Working from home is overrated and you need to know why
It’s trendy because of the global pandemic, but people have likely learned by now that working from home isn’t so great. Having worked from home for seven-ish years now, I feel very comfortable saying that. And it’s not only because I’m not wearing pants as I write this. It’s also because I’m laying in bed, with my heated lumbar support. I’m very comfortable saying all of this. So let me tell you why working from home isn’t so great!
First, I always have trouble deciding when I want to get up. “Be there at 8 am sharp,” was my mental mantra for almost a decade. Then I started working from home, and I have a window from 8 am to 11 am when I need to get started. I didn’t have to think about it too much before. It was so simple. Sometimes I’m up all night trying to decide when I want to get up. What am I supposed to do with so much freedom?
The freedom it offers can be exhausting. Sometimes I’ll wake up early, by accident, and I don’t want to start working yet. But I need to do SOMETHING. So I’ll go to the kitchen to make some delicious eggs and bacon, but find no eggs! And this happens all too often because I have the time to prepare well made delightful food every morning, and the eggs go so fast! I’ll have to endure a morning walk to the local store with cars lined up for blocks honking erratically. How inconvenient is that? I always prefer to have my walks after a nice lunch when everything in the streets is calm and the afternoon sun is shining. They don’t warn you about these complications that a work from home job can create. I mean, it has destroyed some of my favorite activities.
I used to do laundry ALL THE TIME. I had my closet bursting with casual business attire. You know, the kind of attire that lets other people know you’re a decent human being. With slight style variations, to also let people know you’re not a mindless cog working within a culturally suffocating environment that values conformity for streamlined behavior that maximizes profit. But now I don’t have any of that!!! Who will see my pencil tie to know I like writing? I no longer have a second set of clothing geared towards my office persona, and it dramatically reduced the time I spend washing clothes, hanging them to dry, and folding them. Alright, alright, I’ll admit this was a bit of a joke cause don’t fold my clothes. But now my opportunities to not do it are far fewer! It’s devastating and only adds to the time I spend worrying about what to do with all the time I have!
All those stresses got to me when I started working remotely. I was beginning to lose it, and now I take breaks regularly. Almost every hour I’ll go on a mini walk, or take the time to stretch, make a delicious snack, or something else to keep me occupied through these daily dramas I’m encountering now. But it gets even worse than that!! These inconveniences follow me everywhere I go.
I tried to escape these troubles by going to local cafes with good wifi, prepared dishes, and no digital loitering policy. No longer would I have to worry about food running out, distractions from home, or anything else perturbing my well-being through work. Or, so I thought! Do you know how hard it can be on you when your favorite barista isn’t working, and the new person filling in doesn’t know how to add cocoa flakes around the milky heart shape on the top of your coffee? And you have to sit there trying to get work done taking sips, but you don’t get that extra chocolately bit of flavor and texture in each sip? It’s devastating. I’ve had to scour my hours to find super baristas. And I call in each morning now to make sure AT LEAST one of them is working before I waste ten minutes walking over there.
Nobody is telling the truth about this stuff. You hear about how fantastic working from home is, but until you’ve spent time living the lifestyle, it’s easy to overlook the less obvious pitfalls. But thankfully, I’m here to tell you the truth about working from home, so you don’t have to trouble yourself looking for one of these jobs and flooding the market with competition.