I’ve been working from home for six years now and I seriously can’t believe it has been that long! That is the longest I’ve been at any job. I guess that means then I am doing well. But as a business owner I’ve had to deal with the usual stuff such as getting new clients, employee issues and cash flow ups and downs. Of course working from home has been great because I can come and go when ever I want, but then if I am not working I don’t get paid. Normally, when you work in an office, if you go to the bathroom, attend a company meeting or stand in someone’s cube for 20 minutes and gossip then you get paid.
There is something that has been bothering me and I haven’t been able to figure out what my problem is, I’ve been in a little funk. Then a few weeks ago I started to play Christmas music at home while I am working. Then it came to me, my problem is that I am lonely and I miss all that goes along with the holiday time in the office. When you work at home it can be lonely with only two cats to talk to, but they sleep through most of the morning anyway so they aren’t much help. I miss having people around me while I am working, and this is funny because when I worked at the ISO is used to drive me nuts when people would hang out by where I worked and chat it up with me because then I couldn’t get my work done. But now I miss that…see I said that it was funny.
I do have clients that I talk to from time to time and team members that I connect with about projects but we just talk about work. Nothing can replace having someone in the next cubical to talk to about what you are doing for the Holidays and there is no one to hang out with during the company Christmas party. I suppose that I can solve this problem by going to some local networking functions and connecting with other local Virtual Assistants but guess what? If I am not home working, then I am not getting paid. So you see there is this catch 22 if I don’t work during the day then I have to work at night but I don’t want to work at night or on the weekends. Actually, it isn’t that I don’t want to it’s that I CAN’T. There is just too much going on with the girls at night and on the weekends it is virtually (hahaha) impossible for me to sit down in my office and work at night or on the weekends.
In addition to being lonely, I am also missing that separation of work life and family life and I want a paid vacation and paid sick days because I don’t get those ‘perks’ unless I put money aside and save for it. Although as I mentioned before that I can’t work at nights or on the weekends it doesn’t mean that I don’t try to or that I don’t think about work. So to solve this problem I just need to be more disciplined and not look at my email outside of my normal working hours but that is kind of hard to do when you are helping other people run their business.
Now that Abby is having a great time at her preschool and Lily is in school all day I am thinking about going back to work. I know, it sounds NUTS, it sounded nuts in my head too when I was thinking about it. I know, I know I just finished my Online Business Manager Certification but I think I might be able to still apply what I learned in that program to a J.O.B. You see, it isn’t that I don’t like what I am doing, but I would go back for my mental well being. I miss talking with humans and I think I want to at least explore this new idea. So while I will still be working from home I am going to be sprucing up my resume, getting some new work clothes and seeking out new opportunities. Who knows, in the process I might end up making some changes in my home office that will make me happier or that perfect office job might just come along and I will take it. We shall see what 2012 brings and don’t get me wrong 2011 has been great but I think I am ready for a change.
