Telecommuting into Nonexistent Worlds
April 16th, 2009 | Posted in blog 24 Comments »
Usually working from home — telecommuting — is one of the perks of any company job. You usually wake up later, because you don’t have to commute, and you may skip taking a shower, or even getting dressed. In your pajamas, you kick your feet up on the desk, keyboard in your lap, and start fiddling around with whatever projects you’re working on. For me, this is how telecommuting always starts out. But it’s never how it ends.
The last time I worked from home, I experienced World War III with Jane. For me, working from home is always a mistake. I rarely do it and avoid it at all costs. I would rather commute for 3 hours and work a 5 hour day than try to work 8 hours from home.
Here’s a bit of how it goes. Jane wakes the kids up and gets the two older kids (4 and 8 years old) ready for pre-school and school. The youngest, Spot (2 years old), tags along adding constant commentary. Seeing me at home, Jane often cooks me French toast, brings me lunch, and tends to the needs of the children. Off they go to school, and then they return to clean and maybe do crafts.
As the day wears on, Jane sees me at the computer while she serves in a variety of domestic roles. We’re a traditional household — I’m the breadwinner, she’s the full-time mother. She not only cares for the children, but cooks meals, drives everyone around, cleans up the house … while seeing me at the computer.
At some point, it begins to dawn on her that I’m having a fine old time on the computer while she’s essentially a nanny, cook, chauffer, maid, and servant. She thinks about all those 5′s she scored on AP tests in high school, her college scholarship and English degree, her aptitude to be a lawyer, doctor, or other professional, and how she’s sacrificing it all to glue together little hats out of construction paper on the table with two young kids who can hardly carry on a conversation, much less communicate with Jane in an intellectually interesting way. All while I’m typing and clicking and creating things on the computer.
Last week Penelope Trunk wrote an engaging post about the unfun role of the stay-at-home parent. She writes,
Parents need to be able to say that parenting is not fun. The day-in and day-out of parenting is very, very difficult. This is not even news. There is a reason for the reams of research showing that having kids does not make people happier.
Although kids are cute, and Trunk has competing feelings about being a stay-at-home parent, ultimately kids are boring, she says. As a stay-at-home parent, it’s all “intergalactic battles and no intellectual banter.” It’s why fathers check their BlackBerries at their kids’ soccer games, she explains. Because they lose interest.
But that’s not the notion I dream up as I’m documenting a confusing interface and struggling to organize the 200 files in my online help. From my perspective, I’d much rather be down at that craft table, making a little paper airplane or something. Escape into the carefree world of the child.
Tensions mount between the both of us — each wanting to be doing what the other is doing. A request here and there is returned with an aggressive tone, and tensions rise until I find myself wondering what I was thinking when I decided to telecommute.
The funny thing is, we both deceive ourselves, because I know deep down that if I were sitting at that craft table, or making raisins on a log with celery sticks and peanut butter, or some other kid activity, I’d be checking my BlackBerry, just as Trunk says. Checking it because I’d be bored. And if that were my life, day in and out, I might go crazy, and turn into a neglectful father who worked from home on WordPress projects and only occasionally tended to the basic food-water-shelter needs of his TV-zombied children.
But of course that’s not how I fantasize life as a stay at home dad. It’s not the story I like to tell myself. I used to carpool with a friend to work each morning, and one day we talked about how we would live our lives as stay-at-home dads. We both decided we would get out of the house. Take the kids to the park. To the zoo. Take them hiking, biking, down to the lake. Collect sea shells. Visit astronomy shops. Fly kites in the park. Teach them how to play baseball. Shoot baskets. Walk the stairs to the top of tall buildings. Picnic on grassy knolls. Dance to crazy music. Go fishing. Yes, fly fishing on riverbanks. Buy a canoe and cross lakes. And on and on. Yes, we would get out of the house. We would have a good time. None of this entrapment within the four walls of a jail-like home. Freedom and youth first.
Fantasizing about life as a stay-at-home Dad
We couldn’t understand how our wives could possibly complain about being stay-at-home parents. From our boring day jobs, sitting in chairs like sedentary mud all day, moving very little, staring at computer screens, theirs looked like the perfect life.
And yet you can see that, in my description of the perfect stay-at-home-parent life, I’ve included nothing describing the reality of it all. I didn’t include washing dishes, folding laundry, driving kids to school, picking kids up from school, helping Sally understand addition and subtraction, reading Spot little books that rhyme, vacuuming, picking up toys, dressing cranky Susan who always refuses to wear what you pick out for her, dealing with playground struggles, potty training, cleaning up pee stains on rugs, pulling weeds from the yard, nagging kids to clean their rooms.
