There’s a popular misconception that people working from home are lounging around in their pajamas, feet propped up on a cat, with Sally Jesse Rafael blaring on the television playing Solitaire on their over-powered company laptop. They answer an email or two just to look productive. They then join a conference call on a sketchy VoIP connection, asking repeatedly if they’re on mute or not and then proclaiming that they have a hard stop at a random time that ends in 2.
As a full-time telecommuter I can safely say this is not how it works. At least in the circles in which I travel.
When it’s time to start my workday, I am up, showered, dressed and ready to tackle my career responsibilities at the beginning of the workday. Admittedly, it takes a good amount of discipline to maintain this structure on the darkest of winter days, but the rewards of telecommuting force me to stay focused. I don’t want to lose this gig because of bad work practices. That would be such a petty reason to lose a job.
The key to productive, at least for me, is being properly dressed and more importantly, not working barefoot. Back in my 20s I would work barefoot in the office. I worked at a radio station at the time; the office was in the basement of the owner’s house and I would pad around from studio to workstation in my bare feet like some hippy wannabe. That worked for my 20s, it does not work for a man at the very end of his 40s. I write lots of code, I lead a team of seven, and I am often part of video conference calls, after all, they’re all the rage now. I need to look my best but more importantly, I need to feel like I look my best to be productive. It’s the leader to a great state of mind.
Now, having Virtual Office IL1.02 (my official designation) has its perks. Earl makes me breakfast and lunch 95% of the time. My schedule allows me a little bit of flexibility; I am able to work my most productive hours of the day. I know I need to get my meetings out of the way in the morning because I write better code in the afternoon. I’ve worked from the car on more than one occasion as Earl and I have made our way back east for the holidays or something. Conversely, when I solve a coding problem in my dreams, I can get up, fire up the computer, and write the winning code and then sleep a few extra minutes the following morning. Personally I am most productive working from home. I don’t need the socialization of an office environment. I actually find it very distracting, though when I have worked in the office those around me mean well.
Ideally I want to do a little more of the Digital Nomad thing during the summer months but work replaced my beautiful MacBook Pro with a Dell Ultrabook with a horrible screen resolution (1366×768). I don’t mind Windows 10, but the screen resolution is like trying to write code on an Etch-A-Sketch. This can be frustrating. I hope to have that rectified before the nice weather rolls around.
They say we need to dress for success; dress for the position you want, not the position you have. Working in my PJs would run contrary to this. I might even slip on a tie before the end of the week.
It feels good to look good.
The heavily traveled streets have all been cleared by the city, but the side streets haven’t really been cleared yet. There’s a lot of street with just the tracks of multiple cars passing through.
