Work at home. Sounds like such a simple concept, right?
Successful, accomplished folks with poise are doing all the tasks they do in their offices, only from the comfort of their own tidy homes.
All I needed was to spiff up my desk setup, connect my remote link and I’d be in business.
To be honest, the idea of working at home initially sounded civilized and downright cozy.
The sun would stream through the window and soothing music would play in the background as I sat at my computer, writing and editing and arranging words and photos to my heart’s content. At 5:01 p.m. each day, I’d quietly slide the chair in, turn the computer off and rejoin my family for evenings of peaceful enjoyment.
Yeah, right.
Does the phrase “Results May Vary” ring a bell?
My husband and I, once empty nesters, now share our home in the woods with our two sweet little kitties, our handsome son, his dynamic young wife and their four children – a 6-year old, a 5-year-old and 2-year-old twins – plus their dog.
Working peacefully – doing anything “peacefully,” if we’re being honest – is made infinitely more challenging with 11 mammals going about their active lives together 24/7 in 2,800 square feet of space.
The four-legged mammals in our abode have been enthusiastically in favor of the whole working-from-home arrangement from Day One.
I’ve resorted to putting a dummy keyboard on my desk so I can get something done while my Siamese cat, Remy, fulfills what she sees as her supervisory duty: Sleeping six to eight hours at a stretch draped across the keys.
For Joey the pup, it has been fortuitous that my need to take brief breaks coincides perfectly with his schedule of going outside to chase a ball across the yard 23 times in three minutes.
For us humans, however, it’s been something of a mixed bag.
One of the “pros” is the relaxed dress code at home. Although the Leader has a pretty laissez-faire approach to fashion, when we are in the office, we are definitely expected to wear actual pants.
Another plus is the music. We do listen to tunes in the office, but can’t have it very loud when someone else is on the phone, and there’s always someone on the phone.
At home, though, nothing prevents me from cranking Miles Davis or Bob Marley or the Red Hot Chili Peppers up to volume level 11 while I write.
Of course, the 397th repeat of “Frozen” is turned up just as loud for the benefit of the under-10 contingent.
(I must admit, it can be refreshing to put a project on pause for a few minutes so I can sing a few rounds of “John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith” or “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” complete with motions. Try doing that in the office.)
Another positive is that I can break my work into pieces as small or as large as I like, and do them when I feel like it.
I’m an inveterate night owl, and I often find myself at the keyboard at 2 a.m., happily tapping away.
There have been some negative aspects to the whole adventure of working at home, however.
The most problematic for me has been the whole Zoom thing.
On a recent sunny morning, I decided to move outdoors to participate in the paper’s weekly newsroom Zoom meeting. I set up my computer on a table on the deck, my back to the thick trees that surround our house. The quiet, peaceful setting seemed perfect.
Thirty seconds into the meeting, though, my co-workers started to complain they couldn’t hear anything because of “all that awful noise.”
Turns out, those lovely trees are chock full of birds. LOUD birds, which I have apparently been blissfully tuning out since 1983.
I do miss the way things used to be. I miss spending time and collaborating with my co-workers, who are all smart, funny people. I miss my office phone; it never gave me a sore neck and I didn’t have to worry about inadvertently FaceTiming random people with my chin while I took notes.
But I find myself a little fearful about how different things might be when we all go back.
According to Forbes magazine, nearly half of American workers don’t take all the vacation time to which they are entitled. In a recent study, 48 percent of workers polled said they check in with work while vacationing, with almost half saying they check in every day.
The ubiquitous technology that allows us to network from our dining room table makes it increasingly difficult for us to ever unplug completely.
Now that kids are equipped for virtual learning, will we ever have a snow day again?
I’m kind of glad working at home has been so different from working in the office. In my mind there’s a clear line between work and home, and once I’m able to, I will happily return to the other side of the line.
I think I like that line right where it is.
