What Bugs You About Working From Home?

Clearly NetworkWorld's list of 17 telecommuting pet peeves is aimed at employees who work from home, as opposed to independent contractors like me. (If it did include us freelancers, I'm sure topping the list would be slow-paying clients!) Yet many of the pet peeves still resonated with me.

While no free food from corporate luncheons, NetworkWorld's number one peeve, no less, doesn't bother me much, I could relate to most of the others. Number 15 "out of site (pun intended), out of mind" was my favorite:

You can't just stop by somebody's office to get a quick question answered; you need to wait for him to respond to an e-mail message or phone call. Few people treat those communications media with the same urgency as someone standing at their office door.

Yes! And in an office environment, if you're standing in someone's doorway, they can't just leave for the day without informing you. I have a client whose employees will simply go home in the midst of what seems to be an urgent exchange, usually initiated by them. While I don't begrudge them their quitting time, I think a quick note saying they will look at the documents or email I just sent them in the morning would be polite. I sometimes will hang around my computer waiting for a response for an hour before I realized they've left.

But that's just me. What annoys you about telecommuting? Post in the comments below.

More:
Telecommuting Employee or Independent Contractor: What's the Difference?