Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Recovering

I started working with this company 11 years ago, I used to have to be in the office everyday. Not only did we have a big team, but it wasn't as easy to work from home. It was fun to come in, work face to face with people, catch up on office gossip.

Slowly, the contractors we had working in this office cycled off my projects and went back to India or onto other projects. Full time employees quit or moved. As we've gotten new people, they have all opted to be based out of New Jersey or Chicago (surprisingly, a small city 40 miles outside of Boston is not attractive to 20-something new hires). So, it's to the point that I'm the only one in my division that works in this office. Which is fine, because I have plenty of people I'm friendly with that I don't work with. But, it does make it so it really doesn't matter if I work here or from home, so I work from home three days a week. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I'm a pretty social person, so I find that I like to come in and be with people during the workday - so I've worked out a system where I'm here on Tuesday/Thursday, and home the rest of the time. On the days that I drive in, that is when I get groceries on the way home, or go out for lunch with local friends. It's a nice balance.

But when I work from home, especially on Monday's - it's all about recovery. Our weekends are booked pretty solid, and in all honesty, both Aaron and I were looking forward to going back to work on Monday to take a nice, deep breath. I treasure my Monday mornings. I know it sounds crazy, but my Monday mornings are awesome this summer. I get up at 6:30, drive to swimming, work out with a nice group of ladies in an outdoor pool, and by the time I get home, Aaron has taken the kids to school. I usually makes some waffles from the leftover waffle mix (Aaron makes waffles with the kids on the weekends) and I get to work. In a silent house. It's awesome.

When I get annoyed with workplace politics or a stretch of long hours, I think of how rare my work situation is, and I take a deep breath and just deal with it. Although as telecommuting is becoming easier and more common, my set up isn't as rare - but I know how lucky I am!

4 comments:

BrandiH said...

All I can say is... Jealous.

As much as I wish I could, I don't think I could be a full time SAHM, but I'd love to be home more. I too am social, but I don't really like the people I work with. They are nice, but they are all men old enough to be my dad and then the interns that aren't out of college yet. I wish I could work from home...

Cece said...

Brandi - that is my workplace too! But there is one guy my age, and I'm friends with a few of the dad aged guys. It isn't like we go out drinking, but at least I get to shoot the shit with someone other than my dog during the day.

Beth Kyle said...

I used to work from home two days a week, but over the last year with my masters program I moved that to one day, really, and the second was at the university. Then a few months ago our CEO decided that effective immediately anyone who lived within 60 miles of the office was required to be in the office every day.

Talk about a culture shift! I live about 45 miles from the office. This change really does suck. I have been here for 11 years too, and I thought that by staying I was taking advantage of a very flexible environment. It is very frustrating. Oh, and to make it even better, over 50% of our staff work remotely, so just because we live within 60 miles of our office we are not allowed the same options that other workers are allowed, even when we have worked here many more years.

I have found that my body absolutely misses that Friday at home. By Friday evening I am so exhausted that my weekend is spent in recovery! I guess that is why they call it a weekend, but they weren't thinking of working mothers, I think. :)

HereWeGoAJen said...

I used to work from home part of the time and I loved it. The main reason was that because when someone needed something, they had to decide that it was important enough to call me for. When I was in the office, they just asked me to do it. When I was at home, they found that they could deal with a lot of their little problems all by themselves.