Saying Goodbye to Mondays – Negotiating Work From Home Privileges

Mondays… who needs them?! What if I told you I was able to get rid of them… at least partially.

This week marks my first steps toward office independence. I worked up my nerve and I put in my request to work from home on Mondays. So, how did I do it? And, more importantly, what did my supervisor say? Read on to find out.

The Inspiration

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No more Mondays… It doesn’t need much explanation does it? For me, the idea was planted after reading Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek. He preaches liberating yourself from the office as much, and as soon as, possible.

I’ve been wanting an office at work. Or really, just some place to get some peace and quiet. My current digs in Cubeville afford no such luxury and the number of uninvited cube callers and overly loud talkers has been a near constant drag. Alas, we don’t currently have an office available.

Over the past year, I’ve been flirting with burnout. We lost an engineer and have not backfilled the position. Meanwhile, workload has increased, leaving fewer people to do even more work. Additionally, we’ve continued to work on larger, more complex projects that come with an increasing number of challenging issues to address.

I’m told I am compensated near the top for my position, so raises tend to be on the lower side. The near constant state of crisis and lack of financial incentive has been taking a toll on my morale.

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How I Built Trust with My Supervisor

To be able to make such a request requires a certain amount of leverage and your supervisor’s trust. So what did I do?

If I had to boil it down to the simplest phase: I do my job.

My employer makes it very clear how they measure performance. There are written goals and milestones. It’s like a road map to a promotion… it’s all laid out for you. The goals aren’t extraordinarily challenging. If you put in the work you should be able to meet them. You just need to execute it.

Diving a bit deeper, I would say that taking ownership of my work and focusing on communication are the key traits that have helped me along. I am not the most technically skilled engineer at my company. Not even close. But I treat my projects and clients like I would like to be treated.

As a result, I now manage a significant portion of my group’s total revenue, and have been responsible for the lion share of the group’s profitable projects for the past couple years. I’ve made myself valuable to my company.

Popping the Question

The answer is always no if you never ask.

You need to overcome your self-limiting beliefs to ask for what you want. Many dreams die in our minds because we never work up the courage to express them. I’m no exception, but I am getting better at speaking my mind.

Let your work speak for itself, they say…

I say, record the speech and replay it as often as needed to make sure they heard it!

I’m not suggesting you beat your supervisor over the head with stats. This requires some tact. You should; however, make sure your performance record is obvious. Have supporting documentation in hand to substantiate your track record.

What’s the worst, and the best, that can happen?

This is the method I use to get me over the hump whenever I am stuck on the fence over whether to have a tough conversation.

In this instance:

• What’s the worst that can happen if I ask?
  • They can tell me no. That’s it. They won’t fire me, demote me, or beat me.
• What’s the best that can happen?
  • Imagine not having to go to work on Mondays… for years to come. The ability to take my laptop outside on the porch when the weather is nice. To knock out that quick errand that needs doing, or to get dinner started early. How about less work stress?

A lot more pros there than cons, right?

My Sales Pitch

Less Distraction = Increased Productivity

As I mentioned previously, I get tons of visitors to my cube stopping by to ask for advice or to shoot the breeze. I like my co-workers, but it is very hard to get things done when I have to do them in 3 to 4 minute increments. It takes a couple minutes to reengage with my work after I’ve been distracted. Sometimes (many times actually) I forget what I was working on and start another task instead. Now I have two unfinished tasks! Not very efficient.

Imagine what I can do when I have the peace and quiet of my own home!

Test Runs – Proof of Concept

I’ve had the pleasure of working from home recently due to sick kids and heavy snow. During these times I’ve been able to keep up with my deadlines and be responsive. This has demonstrated that I can keep up, even in the face of distractions from kids or sickness.

What Did They Say?

So, this week I cornered by supervisor under the pretenses of “I would like to run something past you”. The look of grave concern that crossed her face gave me confidence. Whatever she was thinking, my request was surely not that bad. In fact, she seemed relieved.

After the obligatory “Let me think about it” comment, she then proceeded to tell me… ME… why she thought it was a good idea. She said she needed to run it past the president for approval, but she was good with it.

Less than 24 hours later, my supervisor let me know the president approved my request to work from home! I will start off alternating Mondays to ensure the new approach works and iron out any kinks, but if the trial period goes well I will soon be able to work from home every Monday.

While I will still be working on Mondays, I am eagerly looking forward to the added flexibility that working from home offers! This also gives me the confidence to pursue other things that I want.

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So, how about you? Is there anything you’ve been thinking about asking for? You never know, you just might get it!

Thanks for reading!