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It's 3:45 on a Wednesday afternoon. My boys have just come home from school and are anxiously relaying what happened at lunch recess that day when my phone rings. I glance at the caller I.D. — it’s The New York Times. I sigh.

"Ok, fellas. Mom has to take this one. Scoot. We’ll finish later."

On cue, they both roll their eyes and leave the spare bedroom that functions as my office, shutting the door behind them. They have learned to always shut the door. It will be another two hours before I can hear the rest of their day’s events. I feel a wave a guilt wash over me followed by another wave of responsibility as the phone rings for a third time. I pick it up and get back to work, answering a series of questions from a reporter on deadline. It’s a balance I have come to embrace over the last decade. Since 2000, I have worked full time from home.

I manage the communications for a multi million dollar trade association in Washington D.C. from Philadelphia where I average a 50-60 hour work week. More and more I am coming into contact with professional parents like myself who make working from home work for them, their employers, and their families. Gone are the days when you can’t have a serious career if it doesn’t all go down in an office building. Over the past decade, thanks largely to the Internet, you can hold a high powered job from your extra bedroom or basement while spending more time with the kids. But it isn’t easy. 

Sure, it sounds heavenly but it’s not the cake walk many assume it is. When I tell people about this arrangement, they often give me a look which I interpret as politely dismissive. I imagine them thinking to themselves that "work" must not be the operative term in "work from home" and that my job must be mindless enough to perform while watching my children and soap operas all at the same time. Judging by the unsolicited email offers I get for "home-based employment opportunities", these lighter jobs must exist, but mine is not one of them. 

Table Stakes

Sharing time between work and family is difficult enough; now imagine sharing time AND space. All the stars must be in alignment to effectively work out of your house but the two most important factors for a successful home office is 1) having the right job and 2) solid buy-in from your employer. Without those elements, you are doomed to fail. The good news is that there are an increasing number of jobs that can be performed well almost exclusively via the web and telephone. One good way to test if your job might be suitable is to ask yourself whether your work output can be produced and delivered to your customer (client, boss, or colleague) electronically. Public relations, marketing, writing, consulting, computer programming, law and even accounting are conducive to work at home arrangements. However, if your job requires you to manage large groups of people or meet face-to-face with colleagues, clients, or other stakeholders every day, you may be out of luck unless they can come to your house. Conference calls work very well for occasional pow-wows, but using them in place of daily meetings can become disengaging. 

Speaking of disengaging, the second major criterion for a happy work from home arrangement is concurrence from all company stakeholders. It goes without saying that your boss has to be on board with the deal but more importantly, so do your peers. Jealously can be a huge factor, especially when one colleague has to brave rush hour and bad office coffee while the other gets an extra hour at home with the family and can wear sweatpants everyday. Your arrangement must be justifiable to your team. No one can complain that you are getting favored treatment if you live several hours away from the office. If you live close to the office but are working from home, it’s a good idea for everyone with a similar job description to be offered the same arrangement.

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