I once had a job in which I was given the choice to work from home or work in the office whenever I wanted. I chose to work the majority at home, and I ended up losing that job.

When you work from home, it requires a lot of discipline. You have no choice but to make strict rules for yourself and follow them, such as always wearing what you would if you were to go in to work (whatever that might be), and setting yourself time slots away from distractions in which to do the work.

But one big point is that when you work from home, you miss out on interactions with the people who make the decisions. If you’re a people person, or someone who can get on well with others, these interactions can skew your image in the decision-makers mind.

That is to say, less interaction means they think about you less, and your work plays a greater part in their overall judgement of you.

That’s how it should be. You should be judged on your work, not on your personality*, and in my case, the work quality just wasn’t there. But in retrospect, that’s perfectly fine because I was motivated for the mission, but not for the task at hand, and if I were to continue doing that task, well it wouldn’t have been very rewarding.

I now as much as possible do jobs that pay per project, not hour, so that the quality is what’s important, not the amount of time that goes into it. I also choose the jobs I do carefully as well, my biggest concern being, do I care? Because the more I care, the more time I’m willing to put in, and the more the quality goes up. (In other words, if you want to give me a job, pay me well and make it something I care about 😉 )

*except if your personality affects how you work in a team to get the job done, some people may not have the best work but they more than make up for it in their ability to lift the team)