For the past five months I’ve been working from home. In that time I’ve moved across the country, settled into a new home and city and set up a suitable home office for myself. It’s been great, but it is not without its disadvantages.
Today is like any work day. I logged into my work station at 9:00 after dropping Jonah off at daycare. His schedule dictates that I get dressed and leave the house every morning, so I’m not sleeping in until noon nor am I working in my underwear. Also, it’s nearly like having a daily commute, though there’s no traffic in Eaton Rapids and Jonah’s school is less than a mile away.
However, in addition to my normal workload, I’ve also done five loads of laundry, cleaned cat shit off the floor and tended to my sick wife. These are things I would NOT have had to do while sitting in a cubicle. It is often all too easy to mix the day up between personal and professional tasks. I buy and make my own coffee, stock my own toilet paper, waste my own electricity and can complain to no one about my working conditions:
this versus this:
Not that I’m actually complaining. Working from home is wonderful. I drink better coffee. I sit in a better chair. I feel more creative and relaxed and productive. My carpal tunnel syndrome has eased up. And I would have had to do the laundry and clean up cat shit AFTER I got home from work instead of when it actually needed to be done.
Even if it is all too easy to log in after “normal” work hours to check an email, or finish up a project, it’s totally worth it. I can work when it is most convenient for me to do so as long as I hit my deadlines. I do miss some people from the cubicle farms, and I miss lunch with friends and ping pong in the afternoons, but getting to spend my days in my home office with three asshole cats and my sniffling, sneezing, stuffy-headed wife are invaluable to my mental well-being. Just as the line between working from home blurs, so does the line between being home from work, but when you’re doing what you love from a place that makes you comfortable it’s not a bad gig if you can get it.
