How many jobs can be done at home? [pdf]
As someone who's worked from a lot and also worked from an office, I feel like there's an important component missing when discussing WFH for professions outside of tech.One important issue IMO is just having a workspace. Software engineers are kinda spoiled in this regard because we make the big bucks. We can afford to retrofit areas of our homes to create good working conditions. We can take our laptops to coffee shops in a pinch.I recently upgraded my living situation by moving into a much nicer place, but it's smaller so I ditched the "home office" setup I had before. Now with COVID I'm working in my dining room and on my couch. It's so much worse. It might sound silly but I'm putting a lot more wear/tear on my furniture by being around all day.My take on this is that homes aren't and never were designed for WFH conditions. There are so many details about offices that we take for granted. I found myself having to clean way more often and do way more dishes now that the entire family is stuck in the house together.Then there's a socialization aspect. Tech has a culture of "as long as you can do the job, it doesn't matter how you behave/dress/interact" -- this thinking is applied along a spectrum, some companies are more extreme than others about it. But a lot of professions like sales/legal/etc rely very heavily on close social interaction. Tech is also unique in this regard IMO.