Working At Home

I've been working at home for about eight years now. I am a medical transcriptionist; I type up reports of your visits to the doctor. Well, probably not yours specifically unless you live in my smallish city and go to a certain hospital. I don't work for a national company; I transcribe local doctors and work as an independent subcontractor for a local businesswoman who owns a transcription business.

Working at home is amazing. One of my best friends since grade school works at home too. I can work whatever hours I need to as long as I get my work done before the 24-hour deadline, while my friend works set hours every day. We both have small children that we have to run to and/or pick up from school. Both of our jobs allow us to avoid daycare expenses.  Working at home is great.

In the real world, that cereal would spill
on the counter, the OJ would end up
all over the laptop, and mom would
find a better place to type her work.

Except when it isn't. My friend and I went to Chico Hot Springs with our other childhood bffs last weekend, and we confessed to each other that we have become no-showering, dirty-clothes-wearing, stank breath, messy haired slobs. Our other friends piped up that they'd love it if they could roll out of bed and go to work. And that IS nice. To a point. My friend said she sometimes went four days without showering. I admitted I almost always sleep in my bra and often wear the same clothes for two days in a row. I never wear makeup.  So my friend, who may have been totally sloshed, insisted we make a pact.  At least four days of our work week (I talked her down from all five days), we will get up and shower or wash our faces. We will fix our hair. We will put on makeup (she even gave me some makeup, since mine is pretty much decimated with four little girls in the house) or at least earrings. We will get dressed in real pants (difficult for me since I have exactly three pairs of jeans, but still doable).

I'd already decided I needed to start caring for myself. Hell, even just changing my underwear and washing my face makes me feel like a new woman, so I started getting dressed every day, even if it was yoga pants, and began wearing earrings again. I've amassed a few pairs as gifts over the years. I'm all about hair flowers, too, so instead of makeup I'll probably be doing hair flowers and earrings.

Another difficult thing about working at home is that there are so many DISTRACTIONS. Especially now that we have seven kids in the house, there is always someone who needs me to do something. Someone wants to read to me--how can I say no to that? Chores need to be supervised, fights need to be extinguished, dinner needs to be served, etc., etc., etc.  So at times, work that would take me four to five hours takes me ten hours. This means I'm distracted during all things.  When I'm working, I feel bad for ignoring the children. When I'm doing something for the children, I feel guilty about not working. It's something I need to work on changing, these feelings, because neither thing gets my full attention.

Even with the distractions and lack of personal care, I love working at home. It's the only way I can work realistically right now, with seven kids, one vehicle, and a partner who works outside the home. I know how lucky I am to be able to do this--but that doesn't mean it's all blissfully rolling out of bed and performing my work until finished, and then attending to the children's needs. It's a mishmashmosh of coffee breath, sock buns, and getting my ears used to sporting earrings again.

I'm trying.