Who works alone?

and who has colleague beside them?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I work from a converted bedroom at home and essentially I am on my own all day. I have an associate or colleague who also works from home but he is 15 miles away and we seldom actually meet. We just talk on the phone.

I am interested to know how many of you are the same and how many of you work in a business with two or more people on the premises?

[ronin]

I worked for 6 years from a desk at home (either in my bedroom or in my living room). Since I bought a netbook last November, I don't even have a 'fixed place of work' anymore - I just carry my netbook around with me and set it up and start using it wherever and whenever I need to. This allows for extended breaks away from home, which is great.

I have always worked relentlessly solo.

[sem4u]

I mostly work in an office based in the City of London. There are up to 30 people on my floor at any one time, but there can be less depending on meetings or if people are in the pub on Friday, etc...

At home my options are more limited, although I have considered building a 'garden room' to work out of occasionally.

[bhonda]

I'm in an office. Given that there are only 3 other developers in the whole company (and two of those are based at our other office 200 miles away), I'm entirely outnumbered by people of other professions, which I absolutely love.

In fact, I'm a bit of a nomad when it comes to desks - I've been at 8 different locations within this one office in the last year. Now I'm sat opposite the other developer here (actually a guy I was at uni with), alongside a couple of pseudo-techie managers. Been like this for a week now, and it's working well.

On the odd occasion I work from home, but now I only do that if I'm forced to - after the solitary-confinement that is studying software engineering at uni, I now love working with other people around me. Not too noisy though, but being able to look up and make eye-contact with someone else is just...great.

It's weird - even on my most stressy days, where I may barely speak to anyone else, I know it would be so much worse if I was on my own - just having people around me helps.

All in all, I love working alongside other people!

[wheel]

I worked from home for years and loved it. Then I got busy enough that my wife started doing my admin stuff full time from home with me. that was absolutely fabulous - home when the kids go to school, home when they get back...

We finally had to decide if we were going to keep the business there or grow. We decided to grow about two years ago. We opened an office about 2 minutes from the house and now have 2 more folks working with us and have our eyes out looking for about two more.

I used to hate working at an office, I've been careful to make sure we keep the right kind of environment in this one. People get paid well and we keep it upbeat, and spouse and I do not either bring home problems to work (not that we have any to bring) and we don't send mixed signals about chain of command.

So it's not quite as nice as working from home with spouse, and I spend more time managing, but it's still not bad. I've got a huge office window that overlooks the historical downtown of the quaint little town we live in :).

[vivalasvegas]

I work alone in my living room. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it. It depends on how much extra activity I have outside the home/work. I like the shared office concept, but I live in a smaller town where it's difficult to find something like this. Most people I know envy me for being so free and confortable when working and can't seem to understand why I would wanna move to an office. I guess that they take for granted the social advantage of having a real job while I too take for granted the advantage of not having one:)

[creative craig]

I worked in London for 8 years, working in the city, waterloo and in Soho.

Then I met my wife, moved to Cape Town 3 years ago and we now work together together from home. I can see the mountains and the ocean from my window and can get to the beach if the waves are good in under 4 minutes

[rocknbil]

Initially - corporate environment, satellite office for 5 years, trapped in an office with no windows and a blabbing front office receptionist that you could hear clearly through the walls. That drove me more insane than the closed space and suffocating corporate shenanigans. 3-4 IT/programmer/administrators, 8-12 tech support personnel depending, 3 managers (yes 3) and two receptionists. Overall company was over 100.

Previously, 8 years - room in my home dedicated to work area, definately an office space (without the "O" face.)

Currently - back office area in an unrelated business. The other people on the premises are not related to my work.

In both cases, I guess it's "solo" but I sure don't feel like it's solo. I work with writers, designers, and clients from around the world and many of them I've never even spoken to on the phone. I've known many of them for years, it's like we're old friends . . . but we've never met.

May be a bit creepy to some, but it dispenses with the whole interoffice politics and dynamics, allows me (and the people I work with) to wrangle over what an idiot I/they are being, get over it, and get the jobs done. :-)

[leadegroot]

I've been working from home for the last 5 years.
My office is the centre of the house - I can watch everything flowing around me, although its quiet most of the time as the kids are at school.
I'm here when the kids leave and here when they get home.
My work socialising is twitter, and, well, you guys :)
Some people would hate our open plan, but we specifically designed it this way - we are both netheads and online all the time, so being able to be online and around everyone at the same time is great.
I don't imagine I'll ever go back to an office, although I do tend to track the ads for local business knowledge and often think "I could do that! Wait - I don't need a 'job'..." ;)

[weeks]

Everyone is alone. We are all orphans.

[ken_b]

I work alone from home most of the time. I also attend a fair number of related events each year some of which involve significant travel.

Just back from about 5,500 miles of business travel by car in 28 days. But those trips involve a fair amount of interactions with my target audience so there's actually more contact with the outside world when I travel.

I think a lot about sharing office space with non competing web workers. Could be good for all of us.

[graeme_p]

I work entirely at home. I did have people working for me briefly on an over-ambitious site that never worked, since then I have been working alone for six years.

I live in a place that I used to go on holiday. I have lots of time with the children.

[diddlydazz]

I have been working alone from home for about 9 years. Hired an office once but ended up still doing the majority of work from home.

I have had homes in many different countries over the years, so it has kept the socialising a bit more "exciting" (hmmm, is that the right word?). By socialising I mean nipping out from "the den" to get a pack of cigarettes or an alcoholic drink (depending on the stats!).

It also means I have had to learn other languages (apart from PHP, PERL, etc ;o) ), which I guess has kept it fresh.

In my experience it can be a bit of a trap when working for yourself, by yourself, it becomes too easy to be engulfed in your work.

Sometimes I feel it might be better doing the old 9 til 5 routine, leaving the work, etc at the office. But I'm not sure how long I would last in that environment, the grass is always greener, etc.

[ergophobe]

Alone from home since 1996. 1989-1996, I worked mostly from home alone.

Gotta say, there are days I wish I had clients/customers/colleagues. Then there are days I'm so happy I don't.

[machine11]

Alone, home office overseeing a womanly garden that my gf takes care of. I spend most of my interaction trying to understand my overseas employees and fixing their errors lol

[decaff]

When it comes to the web/computing/working...I do all of this exclusively from home...alone...but I spend plenty of time collaborating/communicating via the phone with colleagues/clients......thank goodness I have another "much older" life (then the web) that I visit every now and again...just to stay in touch with my sanity (which I seem to have lost a bit of lately)...playing music gigs...etc...I've got a doozy coming up...a Christmas show with my friend Mason Williams (Classical Gas)...should be a blast...

[SwitchFX]

I own a branch of a luxury real estate agency with 2 other people, close to 55 employees.

I can't work from home constantly. I get side-tracked way too fast.

We're talking about main occupation, right?

[BillyS]

I work two jobs. This one (alone) and a second job with 2,000 other people. The nice thing is I don't need either job - just one. I'll quit one when I run out of gas.

[Lexur]

I work alone but I took an office a few minutes walking from home.
I need to have different time (and clothes and even attitude) to be working and to be at home.