You are so Lucky!

Everyone says it.  They love working at home in their PJ’s.  And I won’t lie to you, I feel the same way…some days. But to be honest, being the social butterfly that I am and always have been, I find the virtual office a challenge, actually. Customer appointments help contact and I tend to bunch them up into a couple days so I am not spending a lot of time on the “back and forth.”  We have customers spread all over !  (Thank Goodness!)

I Miss Humans.

I miss the jokes at the office, the food that we share, the face to face contact of the office environment.  I genuinely ike my coworkers.  I care about their lives, their families, them. We still have weekly face to face staff meetings but it isn’t the same.

I don’t miss having to go out on a stormy day, moving my car for the snowplow, having to dash home to get dinner started.  Because ESPECIALLY with the last one, I can start it when I am taking a break from staring at my monitor or talking on the phone to a customer.

If you ever have worked virtually from the road (or from home), interruptions are usually minimal-unless they are YOUR interruptions. Or in my case it could be my dog Crosby or Sam just wanting to climb up into my lap as they follow the sun around the house.

I’m Fortunate

I have a completely separate room with my computer set up and the sun shines in and today while it is about 20 outside it is 78 degrees in my office.  I have Pandora cranking on my laptop, my iPad open, I have sent about 20 text messages, gone through emails, posted on some Social Media sites and it is 9:30am.  I could never get that much done in an office in that time period.

Pandora is great – but I do miss the radio, the chatter of the on air talent,  people talking, real ones. But there aren’t that many LIVE on air people anymore either.

I don’t own a radio that even comes in clearly (my car doesn’t count).  If it doesn’t stream on the internet, I don’t get it.  It can be very isolating some times.  To some people that are not in PR or Marketing, the more technical fields this could be the perfect environment.  With more and more people working from home these days are we becoming less social or do we need to channel that “social-ness” into another area?

I serve on some Boards and Committees.  Boards of non-profits in our area. I get some “people time.”  I need “people time.”  Volunteering makes me feel good.  In this life of it seeming to take forever to see results on some projects, volunteering is a “quick fix” to feeling like you are doing something that matters. In our region, there are many people that are willing to “roll up their sleeves” for the better good.  We don’t call it “giving back” or “paying it forward”  we just do it because it needs doing.  So that is my lift for the day or week.

What do you do to feed your soul?