This used to be my office. I started this job 6 years ago doing the normal working commute. Out the door early, kids at daycare, work all day, pick-up kids at daycare, work at home some more, sleep, repeat. Then, in 2008, when the financial world took a hit, my company was bought by a bigger company. Loads of people lost their jobs. The event world stopped in its tracks. There was a 4 month period of time when we pulled back on everything we were doing, Almost all events stopped. It was scary and unnerving but thankfully we came out of it. The slow climb back for events in the corporate world finally settled about 2 years ago. In the meantime we got to know this big, bad, machine-like company we were now a part of.
A company this size has its challenges to say the least. Everything is automated. Conference calls are a plague. There’s always someone, somewhere in the company doing exactly what you’re doing (sometimes better). It’s annoying.
But then, amidst the cluttered meetings and impersonal employee environment it shines through. A big, fat, encouraged, living, breathing work-at-home policy. Thousands of people working from home.
Almost my entire working career has been within the financial world. Let me tell you something. There is LITERALLY no other company doing this. None. Zip. That I know of and can get a job at anyway (trust me I’ve tried). So I took the leap and became a stay-at-home-worker or a work-at-home-stayer. Whatever.
Does it solve everything? No. See my post on Monday.
But it has helped a ton. My kids aren’t little anymore, they are at school all day and even when they come home at night they are pretty self-sufficient. And in the event world – there really is no 9-5 work day. It’s usually nights, weekends, holidays etc. Which is fine, that’s what I’ve signed-up for. But I’m an early riser. Some days I’m more productive from 6am-9am then I am all day. Other days I need to work on Sunday nights so I have some time to ease into my week.
It works for me. It works for my family (although I think they wouldn’t mind me being gone a little more than I am, let’s be honest).
I do miss my work family – and we do try to get together as much as possible in human form.
But if this is the future of business – sign me up! That office above is empty now…errr…or it will be once I remove all my crap that I still haven’t gotten around to.
Now excuse me while I do a conference call, wash the dishes and work on a power point. In that order.
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