Are You Cut Out To Work From Home?

Working from home, for me, has been nothing short of incredible. Sure, like everyone else, I still worry about my health and about the economy and layoffs. But at least for the moment, I have my cat, my piano, vodka and a PlayStation right here.

I do interviews in my yard on a milk crate, wearing the same shirt I’ve worn all week. I record radio stories (this one included) in my closet. I don’t set an alarm most days, waking mostly when a sunbeam creeps from my floor to my pillow.

I’ve also felt focused and have produced more stories than usual during this time. I very honestly never want this part of the pandemic to end.

But every day, more Americans are packing up the home office and going back to work.

So I set out to see: Do we have to? Is there a good reason we should?

Stanford University economics professor Nicholas Bloom started looking into work from home back in 2011, when he found out the unassuming, middle-aged Asian student in the back of his class was the founding CEO of a giant Chinese company.

“It was quoted at that time on NASDAQ. It was worth about $15 billion,” Bloom said.

The company was CTrip, a Chinese travel booking service akin to Expedia or Priceline. At the time, it had 15,000 employees. The student was entrepreneur James Liang.