When working from home goes wrong

Nearly every office dweller fantasises about the joys of working from home: Dressing in PJs instead of suits. Eating from the fridge and not the vending machine. Listening to birds chirp instead of the boss bark.

But Superstorm Sandy has created legions of people who can’t wait to get back to office.

They include parents who have struggled to juggle conference calls while their kids scream in the background. Also, families who have fought for days over the use of a single home computer. And even executives who have conducted business with the only device they had with reliable internet access: their smartphone.

About one-third of American workers work from home at least occasionally, according to Forrester Research. But massive flooding, power outages, transit shutdowns and school closings that followed Sandy forced thousands more from North Carolina to Maine to do so this week. And many learned that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Michael Lamp, a social and digital media strategist who has been working out of his one-bedroom apartment in the Brooklyn borough of New York City because his office in the Manhattan borough is closed, sums it up on his Twitter page: “I’m getting sicker of it with every hour that passes. I might be slowly losing it.”

Lamp, who converted his coffee table into a desk, says he longs for face-to-face interaction with his colleagues at Hunter Public Relations. And he’s finding it particularly difficult to share his workspace with his live-in partner.

“I love him very much, but I would rather not see him 24 hours a day,” says the 28-year-old, who proudly admits that he can’t wait to greet his manager in the office. “I’m going to run to my boss’ office and tell her I missed her face.”

Alan Hilfer, director of psychology at Maimonides Medical Centre in New York, says it’s normal to struggle with working from home. He says it “has its own set of difficulties” that people who don’t do it often aren’t always aware of.

“There are many more distractions than working in an office,” he says. “Even people who do it on a regular basis find it much harder to structure and discipline their time.”

Hilfer, who lives in Brooklyn and works in a hospital in Manhattan, knows the distractions firsthand. He was working at home on Thursday to avoid the difficult commute in the storm’s aftermath. But he kept getting distracted by Sandy updates on TV, projects he needed to get done around the house and his wife asking questions about what she should get from the supermarket.

“I had a whole list of things this morning I intended to do working from home, and I got about half of them done,” he says.

With some school districts cancelling classes for the week, children have become the biggest distraction for stranded employees who were working from home.

“I’ve had to juggle taking care of a very energetic five-year old — who only wants to jump on the couch — and trying to get as much work done as possible under the situation,” she says.

On Wednesday, with the added pressure of Halloween festivities, she gave up and took the day off. But on Thursday, she drove three hours to her parent’s home in Westhampton, New York, so that she could finally get some work done at home.

“I kind of threw my hands up in the air and said I have to go to the only place I know that has free child care, and that is my parents’ house,” says Zammit, who acknowledges that she can’t wait to get back to the office.

Drew Kerr, a public relations specialist, was also eager to return to work on Wednesday morning after losing power at his home in Westchester, New York on Monday.