Thursday, June 2, 2011

The view from Working from Home

This post is inspired by the post by Heather Rigby over at Babble.com.http://www.babble.com/toddler/toddler-development/questions-for-parents-from-SAHM/

I thought I'd contribute a few of my own:

You know you work from home  as a writer if:

  1. You know to the nano-second the broadcast length of every DVD in your child's collection, but have no idea what most of them are about because you haven't actually watched them. You also know what DVD is required to meet the required word count for an article. For example, a 1500 word article may require the "Phineas and Ferb Christmas" plus the "Suite Life on Deck with Hannah Montana." A 500 word article might be doable in a "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" or "Enchanted."
  2. If your child will be in residence when you are planning on conducting a phone interview, you warn all of your interview subjects in advance that your child is at home, and apologize in advance for any interrruptions that may occur.
  3. You have continued a phone interview with a subject, in your best engaging and interested professional voice while: A-taking the back off a sticker. B-changing the DVD (see item 1 above) C-pouring a glass of milk D-cleaning up a puddle of milk after small child was tired of waiting and tried to accomplish (c) by him/herself
  4. Made threatening "mommy faces" to small child to chase them back to the living room while continuing interview in best professional voice (and taking notes).
  5. Live in fear of a Skype two-person interview becoming a three-person interview when the small person peers into the webcam and announces "who dat? Who dat in your compooter mommy? Can we go to the park now?"
  6. Often START your work day at 7pm when your partner has returned from work and can take a turn wrestling the kid(s) to bed while you make a large pot of coffee and work into the wee small hours.
  7. Try to schedule as many interviews by email as possible to avoid items 1-5 above.
  8. Have perfected the art of writing 1000 words in the 2 hour window that you have between start and finish of summer camp.
  9. You have taken a child to a last-minute interview with a bribe of Build-a-Bear or junk food  if they behave. You also charged up the iPod in advance and let them play any level of Angry Birds, even the ones you already had 3 stars on.
  10. Have a spouse who has grown accustomed to the look of panic when s/he arrives home and you discover that it's dinner time and nothing is planned.

These are just a few of my random thoughts. Have I missed any?

2 comments:

Jane Langille said...

Lisa,

How about forgetting you've been working in your pj's all morning and then having to run the garbage out to the street in mad dash because you hear the truck coming?

Lisa MacColl said...

Or the cute courier guy arrives and you're still in your ratty housecoat after working half the night...
Yep. Been there, blushed that.