She Works Hard for the Money
September 15th, 2005
There are things I love about working from home. I love being able to focus solely on the tast at hand, rather than listening to chatty coworkers or whinging passers-by. I love that I can wear the same pair of pants two days in a row without fear of someone noticing. I love the food. The coffee. The laundry on the lunch hour. I love that I have the world’s shortest commute – one that literally involves rolling out of bed and into the home office next door.
Out of bed and into the office. A startling omission there, perhaps, is the bathroom. This is what I do not love about working from home: Yes, it’s true. I don’t shower anymore. I am honest and truly treading on the world’s most unhygienic person with the world’s shortest commute. You lose your sense of self, in a way. It becomes startlingly easy to get up, make coffee, watch a little Today show, and jump right into the office. And before you know it, it’s 2 p.m. and you are sitting there, braless, in a pair of cotton pajamas that you realize haven’t left the confines of your body for three days.
I left the house tonight for the first time in three days, to pick up yet another tool for my hermitty aspirations, an all-in-one scanner/printer/fax/copier. With this machine and the Interweb, I never have to leave again.
I’m scaring myself. You know that scene in Singles when Campbell Scott attacks Bridget Fonda because he hasn’t seen a human in weeks? That’s me.
And it’s all coming to an end soon. Talked to work today, and they have decided, as they promised, but never followed through on, to keep my contract limited through the end of the year, rather than indefinitely. Like an abused wife, I was angry, upset and FLAT-OUT PISSED when I heard this. As if I need this aggravation and torture, yet for some reason, I felt so…REJECTED.
But, um, HELLO. I moved. I moved away from my job that I hated, didn’t want to keep it up, and I was lucky enough to be offered a contract to work while I found a job. Except that I thought, for some stupid reason, that I’d be keeping it indefinitely, and that *I* would be the one to tell them where to stick it.
Riiiight. Dude, I hated it. The perpetual feeling of failure. Working for people with the most asinine expectations of entitlement. Working three jobs and 15 hour days just to keep people from screaming at me. Just Thursday night, I had to rush home from dinner with my husband to do something for that job. And we discussed quitting. I moved down here for a better lifestyle, and three times in as many weeks, I’ve had to cancel a personal event, or work late at night. It’s so funny, but as I think about it, I don’t think I ever would have left them until I had a kid. It never made me happy, but I’ve always been a sick glutton for punishment.
I feel like a kid on a bike right now, careening down the street with ribbons screaming from my handlebars. Stage three: Elation. Stage one was shock, two was fury, and three is ELATION. I am moving on! MOVING ON! I will have time to write. Time to relax. Time to find something local that I actually like.
It’s weird. There is this nagging thing in the back of my mind that says, “You’ve failed! If you were perfect, they wouldn’t let you go even if you moved to Timbuktu.”
Which is, of course, a lie. But I still feel rejected. And angry. And elated. All at once. And in a weird way, I’m totally getting what I wished for.
Entry Filed under: Nuttin'
9 Comments Add your own
1. goodwillstacy | September 16th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
Hi! I found your site!
Oh my gosh Jonna. You sound like me. Very eerie. I work from home for my non-profit organization (non-profit really meaning NO MONEY! lol), and today as I went into my room after falling asleep on the couch with the laptop, I realized I had been wearing the same pajamas for way too long.
My contact with people is limited, unless you count the guy at the gas station across the street where I go for coffee occasionally.
How’s your sleeping schedule? That’s usually the next thing to go. Up all night, sleep in late… I’m trying hard to break myself of it but I just can’t do it! I like the quiet night way too much.
Anyway, congrats on your move and your new W&D. I can remember my first….ahh, such fond memories….
2. mireille | September 16th, 2005 at 11:20 pm
wow. I’m not the only one with that pajama scenario. And those stages are so familiar, too. I don’t think you need me to tell you how you’ll land on your feet … because you already know it. Competent Jonna. xoxoxo
3. Kate | September 19th, 2005 at 7:16 am
All I can say is: Thank GOD!
4. Jamie | September 19th, 2005 at 10:54 am
I used to work from home, and it was a recipe for disaster — my total lack of self-discipline was the culprit for sure. And the proximity to a television and box upon box of cereal.
5. WinterWheat | September 19th, 2005 at 3:31 pm
What? You’re breaking up with ME!? YOU, you little lowlife scum, you who aren’t fit to lick my bootheels, you whom I’ve been contemplating breaking up with for over a year but held off for fear of breaking your puny heart, YOU are breaking up with ME???!!!
Ah, we understand.
As far as working at home goes, just promise you’ll shower once a day and buy a new pair of pajamas when you wear identical mirror-image butt holes (butt holes, NOT buttholes) into the fabric. I don’t want to envision you going the way of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, stinky and dirty and totally disconnected from reality. The horror.
6. BarbaraFromCalifornia | September 19th, 2005 at 9:20 pm
Working from home can be wonderful, or the kiss of death, depending upon what you do with yourself. I think there are stages of it all, morphing in to other places.
For me, I have had to watch myself sitting too much and eating when I feel like it (a horrible consequence.) Every morning, I get up, shower, get dressed, put on fragrance and make-up and act as if, for me!
congratulations on your new move and new life, Jonna!
7. whinger | September 21st, 2005 at 3:02 pm
It IS always better to be the leaver than the one left, but I guess if it’s dysfunctional, it’s best the ties be broken anyway.
SO glad you’ve reached the third stage as there can only be good things ahead.
8. Bela | September 22nd, 2005 at 9:09 pm
It’s all so true, J! I used to have no self-discipline at all and do three months’ work in three weeks in a panic at the last minute (I fooled myself that I was doing my best work under pressure: that’s rubbish). It changed when I started getting deadlines every two or three days. I haven’t missed a deadline in 18 years.
I used to feel very isolated: the Internet has made a lot of difference to my life, also the fact that my partner is now also freelance.
I may be disciplined but I do work in my pyjamas too. *grin*
I hope you get a great job very soon.
9. Urban Chick | September 25th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
it sounds spookily like motherhood to me…
e.g.
i’m only too thrilled if the clothes i pull on three minutes before leaving the house have NOT been retrieved from the laundry basket
when i ask the chicklets to brush their hair, they look at me kinda weird (you want us to WHAT??)
and when i DO wear make-up, my friends and family say ‘oooh, where are YOU going?’
so if you are thinking of having a baby any time soon, you are preparing yourself well…
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