Adding more work from home

 Telecommuting, writing  Comments Off on Adding more work from home
May 082010
 

My hand with butterfly strips once stitches were removed

My hand has almost healed after surgery end of March after a fall. My hand’s flexibility has come a long way after some concern I would have a “claw” hand forever. It’s meant a lot of patience and physical therapy.

As a matter of fact, my physical therapist told me yesterday that it might be the last time I would see them depending on what my surgeon says next week. This was a big deal. I was potentially graduating from physical therapy and go back to normal life, although the bones will take about two more weeks to fully heal.

The healing has meant most significantly that I can change my daughter’s diapers with both hands and can more adequately carry her. It’s also meant that I can type with both hands. I’ve never appreciated this as much as I do now! Right after the fall, I accepted new writing work and this past week, some more.

This means I now have deadlines to meet. It’s somewhat of an adjustment and maybe a little stressful, but a good stress. I think I thrive on deadlines and goals that need to be met. I’ve always had a strong drive to excel and have probably taken on too much at times in my life. I may need to watch for this, but for now, I feel revved up by taking on as much as I can.

Probably my biggest incentive to work as hard as I can working from home is to not have to see cube walls again. Maybe for me, wanting freedom, flexibility, and balance, the image of being in a cube is starting to feel like failure for what I want. I remain amazed at how telecommuting has still not taken become more of a norm in civilized society. There seem to be so many benefits for all parties, including the planet in less driving. Technology exists to do much from home.

I imagine that when my children are adults, there will be more “hubs” for telecommuters – places where people have occasional face-to-face meetings while the majority of work is done from home or wherever the individual desires. What should matter is the end result of work getting done, and not the geographic location of an individual.

My hand without strips

The Need to Telecommute to Find Balance

 Telecommuting  Comments Off on The Need to Telecommute to Find Balance
Aug 052009
 

An area I have come to feel passionate about is telecommuting.  When I worked in corporate America for many years, not being allowed to telecommute was a constant frustration while trying to raise my son.  It was hard to understand the logic behind spending at least two hours a day driving to and from work while my son spent from 6:30 am to 6 pm in daycare along with school.  Life felt like such a grind and I was like a rat on a treadmill.  I was also in school much of this time, getting an MBA, which made life even more challenging in terms of finding balance.  I knew that it was temporary and that someday I would begin to live the lifestyle I had imagined.

I am now starting to live a lifestyle where balance is a possibility.  I am trying to build work that I can do from home and can hopefully someday find profit in.  Eventually, it would be wonderful to have a profitable business that allows me flexibility while trying to nurture the lives of my family and home.  I could then stay off the treadmill and not feel like life is such a grind.

It is amazing that more has not already gotten accomplished in the area of telecommuting.  It seems there was some push for it a while back, but not much happened.  I know in my experience, I heard of the lack of trust management has for employees in getting work done.  This concern is not realistic in our high tech times.  If employees wanted to waste time, they could do so from their cubes as well.  No boss is standing over the shoulder of an employee to see what is being done.  What must be looked at is the end result.  Is work somehow getting done?  If so, then it doesn’t matter with what technological device or from where.

If employees work from home, the company is then able to save a bundle in facility costs, employees aren’t on the road causing accidents, fuel is saved, which also helps the environment, and everyone is happier!

Here’s a resource on the topic:  Telecommuting 101

How I Came to Here

 Musing on Identity  Comments Off on How I Came to Here
Jun 232009
 

Over a year ago, in April of ’08, I was laid off.   I had worked in the aerospace industry since 2001, specifically in contracts, and it was time to move on.  Prior to that, I had worked primarily in marketing and had finished an MBA in Market Strategy a year prior to the lay-off that I was hoping to eventually utilize to transition back to marketing.  In the meantime, my new husband and I were hoping to have a child and it all seemed to be appropriate timing.  After a miscarriage around the same time as the lay-off, we were lucky enough to get pregnant soon after and now have a 4 month-old daughter.  I already have an 11 year-old son from a previous marriage and feel blessed to have my little girl as well.

One of the issues I struggled with while working outside of the home, particularly as a single mom, was a desire to have more balance in my life and to telecommute more.  It was frustrating to have my son in daycare from 6:30am to 6pm while I drove two hours daily to get to and from work.  It was the same in the summer when I wanted him to be in specific camps and activities for his enrichment, but had to keep him in full-time daycare because I could not leave work to take him to those activities.   It was even more frustrating to realize that most of my work was done using a computer, which I had at home.  I was even emailing my colleage in the next office, rather than walking over.  The nice, big office with custom furniture I was in seemed wasted.  I wondered how much the company would save in facility costs if they didn’t use so many resources for employees; and the employees would be happier because they wouldn’t have to pretend they didn’t have other parts to their lives, and would maybe stay with the company longer! ***sigh***

When I finally requested to possibly leave a few hours earlier to pick up my son from school and work from home, my boss saw it as a personal affront.  He thought he was being taken advantage of…

What I’ve come to learn about the lack of support for more telecommuting is a lack of trust from management and a concern from HR that other employees will be jealous.  This does not make sense since no supervisor is looking over the shoulders of employees all day long to determine productivity.  All one can look at is the ultimate result.  Is the work getting done?  Co-workers wouldn’t be jealous if they can have the same benefit if they desire.  I have seen instances where some employees in some departments got to telecommute some of the time and others did not.  Ridiculous! It felt like a clique in high school you couldn’t get into.  How did these people become the “chosen telecommuting people??”  Were their lives more valuable than mine??

I hope that when my daughter is an adult, much change will have occurred in this area and she will be amazed at the resistance there was in allowing people to have more balance in their lives.

I am always pleased to see women achieve this and the following article is an example:  CNN Article on Self-Employment