Before one of my recent business trips to Manchester, my eight-year-old son expressed concerns about my sleeping arrangements. It seems that, until my wife explained that I would be staying in a hotel overnight, he\u00a0thought that I might have a comfy chair to sleep in, in the office!<\/p>\n
Sometimes though, it does feel as though that might be the approach I need to take…<\/p>\n
Ten or so years ago, working from home was an\u00a0occasional\u00a0event – and I could get done in 5 hours at home what took 8 in the office (no distractions), with the added advantage of no travel. Since 2005, I’ve officially been a “home-based worker” with varying degrees of working on customer sites and, in recent years, typically working from home most days with only a couple of days in the office each week.<\/p>\n
This has some significant advantages (both to me and to my employer) – I’ve seen my kids grow up, never missed a school nativity play, or sports day etc. but it also re-calibrates the expectation of working at home. The new normal is to be in my home office for a full day – and then to probably go back again in the evening. \u00a0I don’t have a desk at the company office (I barely even use a hot desk), and modern communications mean that I’m contactable almost 24×7, if I choose to be (at least 12×5).<\/p>\n
These last few weeks have reached a new level and this week was particularly bad.<\/p>\n
On one day this week I had no breaks between dropping the kids at school and wall to wall conference calls. \u00a0I had to ask my wife to bring me toast and Marmite when it reached 11:00 and I hadn’t managed to get any breakfast, then to do the same for me with a sandwich at lunchtime (munched on mute whilst taking part in a call). At 15:30 I finally got off the phone (mobile phone battery severely depleted, my ear seriously warm) to deal with the day’s email – and it was the evening before I got around to doing something productive.<\/p>\n
I’m slightly embarrassed to say that, on one day, I managed to go straight from bed (after working into the small hours the night before) to work, and back to bed again in the evening without having got dressed. I do feel sometimes as though I live at work, rather than work at home.<\/p>\n
So, the next time someone is working at home, and you joke about skiving off, remember that the 9-5 has its advantages too…<\/p>\n
This weekend, I’ll be continuing my drive to separate home and work IT (just as I do for telephony) in a quest to be able to switch off the laptop at evenings and weekends…<\/p>\n
I can but dream…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"