used to but all the points made above are great ones. You need separation. At my last house I had a detached garage with a 2nd story room, I put my office there. It gave me the "walking out the door" that I needed to stay on a schedule.

My wife works from home full time. She's become the type that will sit with her laptop on the sofa in the evening and keep working. She doesn't have that transition. When I work from home my office laptop goes in my office and it does not come out, if I want to work I have to go in my office to work. Since the wife uses her personal equipment she flows from surfing facebook to working a budget spreadsheet.

So find ways to separate and compartmentalize, including having separate computers if possible.

I work from home 3 days a week and spend a lot of time on conference calls, I do not have any kids. but I do have dogs, so you have to be ready to hit the mute button. It happens, I hear kids and dogs on these calls everyday no one seems to mind.

You have to be careful about scope increase of 'office time'. I work mostly remote from home now, but I'm not a PM anymore. PM would be hard for me remotely, I agree.

I did have a PM job though that told me it would be 50% travel, 50% in office, and very quickly I was traveling every week for them (we're just so busy now, in a year or so it will be better = what they used to say).

100% travel, as you know, is much different that 50% travel. And I did quit that job for that reason alone.

JThw8 wrote: My wife works from home full time. She's become the type that will sit with her laptop on the sofa in the evening

Every family and home situation is different, but no way that would fly with me. Work is for work hours. Time after work is for family. Sounds like she needs a hobby or something (not judging, could be wrong, but that sort of thing I really dont see as being right).

Every family and home situation is different, but no way that would fly with me. Work is for work hours. Time after work is for family. Sounds like she needs a hobby or something (not judging, could be wrong, but that sort of thing I really dont see as being right).

same thing happened to me, your sitting there watching tv. why not pick up the laptop and BOOM you are working..........but I will also take my laptop to my garage and piddle on the car during the day, it ends up a better deal for the company, work space, electricity, hvac, etc..and you end up working more hours than if you went into the office.

HiTempguy wrote:

JThw8 wrote: My wife works from home full time. She's become the type that will sit with her laptop on the sofa in the evening

Every family and home situation is different, but no way that would fly with me. Work is for work hours. Time after work is for family. Sounds like she needs a hobby or something (not judging, could be wrong, but that sort of thing I really dont see as being right).

Eh, its time when we are both just sitting around watching TV and surfing the net for cat videos or whatever. I often use the time to research parts/repair on a vehicle or routes for an upcoming rally. How she chooses to use the time is up to her. If we are doing something interactive that involves us both being "there" then the laptops go away and we do it.

It bothers me only because I think she needs to step away from it at times but it doesn't interfere with our lives. Many nights Im in the shop working on a project so she does what she wants while I'm out there.

Much of what we do together involves one of the business ventures we are in together so there's fuzzy line between what is work and what is family time, we work as a family.

1) Wireless bluetooth noise-cancelling headset so they can't hear dogs barking or kids crying on calls.
2) Every hotel, donut shop, coffee joint has wireless. Get out of the house once in a while when you have heads-down stuff you can do on a laptop or you go nuts.
3) Have a laptop
4) Lock the office door. Seriously. The kid(s) will get used to it.
5) Set time boundaries if you can. I run at lunch or throw a leg over the motorcycle and ride to the free wi-fi in the park and VPN in from a bench when it's nice. Sometimes I berkeley off in the middle of the day. It compensates for those phone calls on west coast time at 9PM when I got a 6AM EST start.
6) Use a regional airport when you fly and take the extra hop if you are not in a hurry. The TSA lines are shorter, less asshaty and the flights go out on time. You rarely get bumped.
7) If it's less than 5hrs rent a car and drive.
8) Avoid GRM and ADVRider or you will never get a berkeleying thing done

Can you rent a small office in your town?

Having a place for start ups is getting more and more popular, so perhaps you can rent a room there.

JThw8 wrote: If we are doing something interactive that involves us both being "there" then the laptops go away and we do it.

This sentence made me LOL. I thought of several funny things to type, then decided it was too easy and I have to just let this one go.

I've been working from home for the past year or so. A separate office is a must for me. That part of the house just has to be your work and your daughter will have to learn to respect that. She'll probably deal with it better than you are thinking even at her age.

I've not tried to take my laptop and go to a coffee shop. I don't think I'd get as much done. During nice weather it is tempting to take the laptop and phone outside and work from the dock, but again, I don't think I'd be all that productive down there.

I suppose for as many people as there are who work from home on a regular basis there are as many ways to deal with it. You'll figure out the way that suits you and your family. No advice on the PM aspects. The work I do is mostly me sitting on the computer either typing or working with autocad.

My new role has been something like your arrangement and it has taken some getting used to. It's working well with the office door closed most of the time. The family is really liking having me around more when I'm not traveling. I have a serious need for technical and project engagement with my global team that sometimes suffers but Skype does help that a bit.

If the price is right give it a try for a while and find out? Do take the comments from those above seriously and set some heavy groundrules from the beginning though.

T.J. wrote:

JThw8 wrote: If we are doing something interactive that involves us both being "there" then the laptops go away and we do it.

This sentence made me LOL. I thought of several funny things to type, then decided it was too easy and I have to just let this one go.

Nahh, for that stuff the laptops come in handy ;)