Before those who work at home jump to kill me I must clarify that I work at home. Well, this post comes from a comment that someone made the other day and that seems to be the majority view among people who have a “normal” job. Consider the situation:

As each evening I went out to the street to have a coffee with my girlfriend, we live together and since, as I said, work at home, I use this outlets to have a little break from work. As we walk, someone greets my girlfriend and asks what’s normal at this time, “how are you?” “you’ll go out on holidays?” … to what Carmen (my very dear and never well praised girlfriend) said that she gets her holidays on August but we won’t go anywhere because I have no holidays. To what the other person replied “ah, what a pity. But hey, your work is as if you were not working,so…”. Finally, we said goodbye very politely and went to take the coffee,

In other words, do work at home is not working?. Let’s see, the Cambridge Dictionary defines work as: 1.verb (I/T) to use effort in doing something, esp. a job or to use effort for (a period of time), for which you are paid and job as: noun [C] the regular work which a person does to earn money. Among several other meanings that are beside the point. What is most annoying is when the person who says that, works in an office, sitting in front of a computer. In other words, compare workdays:

That person gets up, goes to the office, working his 8-hour day (ignore overtime if any), goes to his/her house and forget (usually) about work until the following day.
In my case (I speak for me since I do not know anyone else who works at home), I get up, put me in my studio in front of the computer and start my day ….. and that’s it. I do not know when I will finish each day, but the norm is that 8 hours are few. The worst thing is that you can not forget about the work. You have it a couple of steps away from your TV, your bedroom, and so on. Anyone, whether being at home remembers an item of work the best he/she thinks is “tomorrow, when I get to the office will do this or that,” or “I have to pass these reports”, etc., and then, can focus on something else. If I remember any item of work while watching TV, usually get up, sit in front of the computer and do that in what I’m thinking …. whatever the time it is. We must be fair and say that also influences the nature of work of each one, in my case, I am an illustrator, implying that I never stop thinking about that drawing you’re doing at that time, or you are not “teleworker” (I hate that expression, by the way).

But finally, it seems that, leaving apart the dictionary meaning, for most people, the fundamental difference by which a “decent and normal” work is defined as such is the fact of having to travel to come to it. It does not matter you work comparatively more hours, it does not matter you can not disconnect from work. As you are not “going to the office” you’re not working. For most, work at home is like having a perpetual holiday and power to do what they want, when they want and no one tells you anything. Very nice on paper, although no one usually look at the disadvantages. While it is true that you have greater flexibility, that “nobody will tell you anything” can end up being a disadvantage because you still have to meet delivery schedules exactly as if you were working in any other place, but with the disadvantage that have many more distractions. It’s also a lonely job, you do not have colleagues with whom discuss the day, you can put the messenger on and chat with someone, but not the same thing and at the end it’s all chatting rather than work. That for not commenting on the constant interruptions from people who, without malice, thinks that like you’re at home can ask anything without having to worry because “you can finish what you’re doing later can’t you?”. As a curiosity, just say that I have met many people (on the Internet, in several illustration forums) who used to work at home and finally stopped doing so because they could not stand it. They set up a studio with several coleagues for, at least, “go to the office” and be able to disconnect from work or they accepted a “normal” illustration related office work. In my case, at least for the moment, what I’m taking it pretty good, but you never know.

Anyway, I do not intend with this post to analyze the pros and cons of one type of job or th other. I just simply wanted to record and write for venting.

Let the “discussion” of who works more, a bricklayer or a clerk for another day…

I said.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 5:08 and is filed under General, Works.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.