Home Office Blues
A lot of people tell me I’m lucky - I work from home, I don’t have to go to the office (no more than once a week, anyway) I don’t have to endure the commute.
And yeah, people say telecommuting improves your quality of life.
That’s only true, however, if you have a life to improve.
Otherwise, you’re just working longer hours than most people. Show up at the office, and there’s a dividing line between work hours and me-hours… at least during my infrequent commutes I’ve enough time to read a book or listen to some music.
When you’re working from home, you have to have strict rules on your schedule. Unfortunately that doesn’t work too well with my standard work pattern.
So most days I end up configuring a database while I’m doing the dishes, or talking with a client while I’m cooking. My mouse is starting to smell of garlic.
I know I’m going over my billable 40 hours a week, but I can’t help it - once I get my teeth into a problem, I can’t sleep until I’ve done everything humanly possible to solve it. So now, I’m getting about five or six hours sleep - hitting the sack at around two or three AM.
Still, that’s an improvement over the 2-3 hour sleep on weekdays and then collapsing for 16 hours straight on the weekends routine that I used to have back in UP. I’m kinda relishing having ONE job, and only one job. Oh, and getting paid for working, for a change.
I am starting to settle into a routine, although this shut-in life isn’t that good. I don’t leave the apartment for days, save for quick trips downstairs to take out the trash or do the laundry. I am seriously tempted to have groceries delivered.
That’s not gonna be healthy. Unfortunately the way my job works, I need to be there in the late afternoons and evenings, when our clients in Texas quit for the day and we can take the servers down for testing or installation or whatever. So the only free time I have is late at night (when you can’t go out) or early in the morning (which I’d rather use for sleep).
Ah, well. My friends back home are asking when I’ll be playing WoW again. I don’t think I have enough time now to dedicate to developing an MMORPG addiction, but then due to my short attention span, I’m not much of a gaming addict. And I may not be up to paying $15 a month for a game I’ll only be playing on the weekends.
Oh, well. Maybe someday the workload will cut back a bit, or maybe someday I’ll get offered a better job with less hours and more money.
Riiight. That ain’t happening anytime soon.
Maybe someday. But not now.
