Working from Home

In today's electronic age it is easier to work from home: You can log on to your computer at home and have access to everything you would have at the office. With Blackberry technology you can get your emails, retrieve your phone messages and get work-related phone calls from home, on the road or from a beachfront hotel in the Bahamas.

Many of the professionals from my office work from home on occasion, and I believe the assistant's role can be even more important as we are the contact for the professional and the client to keep things running smoothly at the office.

But can the assistant work from home? I have a few friends who are hooked up to work at home and do so on occasion. One person I know works full-time at home as an assistant, but in her case she runs the office of a volunteer organization and her home is actually the office: All couriers are sent to her home, the business phone, fax and computer are all at her home. In her case she has a unique situation and I know she loves the freedom she has working at home, but I also know she is very, very busy and still has to accomplish a lot in one day. She said the challenge she has is to get her family to understand she is at work. She also confessed that sometimes she wakes up at night thinking of something she needs to do and ends up going down to her office and doing some work in the wee hours of the morning.

Although the idea of working at home sounds appealing to me, I am not sure I would have the discipline to do it. I think I need the structure of the office environment to keep myself on track. It also would not work in my working situation with my professional and I think that is the deciding factor. I would also miss the social side of working with my co-workers.

But times are definitely changing and it will be interesting to see how the future unfolds for the business office and for the assistant.

For those who may be interested in looking into working at home if that is an option for you, here is an article I found on the Canadajobs.com website entitled Working At Home? Five Things You Can't Be Without. 1

1 Canadajobs.com, Working At Home? Five Things You Can't Be Without, http://www.canadajobs.com/articles/viewarticle.cfm?ArticleID=1211, (accessed September 23, 2007)