Telecommuting sounds like a dream. Instead of sitting in traffic, you get to spend an extra hour in bed. The coffee is better, you don't have to listen to the inane jabbering of your coworkers, and if you get through your quota of work early, you're done for the day, instead of hanging around wasting time to fill up the remaining hours. And while that may be true for some lucky folks, the reality is quite different, especially when it comes to pay and long hours.
"Rather than enhancing true flexibility in when and where employees work," write the authors of a new study, "the capacity to work from home mostly extends the workday and encroaches into what was formerly home and family time."
The biggest problem with telecommuting is taking work home. That sounds odd when the whole point of remote working is to take your work home, but the problem starts when the usual workday ends. Even if you're forced to hang around at the office until your workaholic boss quits for the day, you know when the workday is over. At home, finding work/life balance is tricky, but what you don't often hear is that those extra hours worked at home often go unpaid.