Angela Mollard: Why working from home is awesome

THINKING about shirking the office to instead work from home? Angela Mollard tells why she dumped the office.

Journalist Angela Mollard at home today, in Fairlight, wearing some of her wardrobe memories.

IT IS 1998 and I’m working like a lunatic. Up at 7am, in the office by 8am, meetings, meetings, meetings. Lunch at my desk, crumbs in my keyboard, bladder buggered from too much holding on.

My shoulders are tighter than balls of wool jammed with knitting needles; afternoons are spent in a loveless churn of words.

Occasionally I look up at dusk to watch the sun sink over the river but then it’s head down again. At 10pm I drive home, joyless, at the prospect of doing it all again tomorrow.

1998: the year I learn that a big salary is not only commensurate with experience and a title, but with self-loathing. One morning, desiccated by lack of sleep, I drive into the back of a car. When the driver doesn’t get out I curse and stride over — suited, stilettoed — to bark at him for meandering. He’s an amputee. He gestures to the wheelchair in the back, takes my details, tells me not to worry. “We all make mistakes love,” he says.

1998: I end my year of living frenetically by going freelance. As I unchain myself from the office that’s been the backbone of my days, I nearly faint with fear. I’m giving up the stress, the responsibility, the toxic working conditions that have demoralised my team, but I’m also foregoing the camaraderie, security, Friday drinks and the beloved IT department.

That was 17 years ago. I’ve worked from home — some would say “shirked” from home — ever since. There’s been brief forays back into an office but otherwise I’m my own boss. I no longer speak the language of stationery cupboards, water coolers and annual appraisals.

So does it work? Let’s just say I laughed upon reading that an advertising company with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane experimented with flexible hours by instructing its 150 staff to work from home the Wednesday before last. The day reportedly went without a hitch.

Journalist Angela Mollard works from home. Jealous much?

A year into working from home I knew it was the future of employment. Of course it’s not suited to doctors, teachers and tradies but any job that essentially pairs a person with a computer can arguably benefit from some work being done at home.

The notion that people who work from home slop around in their swimmers, make endless cups of tea, stroke the cat, take the dog for a walk, scoop leaves off the pool and catch-up on Facebook is ... well, all true. But we only do it because we have the time. Save an hour in dressing and grooming, another for the bus/car/train journey, 30 minutes chatting with colleagues, and a 90-minute meeting that should’ve taken five — the subject of which would’ve been covered by “homies” in a single email — and you realise why we’re half a day ahead by 9am.

A recent Stanford University study proved that people are more productive working from home because they take fewer breaks and sick days, and achieve more due to a quieter and more convenient working environment.

That’s only half of it. What few realise is that when you run your own show, you want to run it well. That in being gifted autonomy you’re hungry to prove that out of sight doesn’t equal out of mind.

Notice me, you implore your boss/company/supplier, not for my dress or repartee or neurotic need to dominate meetings, but simply for the work I produce.

Workmates, too, are overrated. I’m reminded of this when I meet an editor for coffee. He’s too busy to leave the building so we sit in the foyer drinking some foul beverage while he regales me with all the problems with his staff. Of course I miss them when there’s a Melbourne Cup sweepstake or a Christmas party, but the upside is you spend time with people you like not those you’re lumped with.

Technology has not only made working from home easier, it’s made it necessary. S

o many jobs now require you to be “always on” so you have to create spaces for your head to breathe, for creativity to flow free of distractions. I’ve had more ideas walking to the letterbox and the washing line than I ever had gazing at a grey room divider. And don’t get me started on office aesthetics — how can you produce anything inspiring in ugly surrounds?

Working from home is financially astute, environmentally clever and psychologically sound. It encourages self-motivation, excellence and wellness. It allows you to attend book week parade and conduct Skype meetings at midnight.

Indeed, it doesn’t even have to be working from home. “It can be at a park, it can be at a cafe. Just not a pub,” says John Steedman, the chief executive of GroupM who conducted work from home Wednesday.

Sorry John, but you’re wrong. This column comes to you from a nice little bar that serves an excellent Sauvignon. Shirking? Who me?