Dream or disaster?

We all have had those days where we’d rather pull our eyebrows out one at a time than go into the office. We agonize while showering, shaving, washing our faces, getting dressed would anyone notice if I didn’t come in today. Sometimes, our dread isn’t that deep; we may just want another hour or two under the covers, or to finish that movie we fell asleep during the night before. Alas, work must go on.

For those of us who can work from home, doing so can be a godsend.  In fact, I just Google searched “does working from home work” and over 475 million results popped up. Obviously it’s on our minds a lot more than we think.

Some of the benefits of working from home include having that third cup of coffee yet still wearing your pyjamas and running quick errands to the post office and dry cleaners on “lunch.” As long as you’re productive, you’re working, right?

Not for all of those stay-at-homers. Many find being at home too distracting.  I personally love it; that said, it does require discipline to stay on-track, so here are a few of my own tips:

• Take your shower in the morning, before you begin to work, just like on a regular day. This will help you feel “ready” to work.
• List our your to-dos. Don’t be overly ambitious – prioritize by items that must be accomplished today as well as “extras” that can fill up that 3 or 4 p.m. hour when you’re getting antsy for the day to be over.
• Pencil in a full one-hour lunch break for personal calls, internet surfing, quick errand-running, etc.
• Take a break. Give yourself 5 or 10 minutes to walk the dog, throw in some laundry or write the grocery list. Just keep breaks to a minimum.

I adhere to these rules as much as possible.  Sure, when I’m working I might have an incredible urge to dust off the television screen I rarely see in the daylight, but why not turn it into an incentive or reward for completing the newsletter editorial on your “due today” list?

Pardon me if that sounds ridiculous, but try it.

Now, I’m not saying that one should work from home all the time. There are benefits being in the office, such as maintaining a professional image; remaining looped-in to the office gossip (did you know so-and-so is leaving); being available for spur-of-the-moment lunches or drinks with senior management, etc.

How about you?

Full disclosure: This post was drafted from home on my “lunch hour” during my  two-week on-from-home stint given an ankle injury.

New City, New Job

Besides being a ridiculously busy last two weeks, the move was good. And I believe I am settling in okay.  I’ve looked at a few apartments and am still on the hunt to find “my own.”

In the meantime, let me share some opinions about the city:

• The city is not as clean as one might hope. I think, perhaps though, that this is because the life is a lot more relaxed. (Who has time to worry about cleanliness when you can drink beer and sit outside with friends for hours?)
• I find it immensely annoying to walk down the sidewalk and ride the public transit systems because it the city is densly populated, and people will happily walk into you, bump into you, try to get around you while touching you the whole time, etc.  (I think maybe people expect that no one will understand them if they say “excuse me” in their native tongue, so they just bump along?)
• It has been gorgeous during the day, averaging in the 30s Celcius (80s). I have been here for 13 days and seen rain only twice. In fact, I’m amost wishing I was sitting in the sun typing this!
• The weekends here are a lot like Brazil: everything closes early on Saturdays, and hardly anything is open on Sundays. Instead, people are out on the streets, in the parks, in one of the many “Squares” hanging out and drinking/eating.  Let’s just say, I learned very quickly to run errands on my lunch hour.

And about the office:

• It is an open floor plan, as in only three people have an office: One of the three partners, and then the Finance Controller and the Office Manager (like what we’d call COO) share one. Absolutely everyone (except the receptionist, who wants to be a Police officer) else sits in the same room, in 10 rows of 2. (So I directly face one person and am part of a pod of 4 people.)
• I’m in the row that splits the office into Public Affairs and Communications groups.
• There is coffee freshly brewing ALL day long, and there is an espresso machine.
• The snacks here are all fresh fruit (compared with crackers/cookies/candy in the US)
• Our main conference room looks out over the Royal Palace (Where the King lives).
• My colleagues are – for the most part – 24+. Most of them have less experience than I do.
• The mix of languages is amazing - French, English, German, Portuguese and Spanish, mainly.
• The management style  – from my experience so far – is less direct than what we have. It’s more walking-around-the-issue, so it will be interesting to see what happens when it gets stressful.

 Anyway, despite those being my initial reaction, I think it will be fun to see if my opinions change in a month, two, a year, two years … only time will tell!