Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Working From Home

This summer, my internship is a three-hour commute from my house. Although I am always ready to take on these long days, both me and my bosses knew it was unreasonable to have me make this trek more than two times a week. Instead, they have me work from home for the remaining days.

Going into the summer I was confident in my time management skills. However, this was a new challenge for me. Although I do not have set times for when I need to be on the computer working when I am home, I am expected to complete all of my tasks in a timely manner. Sometimes I get a to do list for the week, in which I will complete in my free time. With this to do list I can create a schedule for myself and plan my week around it. However, it is not always this easy.

Because my bosses are rapidly growing a startup business, they are constantly having new tasks, problems, and opportunities pop up. Since they are busy already running around Boston, a lot of these tasks fall on the interns. We get scattered emails throughout the day about company updates or new things we need to quickly complete. In fact, one morning when I was planning on going to the beach with my friends, I woke up to four emails asking me to complete a few things.

Constantly getting emails may seem daunting at first, but it all comes down to how you  handle it. If you push everything off until the deadline, you will be extremely stressed out. I found that setting aside time each day or every couple of days to reevaluate where I was with my work really helped. In addition, having the google drive app on your phone makes it very easy to do work on the go! In the end, your bosses will understand that you do have other things going on. You do not have to respond to each email as soon as you get it; responding within a couple of hours will do.

Lastly, if you gain a good reputation for working hard and completing things in a timely manner, your bosses will be very understanding if you take any time off. Furthermore, if you let your bosses know ahead of time the days or weeks that you are not free (vacation, other jobs, etc) they will respect this when assigning you work. For example, I am leaving for Maine next week, and my bosses told me to not even check my email.

So, I leave you with this piece of advice: If you are working from home this summer, respond to the emails, do your best work, do not put things off, and do not stress too much (After all, your bosses understand you have a life!).