Sometimes I watch "House Hunters International" on HGTV and see folks buying houses on the beach in some South American country and I think to myself, "Heck, if they have an airport, why couldn't I do that?"
As it is, Stella is very far away from her place of employ, and there's nothing that would prevent me from going somewhere even more pleasant than where I am and working. Except that I have kids who need to go to school, and I just wouldn't want them to have to struggle in another language in a small town in another country. And where I live I'm surround by family who make my life extremely easy, so I really couldn't possibly complain. Although a beach...never mind.
Maybe you too long for an extreme telecommuting arrangement, and you have school age kids. Well, could full time online school work for you? Maybe.
Ah, gentle readers, it seems like just last year that Stella was ruminating about her broken finger and taking small breaks (ha ha, get it) from blogging and being able to type 80 words a minute. Oh, wait, it was just last year. And now Stella is coping with a family fracture: the littlest Commute broke both bones in her arm in a fall off playground equipment at school.
Aside from the obvious maternal concern that I'm experiencing over Baby Commute's injury, there is the non-trivial disruption to my home-based office that has occurred. The good thing is that it has reconfirmed my most fundamental telecommuting ideal:
Stella has been a lousy poster, and she's deeply sorry, but it's been a hectic couple of few weeks. School here in the 'Burque ends in May, and with it comes a flurry of activity that any parent of children recognizes. Now we're settling into a new routine that involves a thirteen year old girl hanging around the house while I work.
It's distracting.
It's not like she's demanding peanut butter sandwiches all day or anything. She's working on some writing projects of her own, sleeping until eleven every day, going over to her auntie's house to swim, and generally entertaining herself.
It's just that I'm used to being here by myself. No noises in the house except the dogs warding off daily attacks from the US Postal Service, an occasional door-bell ring, and the like. So I'm adjusting, slowly but surely. More headphone use, more doorlocking, and also being tolerant of more interruption. After all, I can't completely ignore these children -- I do like them and all!
But adjusting to having more people around your quiet home office space is, well, and adjustment.
Stella had a humdinger of a weekend. She spent Friday night dealing with a very vomitrocious child, and then spent her own Saturday night mewling in her bathroom with exactly the same terrible virus. I was still a wreck on Sunday, and I'm not yet one hundred percent.
Thankfully I work a few steps from my bed. And so rather than try to put on a happy face this morning, I'm able to get some stuff done and not risk infecting those around me. Because trust me, you don't want what I had.
Not even a little bit.
David Christiansen at IT Dark Side has written a good post about maintaining balance when working at home. It seems like a no-brainer: work-life balance is built in when you work at home, right?
But as I was just kvetching about on Wednesday, in fact it's hard to stay focused and work hard, and not be a total grind and never see your kids too. Because it's entirely possible to work all the time.
Don't do that, okay?
Does that actually work when you work at home? All the time? My daughters see me at work: there I am, working in my flip flops, having a meeting and waving them away frantically while trying to stay professional and calm sounding on the call I'm running.
Maybe I should make them take me to school with them.
Here's my dirty little secret: I know lots of mothers who look at working at home as a way to "spend more time with their families". Maybe I'm a grind. (Okay, I'm definitely a grind!) But I do not see it that way. It is a bit easier for me to pinch hit in a crisis at school or what have you, but I work when I'm working. I do not pay attention to my children, not even a little bit.
Does this make me a bad mom? Perhaps. But when you're the primary wage earner, and you work from afar, you kind of need to be focused.
Knowwhatimean?
I had an insight this morning. Not an On-Site Insight (TM) but just a garden-variety insight. I am the mother of two charming and extremely well behaved children and a natural morning person. I'm up bright and early every day and working east coast hours.
But by the end of the day I am psychotically grumpy and willing to do almost anything to hustle the children into bed. And today it finally occurred to me: in my brain, it's like the kids are staying up until 11 pm every single night.
In point of fact, they're going to bed at a very reasonable hour, and we have a nice structured bedtime routine and all that jazz. The super nanny wouldn't find much to fix in the kids' behavior.
Unfortunately, it's all your dear correspondent's fault.
What to do, what to do? Honestly I'm not sure what I can do. I mean, this is the gig people. I have a few ideas:
It's been a little noisier than usual around Stella central this week, because the small kid has been home since Tuesday with some sort of eye thing*. I took a sick day on Tuesday (which is to say that I did my meetings with the plaintive strains of "A Part of Your World" in the background, but I charged myself a sick day because other than meetings I just made noodles and applied warm compresses), but the kid has been hanging around the past couple of days with Daddy on his days off.
It's tough.
They are noisy and prone to wandering into my office and demanding nail polish and whatnot. What is a shut in to do? She straps on her headphones and just ignores them. With my headphones on, I really can't hear people yelling in the house, I can't hear the terrible terrible score of "The Aristocats", it's like it's not even happening.
* I don't think it's contagious -- nobody else has caught it yet, so it may be allergies.
Well, kind of. My very good friend and fellow pub-quizzer (and her delightful pub-quizzing husband) just bought a house around the corner from mine. Like, it's a three minute walk over there (unless you're accompanied by dilly-dallying preschoolers, in which case all bets are off).
She's a nerd and usually she works in a Real Office. But she's having a baby really soon. And she's not really taking any maternity leave to speak of. And she'll be working at home very soon. So we're plotting our own informal semi-regular co-working arrangement.
