Jason Sadler's Pros and Cons of Telecommuting

Last week I wrote about a pretty unique telecommuting job opening at IWearYourShirt.com, so this week I thought it might be fun to share one of Jason Sadler’s videos since it’s all the pros and cons of telecommuting.

IWearYourShirt.com has built a pretty neat business around the idea of donning a sponsor’s t-shirt and then schmoozing socially to sing the praises of the sponsor. The shirt wearers all have pretty demanding responsibilities and work from their respective homes, so they totally get how working from home isn’t always as easy as it seems.

Back in May the IWYS t-shirt of the day was FlexJobs. We’ve written about FlexJobs before and although it’s now subscription based, it’s a really solid offering in a sea of work-at-home scam type sites. While I’ve never subscribed I think it’s probably well worth the nominal fee if you’re serious about finding the right telecommuting job to suit your specific skills. Jason does a really good job of talking about some of the pros and cons of telecommuting while sporting a T-shirt with the FlexJobs logo in this video:

Jason’s list . . .
For the record, here’s a list of Jason’s pros and cons of working from home (along with comments from me). With the exception of taking conference calls to the bathroom, I’d have to agree with most of these pros and cons of telecommuting.

Pro: You can make your own hours.
Con: Sometimes working all those extra hours, well, it can take a toll on your personal life.

Pro: You can work from really anywhere; around your house, or in the area, at Starbucks, anywhere.
Con: Not a lot of human interaction for hours on end. (This is sometimes a pro, too!)

Pro: You can wear whatever you want to work. (unless your Jason Sadler, that is!)
Con: People tend to think you work less than they do because you work from home. (Yes, yes they do.)

Pro: You can spend lots of extra time with pets or kids or whatever it is you have roaming around your house.
Con: If I mess anything up when I’m working from home I can’t really blame it anyone else in the office.

Pro: You’re not gonna end up on the Biggest Loser because there’s no fast food in your house, and you can buy your own groceries, make sure you eat healthy, less snacking. (Sometimes easier said then done, it really is all about what you have in the house.)
Con: Working from the couch can get TOO comfortable at times.

Pro: The iPhone invented the mute button for a reason, so you can take conference calls to the bathroom with you. (Ewww.)
Con: You don’t ever really disconnect from work; because you’ve been home all day you look at your laptop and your phone – you can’t leave those things somewhere else. (Easily the biggest con some days.)

Pro: You save lots of money by not commuting to work; on gas, food, and the time that you sit in traffic.
Con: If you don’t have an office in your house sometimes your dinning room table gets used as your office so you loose that dining room table, or your coffee table, or a whole room in some cases.

Pro: Depending on the job you have you can write off an entire room in your house as your office, and expenses that you have for supplies and other things, you can write those off as well.
Con: Taxes are really confusing. I mean, saving money’s awesome but, gosh it’s confusing. Pay an accountant. (Pay an accountant!)

For fun, here’s what the other shirt wearers had to say about FlexJobs in their videos:

Raeyon for FlexJobs – DeAndre Upshaw