Archive for January, 2009
Weekend In The Life Of A Work At Home Professional
Last week marked my first full week in this new work at home endeavor, which made this my first weekend off. As Sunday winds down and I prepare for another week of work, I started to realize that the concept of ‘weekend’ is now slightly skewed in my world.
Other than days on the calendar, what made yesterday and today a ‘weekend’?
I slept in, for one thing. I’m still having difficulty with my sleep schedule, and the weekends are a slippery slope towards a second shift schedule. Because of that, I don’t know that sleeping in on the weekend is going to be an option any more. Cross that one off the list.
I spent all of today in my pajamas. Believe it or not, I am still getting ‘dressed’ for work right now. No, nothing fancy, just the same jeans and a sweater I would normally wear. To tell the truth, though, I don’t remember the last time I spent an entire day in my pajamas, so that really shouldn’t even count as a qualifier for a weekend day. I mean, I got dressed yesterday and that was still part of the weekend.
Is it the fact that I spent more time with my husband? No, that’s not it: he spent yesterday freezing his unmetionables on a motorcycle ride, and today a car show and pool team meeting. I think I might have actually seen more of him on some of our slower ‘work days’.
So what made yesterday and today a weekend? Sadly, I think it might boil down to one thing: my Lotus Notes wasn’t open. My weekend was apparently defined by a single program.
This my friends is unacceptable. I don’t know what the answer is, but I can say with certainty: if I’m going to work from home I’m going to have to find something that makes the weekend different. Perhaps a Saturday library trip. Or pancakes for breakfast on Sunday. Whatever it is, I will not suffer from uni-day.
My Stance on Social Media Drama
It’s inevitable: when you have more than two people involved in anything there will be disagreements and clashes of personalities. I accept this and understand it, it’s one of the constants of human interaction. Whether we like it or not, it happens. What sets you apart is how you react to it.
Take a trip down memory lane with me, will you? Think back to high school, or perhaps junior high. If you’re like me you weren’t exactly the most popular kid in school. More importantly, you knew it. You knew you didn’t dress right or have the right hair. Maybe you had glasses, or braces, or something else that made you different. Every morning you woke up and got ready for school, you knew you weren’t going to be sitting with the cool kids at lunch.
Did that stop people from reminding you of it? No. They’d pass notes, or post signs, or giggle when you walked past. Perhaps worst of all were the not-so-secret conversations where someone would comment to their friends about how they hated how weird you were as you walked down the hall. Just loudly enough that you’d be able to hear. Yeah, you already knew you were weird. Having some popular kid announce it in the hallway only made things worse.
Do you remember that? I know I do…
I bring this up, a memory (or set of memories, rather) painful enough to bring tears to my eyes almost 20 years later, in order to make a point. The people behind the word you read online are real. Someone is sitting on the other end of the tubes typing in those posts and comments. You have every right in the world to disagree with what they think. Heck, you can even think they’re stupid (I know I do sometimes).
But to respond by loudly letting the world know that you’re blocking or leaving or whatever else is juvenile. It belittles the person on the receiving end, making them feel just like you did when those popular kids told everyone how much they couldn’t stand you. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the right and the person did in fact do something stupid, just as it didn’t matter that you were in fact weird (and maybe smelled a little funny) in high school. The fact that it something is true doesn’t make it hurt any less. Sometimes, those things hurt more than lies.
So the next time you’re involved in social media drama and are tempted to call someone out, take a step back. Do you want someone to announce to everyone on a service that they’ve blocked you? Or that they think your content is annoying, spammy, or perhaps just a little too low-brow for the service you’re on? If not, then do the adult thing and take the other person’s feelings into consideration. Block if you have to, but don’t announce it to the world. You’ll likely be involved in a lot less drama in the long run as a result.
You Might Be A Geek If
Yes, you might be a geek if you opt to test you ability to post to your blog from your phone. Fine, if you’re going to be technical, that geek is me…
Since I have yet to get post by email to work with Google Apps hosted mail, I decided to go this route for now. So far the WordPress admin area works quite well on the G1.
The photo upload is disabled on the phone, but I can add hosted images to posts. Not ideal, but it would definitely work in a pinch.
And there you go. Exhibit one to prove that I am indeed a geek.
I Have Had An Epiphany
Google’s besmirched favicon choice totally looks like… A scrunched up Cadbury Egg wrapper.
So Today I Met With My Boss…
Boss and I met today for the first time since we both started working from home last week. An afternoon meeting in a coffee house, which is ironic as he doesn’t drink coffee.
But I digress… Boss and I get along well: we’re close to the same age and have a very similar temperament. Our meeting was to review a project I’d worked on last month that was due for stage one delivery. He’s a more experienced Lotus Notes developer than I am, so we reviewed the one sticking point I’d run into and made the necessary changes.
We chatted for a bit, talking about the logistics of moving our remaining furniture (it’s going to storage) and how I’ll be getting my paycheck (check the mail tomorrow!). And then he looked at me.
“So,” he said “How are you settling into working at home?”
This was accompanied by a posture shift, the kind that lets you know that there’s a significant change in the conversation. I almost gulped, because with the economy going from bad to worse lately the last thing I need is to have issues with my job.
