I’ve been living ‘the dream’ all year, going it alone as a sole trader after being made redundant at the end of 2014. It has been a lot of hard work but I’m starting to make something that resembles a living out of my endeavours.
My office is the dining room table and my only company each day is the dog, who is the quietest, but also the smelliest coworker I’ve ever had.
Before I started working from home full time I had a clear picture of afternoons spent typing in the sun, lunchtime swim breaks and hardly any stress. I’ve since found there are several drawbacks to combining your home and your work life:
There’s no building manager
Gone are the days when I could send indignant emails to the person responsible for my comfort at work. I composed these missives regularly back at my old job, questioning why it was so difficult to calm the “cyclonic winds” blowing from the air conditioning vent over my workspace and declaring that they were turning me into a “popsicle of unproductivity”.
How I wish for the mild chill of a city office! My house, on a winter morning, is colder than a White Walker’s willy. I’m too tight fisted to have the heater on at full blast all day. Instead I’m forced to work huddled under a blanket, clutching a hot water bottle and contemplating lighting a fire with my collection of first edition Oscar Wilde publications just to stay warm.
The lunch options are abysmal
On the one hand, by having zero access to tempting cafes and food courts, I’m saving heaps of money. But I never fully appreciated the lunchtime stroll to pick up a toasted prosciutto panini and overpriced acai juice until it was ruled out as an option.
My pantry is such a shamefully boring canteen! I’ve resorted to grabbing a fork and eating baked beans from a can most days. I may as well be a student again.
The lack of other humans
There are no hushed conspiratorial whispers in the toilets or furtive bitchy emails when you’re a sole trader.
The drama of office politics was actually one of the things I enjoyed most about having a job. I tried sitting around complaining about how lazy and unproductive I am to myself, but it’s just not the same.
For company lately, I’ve resorted to watching the midday TV shows that no real people witness. I’m so desperate for intrigue that I’ve fabricated a whole plotline of unresolved sexual tension between the presenters on Antiques Road Trip.
Housework guilt
“You work from home? You must have so much more time to get things done!” my friends marvel jealously.
Sigh. Yes, I have more time to get things done. But I hate housework. Going to the office was the perfect excuse to never do it. All I really have is more time not to get things done.
Not having to commute means there are plenty of hours a day in which I could be mopping the floors or cleaning the fridge. I prefer to spend them eating baked beans and watching Antiques Road Trip.
The days start blending together and there’s no incentive to shower
The sloth is my spirit animal and my personal favourite deadly sin but things are really starting to get out of hand. Sometimes I realise that it’s 4pm and I’m still wearing the clothes I slept in. Worse still, those clothes aren’t even pyjamas, they’re the clothes I had on the day before … or was it the day before that?
Working from home full time was a long-held goal for me and I’ve finally achieved it. But the old saying of the grass being greener rings very true. Now I find myself talking to people and saying “You have a job? That must be so nice!”
Clea Sherman is a freelance writer based on Sydney’s Scotland Island. She does venture off the island for meetings (and she promises to bathe beforehand).
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