Likewise, in Jane’s vision of what I do on the computer, I doubt she envisions me calling a person to ask if they got a chance to review my document, attending project meetings where I’m almost entirely insignificant, securing approval for images for a document, reviewing obscure error messages on prototypes, trying to configure header and footer page numbers in a page layout tool, responding to emails from users about issues they’re having, and trying to figure out why my computer boots so slowly. Oh, the fun is almost too much.
Domestic dreams of professional fulfillment
We both envision non-existent worlds, to some extent. I don’t know if working for a company or for a household is better or worse. I’m sure this is highly dependent on your personality or your company job. But I’m guessing that the non-home careers have more opportunity for excitement, more opportunities for recognition and reward, more interesting experiences that happen from day to day.
I’ll miss out on the cute kid moments at home, the once-in-a-lifetime events, where Spot finally heads to the potty herself rather than being prodded, or when Sally suddenly realizes all her clothes are pink, or when Susan, with her big eyes and bright smile, spontaneously writes her full name.
When I think about each of my children’s lives just a few years ago, it’s a blur. I can hardly remember what they were like or what we did. Part of me cringes at that loss of memory.
And part of me wants to check my BlackBerry.—-
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What a great post! I really enjoyed this one
(BTW, we got around the “you’re having more fun than me” “am not!” “am too!” by both working from home. Our son is very self-sufficient, and yeah, we check our phones at various sports venues.)
Darn, you’re a good, engaging writer! As for this post, I’d like to add that I lost my mum a few years ago and have to tend to the house AND study ANd work. And I found housework the least interesting
. Kudos to women mate. Tell Jane that there is a guy living in India who respects what she dopes. A lot.Peace.
I cannot work from home. I’m glad I can do so occasionally (when I need to be at home for a tradesperson or something like that), but my desk and study are just not set up for comfortable working. Even with no-one else in the house, there’s a pull to other tasks that for now make me glad of having an office to go to.
I remember reacting in the same way Jane can, when my husband worked at home after M was born. He had two weeks off, then he worked from home for two weeks (his the-boss insisted that infants are very boring, and he wouldn’t need to take more than two weeks leave, even with more than ten weeks up his sleeve!). I was expecting the level of help he’d given me when he didn’t have to work … it was almost easier when he went back to the office!
LOL. You have me nailed. So at least I know it is all of us with visions of being the funnest Dad ever. Baseball games, fishing, the whole thing. Introspective, humorous, and…well…just perfect. Fantastic post.
I am forwarding to my wife right now!
Great post.
Heh, when I try to work from home, my 3 year old can’t understand why daddy’s home and he can’t play. He’ll bang on the door of the room I’m in. Maybe he’ll play alone for a while, but because he knows that I’m home, it’s not too long before I hear a “daddy.. daddy.. ” thru the door.
So working at home is not an option.
I have to put in the vote that my wife, maintaining the house and watching the toddler and baby, works a lot harder than I do. In fact I really can’t think of any job out there, save for fire/police/emt/medical, that’s higher stress than what she does.
Great post Tom and I appreciate your honesty.
Maybe it’s just a classic “grass is greener” situation. I have always wanted to work from home but I would face the same challenges you describe.
I took a leave of absence when my first child was born and I’m set to take one when the next one comes.
I find that the worst thing about an extended leave is that I get out of healthy eating habits.
I never miss any of your posts. This latest post proves why yet again. I am privileged to be able to work from home one day a week. I asked for permission and got it. Working at home presents challenges. When I’m at home, I sometimes want to prove I’ve accomplished something. No one ever asks, but I make sure I get things done. My wife is unable to work at home as easily. Her company prefers their people to be there in the office. There is a “grass is greener” aspect here. Being allowed to work from home versus working harder when working from home. Maybe that’s it.
This post should have come with a beverage warning.
I love the whole thing, but my favorite is the cartoons. You should put those on mugs at CafePress!
I agree with the comment about the beverage warning and the cartoons on the mugs. Go! Do it!
Thanks everyone for your comments. I enjoyed reading your feedback on this post. I’m also glad to hear you liked the little stick-figure cartoons. I wish I had more illustrative talent, but that’s about all I can do.
I guess that, as far as telecommuting and notions about roles, I’m not that different from most others.
At least you HAVE a Blackberry you can check. Or is it better to not have a Blackberry? I don’t. Not sure about this one.
[...] you don’t read Dick’s blog, you probably missed his post in response to the Penelope Trunk post* I tweeted/Facebooked about. Brock left a comment on this [...]
Jane sent me over and I’m glad she did.
My hubs works from home every once in a while; it’s nice to have the choice within the job. It’s certainly come in handy when I’ve been laid out with the Worst Stomach Flu Ever.
It works for us because he is extrememly focused and I pretty much ignore him while he’s working. How he can focus on stats while being assaulted with non-stop noisy preschool toys is beyond me.
