"Do you work?" "It must be great having an easy life." "Why did you bring your child to the childcare when you're at home?" "It must be great working from home. You can do all the household things during the day and have the dinner prepared fully when the others arrive."
All these questions must be common to all of us people doing distance work from home.
In this time and age, in year 2013, you'd expect people to realize that working from home and being at home aka being unemployed, or something like that, are two different things.
Yes, I have to tell you, I do enjoy working from home. When most people have mixed feelings of wanting to enjoy the social environment of the work place and hating having have to commute to the office for hours every day, I am happy -most of the days- to come back from the morning school run and work just by myself at home.
I still don't know if it's anything to be envious about. Do people actually know what's going on behind those four walls? Do people really think the distance workers spend their days at home watching TV or taking naps? Sometimes the work load and responsibility is even bigger than it would normally be. Especially when there are no limits for work hours or if you are self-employed. It doesn't necessarily show anywhere. Taking a break in the middle of the day can or has to be taken back as work in the middle of the night or during the weekends.
The situation can be especially strange when people don't know what that person does, or what field he/she is in. Even more strange it is, if the person doesn't have to go to meetings at all. Not even once a week. It's sometimes thought, that when having a job with less interaction face to face and no work place to commute to, the work doesn't exist.
Even more strange it is when someone actually enjoys working just by himself. Work has to feel like work. Be something unpleasant, so it would count.
Yes, I do get to meet people. On my work trips and other gigs around here. In fact, during my work trips I meet so many people that someone working in an office wouldn't necessarily have that many conversations with people in a longer period of time. After those trips, no matter how great they always end up being, it's nice to come back home and do the work, just by myself.
Even when I'm not the most sociable person in the world, I'm not a full recluse either. Still, I don't have any compulsion to gather people around me just to make myself feel comfortable.
I've found some solutions not to go too far in either end. I have taken up this habit of going to the center of my home village, usually once or twice a week, just to be in the middle of people. To feel locals passing by, saying 'hi' or talk to people I might know. I sit in the cafés with my laptop, pop into the local library, which I sometimes feel has become my second living room.
I spend the day, while my child is in school, working on my laptop, not necessarily connected to the internet which could distract work. Often in the middle of the crowds, I end up doing more work in a much shorter time than I'd probably do back home in the same hours.
Not that it wouldn't be that bad working from home. Making more coffee at home is handy. The fridge is there when I need lunch. I can fill up and switch on the washing machine, let it do the work. I can be there when the mail man brings some package, so I don't have to make my way to a far-away collection office in another time and spend half of my day for that trip. I don't drive in Ireland.
I don't have to make separate arrangements about childcare when my child is having the winter vomit bug and has to stay home from school. Greetings from today's bug(ger)land.
The considered flip side to this is the possibility of dividing time between work and other time. Luckily this work is one of these where working in smaller periods of time is actually more productive than working an eight-hour day in a row. I'd like to see the face of the person reading the writings I'd done in the end of a full day in late afternoon. Writing is not just typing. For subscribers' sake it would be handy to also do some thinking.
For some a clock is the killer. For me it probably would be, if I'd have to do my work exactly during office hours. My best productive time is often in the late evening and early night. Not that I could always work just then or even choose. I have my time restrictions when spending minutes and hours for school runs, doing grocery shopping, running errands, preparing meals for my son, bringing him to hobbies, doing his soccer coaching. Spending time with him. I'm a single parent.
I don't complain. In fact, I love it. Time management done by me. Working occasionally heavily half the night, but also having the possibility to go for a run, to the gym or walk to the nearby exercise track middle of the day. Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.
I wonder if it would be possible to get anything done, if I was a slave in an office work. Having office schedules. Commuting somewhere just for the sake of it. Because someone tells me to do so. Or to be a proper human being not being different from others commuting.
But I'm still not living any easier life than others. What do people really know about each others' lives? People passing by on the street they in reality have no clue about.
For me, the flexibility just might make my present life more suitable for me. It can be enjoyable, when I'm processing my works while exercising during the day. Getting sentences and ideas in my head while collecting my kid from school. When trying to solve some writing puzzle while visiting my friends, who are wondering why I suddenly for a moment disappear in my thoughts. Sorry, I don't have that off-gear when the ideas start finding their right paths from something someone just said or just popped in my mind. I'm always on call. As do most creative people I know.
While many others can leave their work personalities to their work place on Friday at 4 or 5pm, creative people are always at work. It's only a matter of personal feelings, if that's a dream or a curse.
All these questions must be common to all of us people doing distance work from home.
In this time and age, in year 2013, you'd expect people to realize that working from home and being at home aka being unemployed, or something like that, are two different things.
