If you’re like millions of North Americans you have a home office that you tell people you work from. But can you really work from home? Especially if you’re like me and have young children or a gorgeous young wife who’s completing her Masters program? I think you can but it’s hard? Here’s why....
Many times over the last 15 years I have run a business from a home base and I’m going to tell you it’s tough. The freedoms from traffic jams and goofy bosses and co-workers is great but after taking your kids to school, enjoying a quick sweat at your local sweatery, making a fresh pot of coffee, having some breakie, checking the score in the World Cup soccer game currently playing, then finally sitting down to your computer or telephone, it’s noon. Lunch time! Or so your spouse tells you. Togetherness honey! You finish lunch to finally get to work and you notice that it’s already 12:30 PM - only 2 1/2 hours of free work time left before you need to pick up the kids from school. Sure, you could hire a nanny but child psychologists tells us that doing this child:parent thing is good bonding and pays off down the road.
Okay, so now with only 2 1/2 hours or less to get some work done - we get SUPER FOCUSED. On Mondays thru Thursdays we get so much done during this time period it’s scary. On Fridays it’s a hit and miss proposition depending on the weather - a golf game may have to be squeezed in on some nicer Fridays. Anywho, you get some work done - hopefully you didn’t have a long distance conference call starting just before you need to pick your kids up. It’s hard (at least for me) to stop work right when I’ve got a good head of steam up. So, you’re back with the kids (half hour killed here) and of course they’re fighting each other over who gets to go on their Game Cube first, what game to play, who’s erasing who’s data, etc. Your nerves are now up on the roof with your blood pressure. After refereeing the game system access and providing the obligatory afterschool snacks, you slide back in to your office chair. Aaaaahhhh! Peace and quiet - with the door closed! (Well mostly! Except when the little terrors tire of their games and resume their war with each other in the hallway running beside the office. I feel like yelling like the Louisianna KIA car driver fellow - “aaayeeeeaaaah!")
It’s now 4:00 PM. If you’re based in the West, your clients or co-cocooners in the East have already shut down for the day. No point in calling them. So it’s back to slaving over your computer and the emails you needed to send/respond.
There goes the Flintstone horn!!!! Whaaaaaaaaaaaa! Wife calling. ‘Honey, dinner’s ready! Don’t forget you’re coaching the game tonight!’
Will I ever get anything done today? Sure, everyday might look like those described above but boy do I get a lot done from 8:00 PM until 1:00 AM each night. Truthfully - isn’t that when most of Homers get the most work done?
Sometimes I look over the fence and think what it was like to have a “day job” like I’ve had in the past. Then I remember the secretary clandestinely recording the time of my arrival at the office (because her and my boss - the MicroManager Freak with nothing else to do - wants to know if he’s getting value), I remember the non-stop passing the buck environment, the buy your own coffee cream because the company won’t anymore, I remember dealing with clerks in the Human Remains department whose only goal in life seems to be to make everything difficult and by the book, I remember the pat on the back I got (not the raise - raise?? haha!!) for rebuilding the company’s operations and profits to record levels, and then I think - I like working from home! I like my home office! I like my sanity! The hours aren’t so bad!!
Is your story similar? What age do your children have to be for you to get more work done during the day? Now some of you may have licked the above type of home office situation, if so, what’s your secret? You’re ultra-organized? No kids? Single? The una-Bomber?
