Working from Home

I am fortunate to have a job that can be done remotely. I am also fortunate to get paid for doing what I'm gifted to do, work that on most days satisfies me. These working conditions place me with the elite of the world. I have a job; I am fairly compensated; I receive good benefits; I actually enjoy the work. And sometimes I get to work from home.

So if you ever hear me bitching about work, do not hesitate to remind me of my privilege.

I would feel guilty about working from home, except that I've been doing this work for about twenty-four years, and I have paid my dues. For more than seven years, in the beginning of my career, I commuted 3-5 hours every day. In those days I also took in freelance assignments, just to pay the bills. Also, I was beginning a writing career, and I could not pass up any opportunity to get my work out there. So I wrote or edited all the time. On the train. On the weekends. Late at night or early in the morning. On vacation. The laptop came along on Christmas break, no matter whose family we visited, because there was always some deadline pressing.

Still there are deadlines pressing. Still I take writing and speaking gigs, not so much to pay the bills but to finance home improvements and infrequent vacations. I will probably die at my editorial desk. I am a member of the working, shrinking middle class, and many of us must put off retirement longer than we imagined back in our twenties. I don't point this out to receive any sympathy; but such realities give me good reason to enjoy whatever privileges I can.

And on a day like today, when there was a morning physical therapy appointment down the road, and when my one task was to get a file edited ASAP, it makes good sense to save an hour or two of commuting time by moving my office to the sitting room or back porch. Also, when I'm not in the office, the only interruptions are those important enough to merit someone calling me on the landline. E-mail is the same as always, but no one steps inside my cube for an ad hoc discussion. Some days, other human beings are the biggest distractions. At home, the only other human is my husband, who is, like me, an introvert and spends most of the day messing around with photos on the computer downstairs. We say hello three or four times, maybe have lunch together.

Cats are allowed to interrupt me because they have magical powers and I never turn down the opportunity to stroke soft fur while gazing into eyes that pretend to adore me. If I lose a few minutes every hour because a feline summons me, I choose to think of these not as interruptions but little rejuvenations. Pity we can't have an office cat or two.

I also think it helpful to have a few household tasks scattered through the workday. They get me out of the chair and allow my brain to reboot. Nice not to have to haul food on the train, too. When I leave the house for work, I have automatically begun a twelve-hour day, given commuting time plus the inevitable errand thrown in because my train is within walking distance of Walgreens or my dentist or the gym. So every day I go to the office, I pack for a full day--workout clothes, lunch, reading for the train, work materials, canvas grocery bag . . . Every evening I spend half an hour planning the next day's packing. Every morning I embark upon a mini-pilgrimage.

Today, no pilgrimage, just a candle on the little table next to the teapot. Today I am stationary except for a brief trip to the garden for a handful of herbs--another advantage to a day working from home is that I can cook dinner, something I hardly ever do anymore.

See, even when I don't work from home, I'm working most of the time, because my work happens mainly in thought and phrase, and this stuff never leaves me alone completely. I will be brushing my teeth while trying to solve some copyediting riddle; sautéing onions while dissecting a new manuscript into its main parts. I try to leave work at the office, but a good story about the new pope hums in my mind long after the file is saved and closed for the day. An author's Facebook post reels me in, because, in my world, so many authors become friends. This is the kind of work that a person is quite fortunate to take home with her.