Working in Helsinki, living in Turku

[nisco]

Found a job in Helsinki, with a 2500e job. Visiting Helsinki on a 4-5 days per month basis. Salary is low (evaluated considering academic degree, familiy size, age, etc.), but job can be done mostly at home, flexible in picking up child, etc.
Familiar with life in Turku and such a money is enough. Transportation expenses are not so much.
The kind of afraid of consumption in Helsinki. 2500e are not so much, say, for living in Helsinki.
Please give me some advice, whether I should move to Helsinki, or stay in Turku. Anyone has similiar situation, living in one city and working in another city? Please share your experience! Thanks very much!

[riku2]

living in one city and working in another city? Please share your experience!

From what you said you won't really be 'working' in helsinki but working from home and visiting helsinki from time to time. This sounds more like homeworking 4 days/week. So doesn't your question come down to what is it like to work from home instead of go to an office every day? From my experience some people love it and some would not want to do it, needing the face to face contact and also being in the office ensures they concentrate and don't get distracted. I was the other way and liked working from home and probably worked longer hours working at home than I would have done in the office.

[nisco]

I mean 4-5 days / MONTH.
I wonder if it is good to work this way for 5 years, 10 years, or longer between two cities?

[riku2]

From Office
4.) Leave for home after office and literally can forget anything happened in office when you reach home.

This is one very major point about working from home, it's much harder to switch off and separate work and home life. When I changed from working at home 5 days/week to working in the office it was easy to shut my laptop in the afternoon and not think of work or check my emails until the next morning. Most days I didn't even plug it in at night. Totally different to working from home although in both cases my colleagues were spread around the world, so those in Brazil quite appreciated me replying to emails at 10pm finnish time.

I think working at home while you have kids and/or spouse also at home is going to be very hard and trying to concentrate might be difficult. You should at least have a proper working room where you can close the door and not sit at the kitchen table hunched over your laptop. And if there are others in the house then be sure to learn how to use the mute button when in meetings. You will get zero respect from your colleagues if they can hear your kids in the background, you listening to cricket commentary or even worse the kids interrupting the meeting and you (as chairman) having to close it early since they are brawling about something (all three of these events have happened to meetings I've been in with others joining from home).