working from home.

How to Work From Home from dooce on Vimeo.



I was kind of amused watching this video from Dooce about how to work from home. I have a friend who claims that "working from home" is the best euphemism for masturbation ever invented. While I can neither confirm or deny this claim, anybody that does self-initiated work and makes their own schedule can appreciate the meaning of what he said: it's hard the resist the pull of doing other things. Take for example, my day today:


10:30am: Reluctantly get out of bed. My neighbor's dogs barked all night. For real. The whole entire night. It was unsurprising to me that when I finally fell asleep, I had really violent dreams. I am unhappy to be awake.


10:35am-11:30am: Call SPCA on neighbors. Spend too long cooking breakfast (scrambled eggs with a bacon and tomato sandwich) and reading the internet.


11:30am: Realize this has been going on too long. 


Noon: Finally shower. Commence deep conditioning of hair. Resume reading of internet. Respond to student emails cheerfully; send angry emails to everyone else. I was still mad about being awake.


1:05pm: Realize that I never actually rinsed my hair out and that the shower cap is starting to steam. Rinse.


1:10pm: Attempt laundry. This endeavor meant washing my shocking pink shorts for the first time, which meant that I turned a number of my whites pink. This day is stupid.


1:30pm: Sit down with a book. Read at five minute intervals so I can get up to check for a response to my angry email. Watch Chloe' videos with my roommate.

Eat. Dance. Eat.

3:30pm: Realizing that not enough has been accomplished, decide to go to the coffee shop to work. Swap out enormous working from home shirt for coffee shop-appropriate shirt and make cut-off shorts three inches shorter, because what am I, Mormon? Also, it turns out wearing fat clothes from four years ago is way warmer than regular clothes. Eat a popsicle because I am still angry about being awake.


4:00pm-5:30pm: Read at coffee shop. Most productive period of the day until I realized that I could redeem the whole day entirely by going to the taco truck.


5:45pm: Taunt roommate with prospect of taco truck as he's leaving for swim practice.


6:15pm: Bike repairs lite.


6:45pm- 8:30pm: Actually leave for taco truck. Back to school shopping at Target. More popsicles.


So I recognize that this day was only possible because it's summer, my students have a shit-ton of work to turn in that I'm going to have to grade this week but not now, and because I didn't technically have something that had to be done (Spanish study remains on the calendar). But think of what I could have accomplished if I HAD SET A SCHEDULE.