Working From Home Doesn’t Have to Cut You Off From Humanity

Working from home doesn’t have to rob you of all human contact. Tavis Coburn

You've seen it in spam comments on the web, on flyers taped to utility poles, shouted at you from your inbox and late-night TV: Work from home, earn thousands of dollars a week! Ha ha, who would ever fall for … actually, maybe that spam is onto something. After all, who doesn't know someone who works from home? My wife and I moved to San Francisco from New York a year ago, and she still works for the same firm—East Coast hours, meetings via webcam, the whole deal. Our upstairs neighbor is doing pretty much the same thing.

It's easy to dismiss these two cases as fringe on the carpet of labor, but they're not: According to Global Workplace Analytics (they analyze workplaces globally), 2.6 percent of Americans work remotely more than half the time. That's 3.3 million people—more than live in Chicago—and a lot of jokes about the [insert neighborhood] satellite office.

But this is just rich folks with fancy degrees, fancy computers, and enterprise-grade broadband, right? Nope. Many remote jobs are accessible to people without a college education. You can use your household data pipe to work in a virtual call center, take airline reservations, help people get health insurance, and more. Some of those email come-ons, it turns out, can lead to employment. Which raises a question: How are these millions of people not totally insane?

Sometimes when I get home from work, it's like my wife has been stranded on an island and I'm the first human she's seen in years. (Sorry, honey, for crossing the work/home divide. ) She is not alone in feeling alone. According to GWA, 15 percent of remote workers express feelings of isolation without an office to call not-home. That's serious solitude.

These crazy-making effects are something Jason Fried has put a lot of thought into. Fried is a cofounder of Basecamp. Since 1999, people have used its collaboration software to work from cafés, beaches, and parents' basements across the globe. And, walking the walk, 45-person Basecamp boasts employees in 30 cities worldwide. It does have an office, but not entirely for the reason you'd expect.

There are only 13 employees in Chicago, where that office is located, but they all work from home frequently. Fried says its most important function is as a hub for a twice-a-year meetup: “We call it the Meetup. I know, kind of an unoriginal name.” The name might not be a revelation, but the event itself is forward-thinking: Basecamp flies everyone to Chicago, puts them up in a hotel for a week, and encourages them to hang out.

But it isn't just a party; it's about creating corporate culture across so many miles. “Communication is often really subtle,” Fried says. “When you see a chat or an email, being able to picture someone helps you connect the dots.” Face-to-face contact reveals nonverbal cues that office workers take for granted. Basecamp also encourages staff to form ad hoc meetups. By “encourages,” I mean pays for.

Fried: “The support team got a house some weekend, and we paid for it.”

Me: “Wait, you paid for it?”

Fried: “Yes.”

Me [to self]: “Sheeeeet.”

Fried also tries to nurture relationships in less spendy ways. He instituted a monthly Google Hangout where he and cofounder David Hansson discuss anything non-work-related with randomly selected employees. “It's a fun way to force spontaneity,” Fried says, charmingly unaware of, or unwilling to admit, the contradiction.

This kind of thinking is exactly what will make remote working more viable for more people, and that's a good goal. Working from home can be a real positive. It can save you money, let you spend more time with your kids, and even provide your spouse a sanity-saving dose of human contact.