The Dark Side of Remote Work

Remote work (work from home) is not always fun and games. While there are a bunch of privileges and perks to working from the comfort of your home, oftentimes it gets challenging in some aspects of your professional and personal life.

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I have always been a prominent advocate of remote work settings especially when it comes to software engineering jobs since day one of my career-building journey. As I have had a lot of the benefits one would get out of a remote work setting, I have faced some difficulties too. The challenges one would encounter in remote work settings can be classified as personal and professional setbacks.

PERSONAL

• It is hard to maintain a work-life balance and most days you work more hours than you are supposed to because there’s no apparent line that distinguishes your personal life from your professional life.
• It is somehow challenging to have a comfortable workspace in your home. Finding the right setup and office space is not easy and needs some financial assistance from others if you’re just getting started working full time.
• No commute means no exercise in most cases and that by implication means a devastation to one’s physical and mental health.

PROFESSIONAL

• Power and network outages would start to matter a lot in your level of satisfaction when it comes to work. Living in a 3rd world nation where most infrastructures are not reliable enough to risk working from anywhere, a lot of us face an immense burden of communicating what has stopped us from achieving the next deadline and also a self-initiated change of workspace to where there’s power or network (be it a cafe or relative’s house).
• Distractions may be more likely while working from home especially if you have kids or pets you raise. Or even parents would call your name in the middle of a virtual meeting to ask you if you want some tea. Don’t ask me how many times Tuki interrupted my flawless presentations and Tuki is our dog that barks for only other dogs in sight.

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