How different would The Shining be if he didn't work from home...
The most popular questions I get asked are about being a veggie, life as a parasitic journo (“hacking any phones lately?” har de har har) and about working from home. The latter is a bit of a funny one. Office-based people are intrigued or repelled by it. For example, I used to work with someone who said she’d rather do a 14 hour day in the office than take work home (and regularly did so), such was her repulsion for allowing work to creep into the home.
I’ve been working from my bedsit boudoir for over a year now. When I get asked if I like it, I’m uncharacteristically ambivalent and I usually answer with a pisspoor, nondescript “It takes some getting used to”. Yes, even I am bored by that one.
Well, from now on, any time I get quizzed on working from the comfort of my couch, I’ll have the following facets of working from home to educate the office-bound about:
Viva pyjamas! The wonder of the onesie! Getting dressed is for morons! Yes, all these clichés are true. Well, for some people. Not me, of course. Ahem.
Disciplining yourself is a real bitch. You haven’t got the boss keeping you in line so you’ve got to be a grown up (zzzz) and do it yourself. Tougher than it looks. Unless you’re a minimalist freak/into prison chic, your home is likely to be a cesspool of distractions – from your Iphone to the cat chasing a fly on your window sill to speculating about the sex lives of your neighbours. These are all a top priority when you’re faced with a slog of work…when you’re based from home.
my reaction to missing Cake Day at the office
The TV – a plus AND a minus. Who gets to watch TV in a stiff office? You can watch it all day! AMAZING. It’s also the worst distraction after the internet.
You miss Cake Day at the office. Devastating.
If everyone worked from home, there would be no need for women’s mag articles about what to wear to go from the office to the party. Yes, you got it, working from home means you can clock off at 1pm and spend 6 hours dolling yourself for a night out.
The anti-social thing. This doesn’t apply if you’ve only ever worked in bitchy offices where the office politics make you want to beat yourself about the head with your keyboard, but, I’ve worked in some great places where I actually rolled around the floor laughing. You don’t exactly get that if you’re home alone and handcuffed to your laptop. It also affects how many new people you meet. Confession: this is why I go to the opening of an envelope.
Sick days are a million times better when you don’t have to get up, wait for a stinky bus and hang around a boring office doing your best ‘I’m SO busy’ impression for 9 hours. You can actually watch This Morning in bed like you did at school and tweet all day about having the plague. The greatness of this cannot be overstated.
Setting the alarm in the morning? Haha you must be joking. Those days are over unless you’ve got an early flight (ugh) or a meeting to go to (extra ugh).
Hello housebound fatty: You eat a lot more than usual, to avoid doing work and because the food is right there, asking you to eat it.
Your flat becomes a mess and you become incapable of even seeing it. Hello mum, fancy a cleaning job?
When you’re doing a 9-5er, you can leave the workload behind when you slam the door behind you every night. There is no escape from work and no switching off – only the very disciplined don’t end up switching on the laptop at 10.30pm and doing something.
You live in fear of any kind of maintenance work being done that requires you to a)get dressed and b) speak to other human beings.
As the title says, who doesn’t love a bit of cabin fever? You know that feeling of “oh sweet Jesus get me out of here, I never wanna see these 4 walls again” at work? Well your workplace is also your bedroom (unless you’re lucky enough to have an office at home) so all you can do is scream, go for a walk and, eh, stick some pics of naked men on your walls.
So, with all this in mind, do I like working from home? You know what, I think I do. But, if you ever fancy popping around for tea and Tesco Value Jaffa Cakes, gimme 5 mins to put my best onesie-to-impress on and you bring the teabags, alright?
Finally, like I haven’t sold it to you enough, I give you the official uniform for working from home. JOIN US!
Ha – you hit the nail on the head – the one thing I miss about working in a traditional office or indeed for someone else is the lack of laughs – I miss the cackle and extended tea breaks when the boss isn’t around – and while I love being my own boss – I don’t get that Friday feeling anymore……. I do however have an impressive collection of comfy jammys and tracksuits!
Posted by Beauty Emporium (@beautyempie) | April 16, 2012, 11:48 amNice to know someone shares the feeling! You’re right, I’ve long since forgotten the Friday feeling, which I miss. I’ve also completely lost the ability to switch off so weekends are just not the same, ie. time to escape work, when you’re self employed and your home is your office it’s hard to draw that line. Likewise, I miss having the craic at work (even though I’ve worked in my fair share of dry shite ones!) but being able to make your own routine and work at your own pace is worth its weight in gold!
Posted by Lisa Hughes | April 16, 2012, 9:46 pmHow bout “property fever”? I work five to to seven days per week out of the two buildings here on my three acre platte. It’s all by my choice that I live and work this way here on my OWN little strip of property. When I do travel out to the everchanging world that lies around me, I feel as though I’ve just awoken from a dreamladen sleep; make that “the constant stranger”. Buildings, colors, favorite haunts are changed, or worse yet gone. Yet in the back of my mind I know my property is sitting, idling and waiting for my return, It will be as I left it, barring the effects of weather. Always my home, my solitude.
Posted by John P. | April 16, 2012, 1:46 pm