Tag Archives: inability to tune out loud noises

5 Things I Wish People Understood About Working From Home

Posted on by

0

The business world is all in a kerfuffle this week after Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!’s CEO, told all employees working remotely that they either needed to come to work in the office or quit. This is interesting considering the fact that so many businesses are offering their employees the ability to work from home at least some of the time.

What’s the BFD, Marissa Mayer!?

Don't be like that, girl.

Don’t be like that, girl.

I work from home, and while I occasionally wish I was around other people during the day, I can’t imagine going back into a rigidly structured environment again the way I did when I was teaching — having to be there at a certain time, having an agenda for the day (that never stuck past first period anyway), not being able to leave until a certain time, having to frequently wear pantyhose and heels. For the record, in case you’ve never gone outside to scrape ice off of your car before 7 a.m. while wearing a skirt when it’s 15 degrees outside, it sucks. This is but another of the many reasons I feel so fortunate to be able to work from home.

This conversation about working remotely is kind of timely for me as I’ve been realizing a lot lately that I’m not sure people really get what I do all day. I don’t mind helping people out, but I do mind when they want me to run all over the place for several hours in the middle of the day. “Can’t you just do your work later?” they ask.

Sigh.

So with that in mind, I’ve come up with my own little listy-poo here of things that I wish people understood about working from home.

**Please note that, as always, what I write on this blog is a lot of tongue-in-cheek. Any resemblance to any of my friends or family members is purely coincidental. When I mention my actual family members, that’s not a coincidence, though. Or is it? All references to my dogs are 100% accurate. Got a problem? Please address all concerns to Vanilla Ice (né Rob Van Winkle). He’ll solve it.

Continue reading →

All the Concentration I Have

Posted on by

0

In my last post, I talked about writing through blocks – writer’s block, that is. I was eager to try this out and had (and, really, continue to have) high hopes.

I went on vacation for 5 days and, knowing that there wasn’t a chance that I’d have time to work on the novel, decided it wasn’t worth lugging the computer through the airport. So I didn’t. This week continues to be very busy for me, but I am bound and determined to  work on the novel around my appointments this week and my weekend out of town. This writing plan will not happen between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Yesterday when we all woke up in our own beds, we got up and moved the furniture out of most of our first floor. This morning, with a pillow over my head, I could quite clearly hear the entire conversation happening between my father and the workers who will be refinishing our hardwood floors. Then the hammers started, followed by the tearing noises. About a half hour later, I came out of my room to discover that the carpet in the living and dining rooms was gone. I brought the dogs down to the basement, took some allergy medicine to combat the dust flying around here, and spent the morning with the dogs. When I emerged at lunch time to take a shower while the workers were out, the carpet in the hallway and the stairs was gone. There continues to be a massive amount of noise coming from upstairs. It sounds like my house is imploding. How will I write through this? I can barely focus on this blog entry. Continue reading →