Yes, I have to tell you, I do enjoy working from home. When most people have mixed feelings of wanting to enjoy the social environment of the work place and hating having have to commute to the office for hours every day, I am happy -most of the days- to come back from the morning school run and work just by myself at home.
I still don't know if it's anything to be envious about. Do people actually know what's going on behind those four walls? Do people really think the distance workers spend their days at home watching TV or taking naps? Sometimes the work load and responsibility is even bigger than it would normally be. Especially when there are no limits for work hours or if you are self-employed. It doesn't necessarily show anywhere. Taking a break in the middle of the day can or has to be taken back as work in the middle of the night or during the weekends.
The situation can be especially strange when people don't know what that person does, or what field he/she is in. Even more strange it is, if the person doesn't have to go to meetings at all. Not even once a week. It's sometimes thought, that when having a job with less interaction face to face and no work place to commute to, the work doesn't exist.
Even more strange it is when someone actually enjoys working just by himself. Work has to feel like work. Be something unpleasant, so it would count.
Yes, I do get to meet people. On my work trips and other gigs around here. In fact, during my work trips I meet so many people that someone working in an office wouldn't necessarily have that many conversations with people in a longer period of time. After those trips, no matter how great they always end up being, it's nice to come back home and do the work, just by myself.
Even when I'm not the most sociable person in the world, I'm not a full recluse either. Still, I don't have any compulsion to gather people around me just to make myself feel comfortable.
I've found some solutions not to go too far in either end. I have taken up this habit of going to the center of my home village, usually once or twice a week, just to be in the middle of people. To feel locals passing by, saying 'hi' or talk to people I might know. I sit in the cafés with my laptop, pop into the local library, which I sometimes feel has become my second living room.
I spend the day, while my child is in school, working on my laptop, not necessarily connected to the internet which could distract work. Often in the middle of the crowds, I end up doing more work in a much shorter time than I'd probably do back home in the same hours.
Not that it wouldn't be that bad working from home. Making more coffee at home is handy. The fridge is there when I need lunch. I can fill up and switch on the washing machine, let it do the work. I can be there when the mail man brings some package, so I don't have to make my way to a far-away collection office in another time and spend half of my day for that trip. I don't drive in Ireland.
I don't have to make separate arrangements about childcare when my child is having the winter vomit bug and has to stay home from school. Greetings from today's bug(ger)land.
The considered flip side to this is the possibility of dividing time between work and other time. Luckily this work is one of these where working in smaller periods of time is actually more productive than working an eight-hour day in a row. I'd like to see the face of the person reading the writings I'd done in the end of a full day in late afternoon. Writing is not just typing. For subscribers' sake it would be handy to also do some thinking.
For some a clock is the killer. For me it probably would be, if I'd have to do my work exactly during office hours. My best productive time is often in the late evening and early night. Not that I could always work just then or even choose. I have my time restrictions when spending minutes and hours for school runs, doing grocery shopping, running errands, preparing meals for my son, bringing him to hobbies, doing his soccer coaching. Spending time with him. I'm a single parent.
I don't complain. In fact, I love it. Time management done by me. Working occasionally heavily half the night, but also having the possibility to go for a run, to the gym or walk to the nearby exercise track middle of the day. Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.
I wonder if it would be possible to get anything done, if I was a slave in an office work. Having office schedules. Commuting somewhere just for the sake of it. Because someone tells me to do so. Or to be a proper human being not being different from others commuting.
But I'm still not living any easier life than others. What do people really know about each others' lives? People passing by on the street they in reality have no clue about.
For me, the flexibility just might make my present life more suitable for me. It can be enjoyable, when I'm processing my works while exercising during the day. Getting sentences and ideas in my head while collecting my kid from school. When trying to solve some writing puzzle while visiting my friends, who are wondering why I suddenly for a moment disappear in my thoughts. Sorry, I don't have that off-gear when the ideas start finding their right paths from something someone just said or just popped in my mind. I'm always on call. As do most creative people I know.
While many others can leave their work personalities to their work place on Friday at 4 or 5pm, creative people are always at work. It's only a matter of personal feelings, if that's a dream or a curse.
A great post! I do also go and actually teach music lessons, but most of my work is done home, obviously making music, but also creating lesson plans, writing curriculums(as I teach a program that doesn't always have one) and teachers' guides, answering parents' mails, calling people etc. I would feel slightly odd having an office or going someplace to do all this, yet sometimes I find it hard to separate myself from work when I feel like I really need a break.
ReplyDeleteThanks. :) It has sides and sides, but I think that if I had an office somewhere, it would be waste of place, commuting there a waste of time. Especially since I would work outside office hours anyway. If I was doing bit different kind of work it could be different, though.
ReplyDelete