The Reality of Working From Home

We all know the benefits of working from home. But today, I wanted to shake things up a bit and talk about the not-so-glamorous side of working where you also sleep, bathe, eat and raise your kids and fur babies.

1. Working from home gets lonely. I consider myself an introvert, but I still miss the “good old days” of friendly water cooler chats and catching up with coworkers over the coffeepot. I also don’t get to meet people for lunch as often, either. I mean, there’s only so much I can talk to my dog about when all he really wants to do is drag me around the block on his leash or nap under my desk while the kids are at school. If you ever see me pop up on Twitter or Facebook in the middle of the day with a random comment like “Not enough coffee in the world today!” you’ll recognize it as my desperate attempt to make human contact in any way possible.

2. You sometimes forget to shower . . . for days. Not long ago I shared a story on Facebook (again, because I have no water cooler) about how my husband came home one day, told me I looked nice and asked if I had done anything differently. I replied, “Well, I showered and blow dried my hair.” He was baffled. One morning, after several days of working on a tight deadline, I swear I could not remember when the last time I washed my hair was. Thankfully my other friends and colleagues who work from home joke with me that they’ve all done the exact same thing at one point or another.

3. Cable Television and Netflix. You see where I’m going with this one. Some people who work from home get distracted by doing the dishes, folding laundry or cleaning bathrooms. Me? I spend my lunch hour munching on a sandwich and watching reruns of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” on the USA Network or “Disappeared” or “Deadly Devotion” on Discovery ID. Every now and then I get a story idea during this time period that I actually end up using so for now, let’s just call my little love affair with television “research” and all will be forgiven, right?

So to recap, the pros of working from home are that you can work at your own pace, wear what you want, write with animals in your lap and play the music obnoxiously loud. The cons are loneliness, poor hygiene habits, non-writing related distractions and trying to concentrate when your home is undergoing a renovation project and your office is so full of furniture from other rooms in the house that you can’t shut the doors to keep the hammering at bay. That’s this week anyway. What about you?

 Renee Roberson is an award-winning freelance writer and editor who blogs at Renee’s Pages.

This is what my home office looked like about five years ago. Let's just say this clean and organized room is a distant memory!