The Facebook status message of a friend read: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and working from home". Haha. As more and more people flock to big cities for work, space is at a premium. Combine that with the eye-popping rates of realty at India's premier central business districts, and you would think companies will be only too glad to let employees work from home.
That is not to be, however. As the buzz generated by Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer makes clear, companies prefer human presence, even if that presence might be less productive than the other option. I may be Facebooking in office but since my boss can see me, he will likely rate my performance higher than someone who is slogging the hours away at home.
Data backs this perception. The Economist reports of a study conducted by Daniel Cable of the London Business School that found that telecommuters are less likely to be promoted than office-goers. "In one experiment, subjects were asked to judge scenarios in which the only difference was whether the employee was at his office desk or at home," says the newspaper. "Managers rated those at the office to be more dependable and industrious, regardless of the quality of their work."
My flatmate Ravi works at a consultancy that demands long hours of (in my view) brain-frying work. This past fortnight he has been working on a due-diligence exercise for a private equity client. He passes his days scanning company reports, reading binders full of industry data, trudging through reams of stock market performances - and returns home at 11 with the prospect of more soul-sapping work the next day.
He needn't sit in office to do this. Much of his "research" is conducted online. However, Ravi is of the view that he must be seen in office. Once or twice is okay, but if someone repeatedly works from home, the managers smell a rat. They see it as a positive indication that the "offender" is picnicking on company time. An employee at his firm, for instance, usually takes the day off after returning from an assignment in Saudi Arabia. Well, not take the day off really, but he says he would work from home, which is considered the same thing.
"I don't see why he needs to stay home after every flight. It's not like he suffers from jet lag. Saudi Arabia is right here," says Ravi, pointing to his left. "The timings there are a breeze: eight to four. Besides, he is given a per diem (daily allowance) of $30 for his stay, over and above his salary," he adds self-righteously.
In my line of work, too, there are plenty of instances of bucking the trend, as it were. Especially during the silly season, when Master of Business Administration's entrance exams are on and no classes are held, I have been granted the express task of making English questions for a database that the training institute I work for plans to use for the Common Admission Test's next cycle.
I am mostly done with my daily quota of questions by one in the afternoon, but (shhh!) I only send them across to the institute email id in batches at three, five and seven. You can pat my back again. At least I leave no stone unturned in preventing bad blood.
That's all very good. But puritanical office-goers fail to notice that working from home can be a pain, too. Sometimes the first thing that crosses my mind as I awaken to a work-from-home day is, "Shoot. Another bloody day!" I do hate such mornings. I make some maggi and tea, and chat a little with Ravi. But once he leaves at nine, the fright of the long, vast day ahead sets in.
The other day, I decided to scoot to the nearest multiplex to catch a film. The moment I stepped outside the house, I felt energised. There was a fruitseller right outside the gate. A little girl in her school uniform sucked on an ice cream. A man unloaded gunny bags from a truck. A woman called out to someone across the street. It was most usual yet, to my mind, also fantastic. Everything came together, as if in a film.
But only so much. Any more and I would give it all up. I was spending too much time in my own company. Even a tiny figment of the outside world overwhelmed me. I wondered how it would play out if I continued my walk. Oh, it would lose all charm. Its attraction lay in its totality, its completeness, nothing but itself, nothing before and after. It must not be weighted down, I decided, with the prospect of being a preface.
I made an about turn and returned home. It was completely insane. I knew it would do me good to be out and about. But the short trip had left me madly invigorated. I felt a pulse coursing through me. The day became a little bearable.
The author has switched too many jobs in the past and hopes he can hold down this one
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
