For those of you who have never had the pleasure of working from home, let me assure you: it's everything that it's cracked up to be and much more. I used to have a traditional 8:00 - 5:00 job, where I sat behind someone else's desk and made someone else money.
Here's a day in my life while I was still at that hell:
1. Wake up at 5:30 in the morning. Wipe away tears.
2. Get cleaned up and dressed. Make and consume coffee. Question all choices that have led to this stage in my life.
3. Trek out to my car, now that it's the late hour of 5:50 in the damn morning. Depending on what time of year it is, I may be greeted by 100% humidity or a windchill in the single digits.
4. Begin the commute. Commuting through Atlanta traffic is the sort of hell that even Dante was afraid to consider. The next two hours of my life will be spent staring at the backside of cars driven by people I hate. If you haven't been to Atlanta during rush hour then there is just simply no way you'll understand the vitriol coursing through my veins at this step. I've driven in rush hour traffic in Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, and Miami - Atlanta takes the worst aspects of them all and smashes them together.
Look at this:
That is the sort of city planning that can only be done while on acid. I have lived in this city for years and still haven't figured out where some of those ramps go. When a couple thousand confused, sleepy, disgruntled drivers descend on this abortion of an intersection at fuck-thirty in the morning it's a recipe for disaster. I worked that desk job for less than a year and was hit by other insane drivers three times on my commute.
5. At 7:45 or so, I arrive at work. I go clock in early to rack up extra overtime, then go sit in the bathroom and nap until someone knocks on the door. I usually actually make it to my desk at 8:30 or so.
6. I start working. Let's be very clear: this job is easy. Easy easy easy. The workload is fairly light as well, so it's an absolute cakewalk.
Well, it would be, except there are three people in the office doing this job. Theoretically, we're supposed to split the workload into thirds. In practice, I finish my third by 10:00 and spend the rest of the day fixing what the other two have messed up. They are older women, both crazy rednecks, and think the computer is a technological devil. Instead of using the mouse and keyboard as input devices, they shout suggestions at the screen and then pout until I do their jobs, too. I am still done at 11:00.
7. We take lunch in shifts. At 11:00, my two coworkers go to graze. Basking in my sudden solitude, I play around on the internet until they return at 12:00.
8. Now that it's noon, I'm supposed to clock out and go get lunch. Instead, I go take a nap in my car because I've been up for almost seven consecutive hours.
9. I clock back in at 12:45 (fifteen minutes early!) and stare at the clock until 4:30.
10. I complete my most important task of the day: attaching a blue piece of paper to a yellow piece of paper, then repeating 100 times. This cannot be done until 4:30 because the blue papers just now finished printing. They would have been done earlier, but Redneck #1 broke the printer. She somehow does this every day.
11. At 5:00, I walk up to the front desk and drop off my attached papers. I am congratulated on again completing this task perfectly. I wonder what mental deficiency my predecessor must have had for this to be considered an accomplishment.
12. I sit in the bathroom by myself for half an hour. Since I clocked in ten minutes early, took a 45 minute lunch instead of an hour, and finished the day by hiding for another half hour, I've racked up 55 minutes of overtime today. Doing this every day nets me an extra $100 a week. I usually take the last half hour to convince myself that this isn't unethical - I am poor and deserve a reward for not stuffing anyone's head in the toilet all day.
13. I clock out at 5:30 and go to my car. Three or four days a week, someone in the office will try to intercept me to go get drinks at the Chili's across the street. There is only one person in the office I can stand and she's never the one that asks. I tell them I probably left my dog on or something and speed away. I do not have a dog.
14. I get home at about 7:30. I have now spent four hours driving to and from work today in addition to the nine hours I spent at work. I will make less than $23,000 a year for doing this. When I get home, I look in the mirror and see if my eyes still have a soul in them. They do not.
15. My girlfriend (now wife) and I spend two hours together before I am too tired to function anymore. I lie in bed and wait for sleep. I am 23 and dead inside.
After working there for a few months, they offered me a "promotion." When they told me that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for advancement up the corporate hierarchy meant I'd be working more hours for less pay, I quit and opened my first business.
That business and two others are thriving today. Let's take a look at how my daily schedule has changed:
1. I wake up at 9:00. Noticing that we are still in single-digit hours, I roll back over and fall asleep.
2. I roll out of bed at 10:30. I shower and dress, then go sit in my giant fluffy recliner in the living room with my laptop.
3. At 11:00, I turn on the Price is Right. I berate the ignorant contestants, win all the games in my head and wish Bob Barker was still the host.
4. For the next few hours I work. My work time is interspersed with playing on the internet and watching crappy daytime TV, which I secretly love. I'll write and return emails, manage the three businesses I run or co-run, talk to clients and vendors on the phone, and generally get stuff done. Nobody I speak to during the day realizes that while they are in their office and their suffocating necktie, I am in my recliner watching According to Jim in a bathrobe.
5. Since my wife works from home too, we hang out and trade funny articles on the internet throughout the day. We used to have a scheduled nap from 3:00 to 4:00, but things got a little hectic for that.
6. I usually wrap things up around 6:00 or 7:00. The wife and I go out to dinner or something.
7. We entertain one another until midnight or so when we go to bed. I have accomplished easily 10x as much here as I would in a single day at my old job. When I brush my teeth before going to bed, I glance in the mirror and notice that my soul has grown back.
In other words, working from home is pretty much the most incredible thing imaginable.
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