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.

Me type. Me no write.

The only reason I wear my pajamas to work is because my
ruffly dress is at the cleaners!

About a year ago, I took a promotion.  I'm a medical transcriptionist, and technically I'm an independent subcontractor, so there's this relationship thing where the woman who assigns me my work is not actually my employer, but we interact in some ways as if she is, and it's all good.  I've been typing for a living for almost eight years now, and it's been a perfect type of work for me for several reasons:

1.  I types real fast, y'all.  *shakes her money makers*
2.  I get to work at home.  Mixed blessing, but a blessing, no question, especially with kids.
3.  I have a great memory, and memorization is a huge part of my job - I don't have to stop to look shit up.  Well, of course I do, but less and less often.  

So each day I'm assigned 1500 lines of work, which is a full-time load and probably eight solid hours of work for me.  My other job is running my household.  My husband helps out, but the bulk of all things domestic still falls on me.  About a year ago I got a raise because I started proofing my own work. I worked for this raise and it felt good, because I have a certain higher level of responsibility now, which didn't scare me as much as I thought it would.  I also started making more money, but it came with longer hours.  I started getting up earlier. 

When we got back to Montana four months ago, my husband got a job right away and began working long hours.  I kept up my long hours, usually 12 hours in my office, taking necessary breaks to take children places, prepare meals, and sometimes just goof off with my kids.  Then I had the opportunity to begin proofing other transcriptionists' work, which meant another small raise on top of a per line rate for the documents I proofread.  It adds at least an hour to my work day and adds about $300 to my check each month, $150 every paycheck.  Oh, and did I mention I took a big chunk of non-medical transcription as well, with no definite deadline but which is totally looming over me?

Meanwhile, my husband is working hella long hours at the restaurant.  All this is to say that we're now making enough money to get by.  We're able to pay our bills and buy some healthier groceries.  We've been able to take the kids to the local water park and for the first time in years (maybe ever) I bought my husband a father's day gift.  I'm still working on a budget, but I think we're doing all right now.  I hope to be able to get insurance for myself soon (my kids and husband are able to get health care on the Crow reservation nearby, though I do plan to sign my kids up for Healthy Montana Kids)

Working these long hours at home is different than working long hours on my feet like my husband does.  Today we had a mild disagreement about how much time he was allowed to relax on a day off.  I was a little bitchy.  I do love working at home, and I am lucky.  Every day I get up around 6, make coffee, and either shower or get right to work.  One by one as my kids wake up they come upstairs and push open the door, eyes squinty and chins crusted with drool.  They'll come close for hugs, and sometimes curl up on my lap or on the floor while they wake up for the day.  I pretty much treasure those moments.  But it breaks my heart when my four year-old says "Why do you always have to work a long day!" or when my eight year-old brings up the fact that we need to have some time alone together.  And so sometimes I take a break from work and have a picnic under the tree in our front yard, or watch a program with my kids.  Once in a while if I feel I can't make it through the day without, I'll ask one of my younger kids if they want to nap with me. They always say yes, and my favorite way to fall asleep is with my hand across their narrow bodies. 

So I make time for my kids, and I make time for my husband.  Even though I'm exhausted by 10 p.m., some weeknights and most weekends I'll stay up until he gets home at 11, 12, or 1, just so I can sit with him and hear about his day, and so I can tell him all the stories of what happened around the house.  We've still managed to have sex a couple of times a week through all this, and I'm so glad we still have the passion we've always had for each other.  Even being exhausted I can be quickly convinced by my extremely amorous hubby to participate in some bowchickawowow.


I work hard to make sure my relationships don't suffer, and of course I have tremendous guilt.  But something has to give, and so lately what gives is my writing time, and my reading time.  I'm trying to turn a thesis into a book, and I have no time and not much motivation to work on it.  When I finally get the kids to bed at night, I gotta do some cleaning.  I can't relax in the living room unless I pick up and sweep, and the dishes are my personal chore, so I have to keep up with that.  So around 10 p.m. I collapse on the couch (which we just got FREE from our neighbors at a garage sale) and ponder if I should read one of three books I'm in the middle of, or maybe do some writing, or if instead I should maybe watch one episode of Reno 911 and then take my sleeping pill and hit the sack or doze on the couch till High Hawk the hubby gets home.  Sadly, the latter's been winning almost all the time. 




Over a year's worth of notes! And
why yes, that IS Anchorman there
in the corner!

I'm so grateful to be able to move up in my work, to have this particular kind of work, and to be making enough money to get by.  But. 

 I started to borrow Anne Lamott's idea about writing words, ideas, sentences, etc., down on index cards.  I started with white, but then I got a stack of different colored ones, and when I'm typing away at medical records, if I have an idea for a blog post, I write it on a green index card.  Pink is for ideas for my manuscript, and orange is for a different book idea I have.  So I've got a stack of neon reminders that alternately inspire and taunt me, tease me and tempt me. 


Mostly, they just get scattered all over the floor.