Something happened yesterday that hasn't happened in a long time, and it might be the first time it's happened since I started working from home full-time almost three years ago: I took a day off due to illness.
This is not a flex, nor a pat-on-the-back for working other times when I didn't feel well. This is to point out to the folks who don't believe work from home works, or that it cuts productivity, that at least in my case, it does not.
There have certainly been other days when I woke not feeling well, but just enough on the edge the thinking was, "I'm well enough to work." Now, if, on those days, going to work had meant getting up at 4:30 am, catching the bus at 5:20, working ten hours and then riding the bus home, rolling home at about 7 pm, the likelihood that more days off sick would have been taken in the past three years is high.
But since working while feeling ill meant easier access to the bathroom, liquids other than water or soda, the ability to sneak a half-hour nap in at lunchtime when really needed, and the elimination of the commute, I credit working from home with keeping me at work on more days than I would have otherwise.
This particular illness - a rather nasty head and chest cold - likely would have cost two or three days of work productivity. Just one this time around, on the worst day.
Don't take this as a "I love the grind" flex either. Because I don't. And I have taken plenty of vacation days, holidays, and even a few mental health days in the past three years. Working from home lets me more judiciously choose when to use those precious personal leave days, which is a blessing.
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