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The Truth About Working From Home
Author: Fiona Heares

The idea of being stay at home mums & dads and working from home appeals to many people and it can seem like the ideal situation. We can all think of the positives about working from home - no traffic, no rush to get to work on time, the freedom to work your own hours, being your own boss to a degree etc etc etc.. BUT, with it come its own unique set of challenges read on and don't say I didn't warn you :)

Be Prepared for:

Endless interruptions from friends who think you are at home to have coffee and talk on the phone with them. I love having friends call over and a good "goss", but the constant flow becomes just a little disruptive and when they turn up with a bottle of wine.....there goes the work for the rest of the day or night... I am seriously considering hiding my car when I am home:)
To get the credibility.

People seem to think it isn't like having a "real job" and that it is actually some sort of hobby or past time. "So how's the computer going, enjoying the chat?, what games have you got loaded on your computer?" Games, games? GAMES?? I wish I had the TIME for play. Please people I am at home but I AM working hard, seriously. Inevitably your at-home work will interfere with and disrupt other family members lives and or routines. In my house the phone tends to get tied up for my business calls and faxes and computer much to the frustration of other family members (in particular my teenage daughter !!). The converse is true too when my teenage daughter spends hours on the phone to her friends that she only saw an hour ago! She is showing great potential with her social skills....

Computer sharing with the children...some words of advice.. BUY, beg, borrow or STEAL if you have to, another computer for your kids!! Without fail, right in the middle of writing some brilliant article or a huge submission, one of the children will always ask to use the computer which they absolutely NEED right NOW for homework (.....funny I used to have to use reference books - how old fashioned of me!) I also have this irrational fear that the children will one day erase ALL my work.

So I ended up buying a zip drive (just in case hehehe). The kids seem to think it's quite novel having a computer geek for a mum and drag their friends over to look and snicker. Then they want to show them "all the neat stuff on the computer" and offer to scan their friends limbs and body parts.....One day I fear I shall end up with an unmentionable part of some child's anatomy embedded in a business document I have prepared for an important client. Managing all the work I do at home and my business is certainly a juggling act (and that's putting it politely!).

Because I am at home, other family members think they have a live in house-keeper!! I mean to say do I look like a... oh well maybe yes, I do a bit, when I sit at the pc in my jammies... yes well point taken, I shall endeavor to get dressed through the day. Although I don't get stuck in traffic jams (hahaha who am I kidding - traffic jams in Dunedin??? I don't think so - maybe a queue or two??), working from home means I am not in the central business district and that any business I have to conduct I must drive into town for. Sometimes I have to go in two or 3 times a day, which clocks up a nice little petrol bill at the end of the week.

Those of you who are working at home, have you ever noticed how business papers and equipment have a perverse way of creeping into your living areas and overtaking your home? - Kinda like the weeds in my garden that I no longer have the time to attend to - oh well some of them have nice flowers.

You would imagine that working from home would give you MORE time to spend with your family, and to do things you enjoy, right? Wrong! You work harder at home. Because your office and computer are in your home there is a tendency to " just pop in for 5 mins" to finish a piece of work. 5 mins leads to an hour and an hour can go all night... and you never get away from it and you can never get away from your business phone. It even rings in your sleep.

People in NY don't realize it's 3am the next morning in Dunedin. Needless to say these calls do nothing for sleep patterns.

The children think I am exclusively home for them and right in the middle of a business call with the CEO to our biggest customer they start a screaming match for my attention.

I try to sound nonchalant about the staff taking liberties and having the radio on too loud and desperately flail my arms about trying to get the children to move out of hearing range.

The tendency is to work in peace into the wee small hours after everyone else is in bed. When I do finally drag myself off to the sack and am just about to drift off to dreamland an absolutely fantastic idea pops into my head and I immediately have to rush to the office and email it to my business partner before I forget it.... my forgetfulness may have something to do with the lack of sleep you think? :)

Then after a busy night of phone calls and ideas and only an hours sleep I have to leap out of bed and get the family off to school and work. So why do we do it?

Because we LOVE it !!, We love the challenges, we love the products we sell, we love promoting the talents of our fellow Kiwis to the rest of the world, we love the learning and the new skills we are gaining.

We like working in our jammies (although being caught out by the courier guy can be a little embarrassing ). We love that we can try out our own ideas, we love talking to an American accent at 3am in the morning and trying to sound like it's only mid afternoon here in Dunedin and our croaky voice is due to a bit of a cold :))

But we especially love the people we meet through the internet and the encouragement and support and feedback we get which inspires us on to continue!!

Our Contributing Writer
Fiona Heares, Dunedin, New Zealand
info@jofi.net
http://www.jofi.net

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