Do I tell the truth? Do I talk about how my sleep schedule is trying to slide back to second shift and how not being in the office makes me realize just how much my work comes in spurts?
Do I lie? Do I say it’s going swimmingly and it’s the best thing ever, just like being in the office only with faster internet?
I opted for a nice, reasonable blend.
“I’m getting used to it,” I replied. “Trying to make sure I get a routine established.” I left out the fact that said routine included forcing myself to wear pants and not pajamas.
He paused and took a drink of his water.
“Well, I gotta tell you. I’m having a hell of a time getting motivated to get up and go to work in my own house. I mean, it’s not an issue when there’s a specific trouble ticket we’re working on, but when those are cleared up…” He even looked sheepish as he said it.
I’m pretty sure I let out an audible sigh of relief.
Turns out that my boss and I are in exactly the same pickle. Neither one of us wanted to work in our office: we were sharing space with another company and it wasn’t a working situation, Not to mention that the internet was slower than trying to suck a watermelon through a straw. On the other hand, when we’ve done our job everything works properly and we’re left waiting in a holding pattern for either a client issue or a new enhancement project. In the office we have each other and numerous other tasks to keep us distracted. When working from home, the down time feels exceptionally… Down.
So we talked about it, and have both recognized that right now is one of our down times. We’ve done some hard work in recent months and that means that our servers are running smoothly, our databases are up, and our clients are happy. We’re in a holding pattern, and holding for 40 hours straight from your own living room isn’t nearly as much fun as it sounds.
Long story short, as long as we’re both available by phone, GTalk, and email, neither one of us cares what the other one is doing or where. Luckily, we both have good phones (my G1 is better than his Blackberry).
Like I said, Boss and I are very much alike.
Money Saving Psychology: Keep Your Hands To Yourself
Posted by Tina in Noteworthy News on January 14th, 2009
You’re a smart person: you know the economy is slow and you’ve tightened the belt on your spending. Of course there’s that splurge you want, but you’re doing the responsible thing: holding off on the purchase. If it’s something you really want, though, chances are you go to the store and visit it once in a while (don’t lie, you know you do!).
Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but fondling the object of your spending affection will wind up biting you in the wallet.
See, a recent study has shown that your physical interaction with an object affects not only how much you want to own it, but how much you’re willing to pay for it.
You can look — but don’t touch.
A simple experiment with an inexpensive coffee mug revealed that in many cases, simply touching the coffee mug for a few seconds created an attachment that led people to pay more for the item. The results, which were published recently in the journal Judgment and Decision Making, found that people become personally attached to the mug within the first 30 seconds of contact. People who held the coffee mug longer than a few seconds seemed not only more compelled to outbid others in an auction setting, but they were also more willing to bid more than the retail price for that item.
That’s right: simply touching an object makes you want it. Not only that, but it makes you willing to pay more for it.
With this in mind, try some of these no-contact shopping tips
- Compare items online even if you intend to purchase them locally.
- Keep store visits to a minimum, and always shop with a list.
- Try to do routine shopping (like groceries) alone, otherwise your shopping partners are likely to grab an item and not want to let it go.
- When clothes shopping, know your size and material preferences in advance, and only try on items that you are almost certain you’re going to buy.
When it doubt, just put your hands in your pockets and walk away.
With economy sour, consumers sweet on herbal meds
Posted by Tina in Noteworthy News on January 13th, 2009
With many Americans putting off routine doctor visits and self-medicating to save money, use of alternative treatments is on the rise - even though evidence is often lacking on their safety and effectiveness.
Climbing sales of herbal medicines have paralleled the tanking economy, according to an Associated Press review of recent data from market-watchers and retailers.
via Physorg.com
Note: This post is a test of the WordPress ‘Press This’ tool
It’s Not What You Say, But How You Say It
Posted by Tina in Personal Life on January 13th, 2009
So here I am with a shiny new site, wondering what exactly I’m going to put into it. I’m sure you’ve been in this exact situation: a new site full of promise and expectation. It’s exciting and daunting. Invariably, doubts creep in.
“I don’t know what I’m going to write about,” you think. “And even if I did know what to write about, someone’s probably already written about exactly the same thing!”
And you know what? You’re right. Someone has almost certainly written about your exact subject, likely with the exact stance as you. Odds are that the person who wrote that piece/post/entry knew the subject better and is more qualified than you to have an opinion about it.
So why do we even bother? Why go through the effort and frustration of maintaining a site with such a pessamistic attitude?
Simple: it’s not what you say that really matters. It’s how you say it. No one is going to have exactly the same writing style as you, no one will use the same turn of phrase and analogies in quite the same way. Your writing is as distinctive as the way you speak and think (well, one would hope it is) and the tone you use when you write about something indicates who you are just as much as your choice of subject.
All we can do is hope that ‘tone’ is enough.
Real Life, Virtual World
Posted by Tina in Personal Life on January 13th, 2009
Well, then: here we are. This site is currently aimless and without focus, so we’ll see how well that fares.
As a brief introduction: my name is Tina. I have many homes on the web, this is but one. I am a 30 something Jane-of-all-trades who has just started the new adventure of working from home in this most uncertain economy.
My job is varied, my interests are moreso. Take from that what you will.