I don’t know if we’ve ever had the grass-is-greener fantasies about work and home; I worked before kids and don’t really miss it. And he has a deep respect for the sacrifice I’m making by being at home.
Good post.
You hit it head on. And boy are you one lucky guy to have a wife like Jane. Even if she is too stinkin’ smart for her own good.
Working from home is always interesting. The first few times I tried this I had exactly the experience you are describing. My wife and I have managed to strike somewhat of a balance about it now, but I know it still frustrates her at times.
Pros:
I can get more coding done at home, as there are fewer meetings/phonecalls etc… This says something about how many meetings we have at work, if a 2 year old and a 5 year old are less intrusive in the coding process than my meeting schedule.
Pajamas.
Fully stocked kitchen.
2 year old hugs.
Cons:
I have no real office space, so I’m right in the middle of everything when I’m working from home.
As a result of the first item, my wife knows I can hear (and usually see) the meltdown/fight/injury occurring and gets aggravated if I don’t stop working to help.
Fully stocked kitchen.
2 year old tantrums.
I feel some guilt about my wife being stuck at home all the time. We discussed it before getting pregnant with our first, and she chose this life. But I still feel guilty. My wife is brilliant, and would have her PHD and be a professor somewhere had she not married me and started this life of being a stay at home mom. Often when I’m introducing her I say, only half joking, that I ruined her potential when I married her.
I have more to say, but maybe I’ll save it for another comment. I’m writing my own blog post here in your comment section. Sorry!
Just to clarify, sorry for writing so much, when I say I ruined her potential I don’t in any way mean to belittle what she is doing now. I view being a stay at home mom as one of the (if not the) most important jobs in the world. I just also recognize that it is incredibly difficult and frustrating for her sometimes, and not really the life she envisioned for herself when she was younger.
My wife would LOVE to be a stay-at-home homemaker — without the child-raising bit. I doubt any economy would allow that, however.
When we met, both my wife and I were in the Army. She got out, I stayed in and made it a career. After three years of marriage, we decided to have childred, and she chose to be a stay-at-home mother.
For almost 20 years, we lived on an enlisted man’s pay while she stayed home and raised our two sons. We had one car and very few luxuries (‘date night’ was putting the kids to bed and renting a video).
What would constantly amaze me (not to mention make me a little bit angry) were the couples who both worked, had their kids in day care, and would tell us how “lucky” we were that my wife could stay home with the kids.
Luck had nothing to do with it – we made our choices, they made their’s.
Joe
Quite true. I agree with Joe.
Perhaps I should qualify what I said somewhat. In our economic climate, companies will trim payrolls to improve the bottom line, even though they might not be in the red or losing money. If I were to lose my job, or my wife hers, we have each other to fall back on. If she stayed home, we’d be depending on my paycheck, and my company, alone. That makes me nervous.
I don’t pretend to know what the Army does with “excess” personnel in tough times.
Thanks Craig.
What never ceases to amaze me in our culture is how much we talk about everything being “for the children” and “children are our most valuable resource” “children are our future,” etc., and then we belittle something as important as parents raising their children. A lot of women act as if it were beneath them. Day care workers (child care providers, whatever the PC term is these days) are some of the lowest paid workers out there. Last time I checked, they made slightly above minimum wage.
My wife spent some years in the work force before kids, and now that our kids are grown, she is back working. So she knows that when I go to work, I’m doing more than practicing putting in my office or flirting with my secretary. (I have neither an office nor a secretary btw.)
I also did my share of taking care of the kids, and I know that she didn’t spend her days sitting around watching soaps and eating chocolates. Spend one day alone with two boys under the age of three, and see how exhausted you are. The first time I did that, I had a much greater appreciation for what my wife – and others like her, did all day.
There are very few jobs out there that are so important that they are worth sacrificing your children for. Unless you’re the President, or curing cancer, you’re job isn’t one of them. If your career is that important to you, don’t have kids.
One of my favorite quotes is “If we die tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of hours. But the family & friends we leave behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.”
Happy Friday,
Joe
Indeed.
My younger sister is a stay-at-home mom to two young children. She is a fantastic mom, but the job of parent takes its toll, as does every job. She is always tired and sick, to some degree. She also now has bags under her eyes, which she never had before. Of course, I take pains to tell her she looks great, which she does, considering!
Happy Friday, right back at you!
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[...] while back I wrote about this dilemma in my post Telecommuting into Nonexistent Worlds. If my wife suddenly wanted to work outside the home and could support us, I would trade roles in [...]
[...] while back I wrote about this dilemma in my post Telecommuting into Nonexistent Worlds. If my wife suddenly wanted to work outside the home and could support us, I would trade roles in [...]
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