I know what you're thinking: Stella, aren't you always preaching that working at home isn't a substitute for daycare? It is absolutely true. You cannot really work with a kid around. I am also a person who came home from the hospital after having my second kid and immediately logged into to take one last bit of malingering code live before officially starting my maternity leave. The baby was asleep in her little carrier seat next to me, and I worked. A bit, and not because my manager asked it of me, but because I wanted to get a few things wrapped up so I could relax.
Newborns eat, sleep, and poop. In between, you're kind of left with vague worrying about whether they seem stuffy or not, checking to see if they're poopy, and messing around on Facebook. Why not be productive? If that's what you want to do.
So yes, we'll give the co-working thing a try on an ad hoc basis. I'm envisioning walking over there for lunch and then working for the afternoon. Or vice versa. Or her coming over after my older child gets home from school -- the big kid can look after the baby, and we can go partake of wi-fi and geekery.
But first she has to have the baby.
Is a non-trivially proportioned* jumping spider. I tried fruitlessly to take a good snap of him, but I don't have a good macro-mode on my camera so he's blurry in all the pictures. But Oh What a Lovely Spider: brown with orange spots on his body, four nice eyes, green mandibles, a real classic specimen.
He's a really good jumper though. I'm trying to keep an eye on him, so there aren't any unpleasant surprises during my one o'clock meeting.
*AKA: Big. Especially for something that jumps like this.
Stella would like to apologize for her paltry posting. She has taken on a secondary career as an amateur caterer for a friend's baby shower and has just been swamped, frankly. It's so much fun, though. I can see why people do this for a living. But as a second job it's a lot of work. But do stay tuned for more fabulous telecommuting fun soon.
Like Monday. As you were!
Stella would just like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. But of course, as we all know, being a telecommuter means never having to say, "I can't go into the office." Which would account for this post.
Happy night #4 of Hanukkah tonight, too. Maybe I'll make some latkes in the spirit of an ecumenical celebration!
You don't need me to tell you that Christmas and Hanukkah are fast approaching. Those of you lucky enough to celebrate Eid al-Adha are already out of the woods; congratulations. For the rest of us, however, there are a boatload of tasks to be completed to ensure a festive time will be had by all.
The most important preparation for telecommuters: reinforcing the sanctity of your home office. Seriously.
Your children may not go to school for weeks. They will be hopped up on goofballs and roaming around the house like a pack of goats, eating everything in sight and and playing Nintendo DS until you are ready to lose your mind. Maybe this is my children, but I suspect that other people's children may exhibit these same symptoms.
I'd like to recommend the following:
- Remind your children of the rules of engagement. For example, I have a sign that says NO that I hold up if they're peeking through my office window to come in while I'm on a call. Even the little one can read that, and they do a pretty good job of respecting it.
- Consider a lock. If you have very little kids, or it's really important that there be no interruptions or the perception of being anywhere other than a Real Office, a lock is essential. Preferably you'll want to get one that the kids can't open.
- Line up help. Even if you're home and your children are fairly self sustaining, you can buy yourself some time by getting some cousins or other slightly older people to hang out with them.
- Take a break. Don't forget to have fun with your kids, too. After all, the work will still be there even if you wander out of your office for half an hour to goof off with your little tykes. Don't be a grind.
I know. Just get a lock on the door. I'm way ahead of you.
Precisely. But without the bustle. Thank you, Wondermark, for capturing my life so eloquently. In my case, my colleagues spend much of the day asleep at their workstations. It is quite frustrating because I'm working hard all day and it gets hard to hear myself think over their gentle snores.
Stella's little home office has been brightened up by yesterday's arrival of the depicted bouquet of flowers. No, they weren't sent "just because". My wonderful sisters and mother sent them to help me celebrate a milestone (or is that millstone? I guess it all depends on your perspective!) birthday.
Stella is older, wiser, and sturdier.
Okay, and now for the telecommuting angle on this: You should not fail to have plants and flowers in your office. It's pleasant, soothing for the eyes, and it makes you feel special.
Now isn't that special?
Don't get me wrong: I do not take care of my children during the day whilst working. I'm not "working at home", I'm working, and as a general rule, my job description does not include parenting.
Once my workday is done, naturally I'm on the mommy tip, making sandwiches and the like. But during the day, I am not here. Seriously. Don't ask.
When school is out, the little kid still goes to preschool, but the big one really is big -- twelve. She's quite old enough to make sandwiches, go swimming, take a bike ride around our quiet neighborhood, and so on. But somehow just having her around all summer takes away just a little bit from my focus.
Today I put my finger on it: having someone around the house who is really in the local timezone rather than in my otherworldy East Coast existence is really distracting at a psychic level. It hit me as I made pasta with pinenuts and romano cheese today at ten in the morning. Without a pre-teen lounging around sluggishly in her pajamas, it was easy to stay in my East Coast mindset.
I know, it's a little deranged. But this is how it works for me.
Or at least Sandia Peak has been conquered. Cancer may take a few more years, but thanks to your support, Stella is proud to say that we've done a little bit to fund cancer research and patient education. THANK YOU!
More details: it was definitely a long walk. It turns out that six and a half miles straight uphill moving from 9,000 to 11,000 feet is the kind of thing your body notices. Most especially your feet will let you know that you've done something a little out of the ordinary. But no matter, it was a beautiful day, and walking through the Cibola National Forest was a treat.
