Throw away your office keys!

Yes, it's a hard habit to break. Having that glass walled tall building replaced by a humbled "home office" that could resemble anything from a kitchen table to wine cellar to converted bedroom or even garage.

But if you're starting from scratch with seed funds at best or going into round A and the lease isn't signed yet, take a closer look! You might like what you see and the investors, shalt you have them already, might like your thinking.

The savings in gasoline, commute tempers, lack of road rage, blood pressure medications, makes this look very "green" and hip today. Even Al Gore (no, I'm actually not a fan) would endorse it as a global warming take action frontier type go getter decision. Go MySQL!

Fact is, we do it because it just makes sense! Most, but not all, of our employees work from home at MySQL.

The benefits of not having to commute to work saves a ton of time, and having some flexibility in what hours you work (depending on what you do maybe). We can hire anywhere we like, in fact in almost any country worldwide for most jobs, and thats a highly competitive
position. We don't have to confine ourselves to a specific location and but instead find the best person to do the job. Many companies are handcuffed to specific geographies and buildings that they have to stick employees in. Often, in very expensive locations aka can you spell Silicon Valley. They can't change that over night and it strengthens our business model and competitiveness.

Bottom line, we get happier employees that have happier life and happier spouses, kids, dog and cats (if any or more of that apply).

The drawbacks are not that many but they do exist. It's not for everyone. Theres no water cooler to chat around when you work from home, and the social aspects of not meeting your colleges daily or so needs to be fed. Hence, one need to make sure to schedule some face to face time so people actually get to meet each other. Those that just can't nor won't travel can decide to skip it. But it won't have to eat up all the office savings completely so there should be left overs for the employees and/or bottom line. You also have to deal with all the different timezones which means that not everyone is awake if you need them.

There also needs to be a special type of DNA if you work from home. If you're not a self starter, motivated by what you do, it can be a drag to handle. You also need to deal with the classic work life balance. Popping up your laptop just because you can and you have wireless, in front of the TV when you're suppose to watch a movie with the spouse, is not a good habit. Nor will it make your relationship blossom and can be fatal even to a "shock protected" laptop if your spouse uses force in combination with gravity to have your beloved hardware meet the floor while still accelerating; trust me, I know from experience. Plan you backups accordingly...

Ulf