Friday, November 07, 2008

Working from Home

Working from home is a new thing for me. Sure I'd occasionally work from home if I wasn't feeling well or other reasons I needed to stay home but was capable of working, but it's not the same. When you work from home, after hours because of a specific project or task, that's easy to say with, but if you are just working from home now and again, it's easy to get distracted from what needs to get done, because you can always do it tomorrow.

When you work from home full time things change. You don't have tomorrow to take care of those things. The work has to be done when it's supposed to be done. Even more so there is a pressure, whether real or imagined, that you have to work extra hard to show that you are indeed working. You are your own supervisor and you can be a tough boss.

Well that's how it is for me so far.

Additionally you never fully leave work. You work where you live, so your computer, your phone, etc are right around the corner. It's a strange thing. I do a pretty good job of separating my work life and home life, but this confuses that a bit. I could go grab a beer from the fridge. (I have not done that, but I could.) The bathroom is my own and really close. Lots of similar examples.

Leaving work at 5pm is going to be an important habit to develop now that work is in the other room. But it also creates an odd cabin fever. I have to get out more, which in itself is not a bad thing but it creates an interesting situation.

I feel fortunate that I've not fallen into the trap of having a TV in the other room, or playing games or other distractions. I was worried about those things but they've not been a problem at all.

At the end of the day it's simply getting used to having a new work habit. It's an unusual one for someone who has always worked in an office (not at home), but not a bad one. After one week I think I'm doing pretty good. Let's hope that continues to be the case.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Can I move on from politics now?

Looking at my posts for the last few months and I've been very political lately. Now that the elections are over maybe I can step off my soap box for awhile. But then what? What should I write about now?

Well I did move to a whole new state. Yes, I was living in Tennessee and now I'm in Nebraska. I'm a born and raised Nebraskan/Husker so the move back wasn't really a hard choice for us (my wife and I).

Our house is all but sold (just waiting on the closing). We'll probably buy again here in Nebraska but we are renting for now.

I'm working from a home office for the same company I worked for in Tennessee. I feel very privileged and gracious that my bosses felt comfortable enough to let me do this. It still feels odd but it will get easier and more natural over time. Hell I've only been doing it for three days now.

We have to fly back down to TN to pick up my car. I had to leave it there due to the fact that the Uhaul I rented ended up being too small and I had to pull a trailer with more of our stuff instead of a trailer with my car. It puts more miles on the car but it'll be in a garage most of the winter since it has summer rubber on the wheels and I work at home so I don't need to drive all the time, so the miles will not be a big issue.

I do know I'll miss driving my car though. It's SOOO much fun to drive. I'll have to get out every once in awhile, so long as the roads are clear. (winter and summer tires don't mix well)

Not sure if I'm going to try to fix my bike or buy a new one. My old Specialized Hard Rock Sport from 1992 is a bit beat up. It's not bad but it needs a tune up really badly. The last tune up really didn't help much either. It's just old. But new ones cost $400-500 for a good bike. I'm not going to buy a Walmart special. Ugh!

I'm waiting for a KVM switch (that's a Keyboard/Video/Mouse switch, which allows multiple computers to be connected to one set of keyboard/video(monitor)/and mouse.). I have two work machines plus my personal one. It's a pain how I have it setup currently. Once I have the KVM I'll be much better able to work.

Ok so that's a lot of miscellaneous crap, but it's not politics!