Working from home is really working!

I have worked from home most of my adult life.
Yes, I have had jobs where I have to go to an office and I don't hate it but I have grown to love working from home. Besides wearing clothes every day is a big pain in the ass.

The majority of my adult work life though was working from a virtual office and then going somewhere by plane, train, or automobile to see my customers. Some weeks I was only home 2 days and some weeks I worked from home 5 days.

Working from home to those who have never done it seems to be not really work.
But that just couldn't be farther from the truth.

There are days you go to your home office before your first cup of coffee in your bathrobe to turn on the computer.  You see your boss is requesting a meeting at a time that you have a call scheduled with a client. So you sit down and begin to email and rearrange your life.  Before you know it, it's noon and you are still in your bathrobe and haven't eaten a thing and you have a bad headache from not having any caffeine. 

So you throw on some clothes and you hear the phone ring.  You make a mad dash back to the office to get the phone because you know it's your boss because she/he is in another time zone and it's early for him or her. And just like that, you're back in the office and it's 3pm before you know it.
You go back to your bedroom to at least finish dressing and brushing your teeth. Then you go to the kitchen to grab some food and run to your office with it as you pick up the phone.  You eat this food in bites over 2 hr period between phone calls, emails and putting out fires.
You work until your family is hungry and standing at your office door asking if you're ever leaving your office because it's 6pm. Where did the day go? And what do you do after dinner?  You go back to the office to "just check" on this or that.  You truly work longer hours when you work from home.

Now my step mom has asked numerous times why I am always doing all the chores on weekends it's not like I'm not at home during the week day. Yes, I am home but I'm working!!  I am not doing laundry or vacuuming because I am working. 
She along with friends and neighbors also think because I am home I will answer my home phone.  No.  I will not be doing that.

Think about it for a minute.  I am in my office at home with a separate office line. 
If I stopped and took every damn phone call during the day and talked to every candidate running, telemarketer, or salesman I would not get anything done in my job. 
If I went to an office downtown I could not answer my home phone during the day. 
To work from home it is the same.  My mother has my office number but she still calls me at home during that day and leaves me messages on my voicemail like this,
"Peggy I know you're home, it's mother pick up."
Like with voicemail I would be able to even hear her, which is a whole other story for another day.

So now I have neighbors who think I have all the time in the world to drop them off somewhere in the middle of the day or let their contractors in because they are at work, or my favorite from stay home women, go to lunch and shop.
Honest to God it fries my ass. 

Last week I told my neighbor who has already moved to another state that I would help her out.
But the day became a cluster @#$%
I told her to tell her roofer that I work from home so if he rings the bell I may not be able to answer the door quickly.  I may be on the phone with a customer so be patient.

At 10am I hear a pounding on my front door, apparently the door bell was too small for this goof ball to see.  I am on the phone and I couldn't hang up, it was bad timing.  He pounds harder and longer this time.  I finally asked the customer if he could hold.  I ran downstairs and opened the door and told him I was working and I would be done in just a minute.  He was pissed. (oh well)  I run back upstairs to my customer and finish up the call.  I run back downstairs and as doing so hear my office phone ringing.  I let the roofer in my neighbors home and show him all he needs to see so he can do his job.  I ask if he needs anything and how long did he think this would take.  Several hours is all he could tell me and he needed nothing else. 

I get back home and see I now have 3 voice mails. 
I call everyone back and then my door bell rings.
I go back downstairs and it's the roofer asking for clarification about something that makes me have to be next door at the neighbors home.  So back I go next door.  After 20 minutes I go back to work.  I am so behind now.  Now the dog needs to go out.  I am about to scream. 
Come back from a walk and Izzy sits by my feet and goes to sleep. 
Finally I can get some work done.  I am on the phone again with a customer going over the procedures and warranty and someone is knocking on my door.  I think it's the damn roofer again so I figure, "He can wait!"
They knock 2 more times. Now they are pounding so hard that I can feel it upstairs.
I assume he thinks I can't hear him.   Ring the bell that is what it is there for not that I can get away that minute anyway. 

I go to the door and it's my neighbor across the street. 
She asks, "are you busy?" 
"Yes, I am I'm working."
"Well do you think you could drop me off at my stable where I board my horse?"
"Right now?"
"Yes.  It's not that far.  You know they paved the road where our garage is today."
"Well I forgot about it and so now I can't get my car out of the garage."

At that moment my office phone rings.
I ask her to come in and let me get this phone call and I'll be right with her.
I go back downstairs and she asks," can you go now?"

I didn't want to but I remembered when I was sick and I couldn't drive she drove me to the hospital so I felt like I owed her one.  So off to the stables we went.

35 minutes later.....By this time the roofers were done and waiting on me and not one bit happy.(guess what neither am I!!) 
I inspected everything for my old neighbor to report back to her. 
It was all fine but I wasn't.  I knew I'd be working very late this evening.
I felt very rushed and my whole flow was gone. 
I got back to the office and answered all the voice mails and worked until 8pm to get caught up. 

So the next time someone tells you they work from home believe them.
They are working.
You would never think to go to someones office and ask them to do the things I am asked to do because I "just" work from home.

People tell me all the time they aren't that disciplined they would play around or watch tv or whatever they wanted to do other than work. But trust me you wouldn't. 

What did happen when I started working from home was I found that I get lazy in how I am dressed or how I look.  Before I had a dog there were days where I didn't get dressed or do my hair or wear makeup etc. For that matter there were days where the only thing I did do was brush my teeth.  Then I'd realize it was almost 5:30p and my husband would be home soon and I better get my butt in the shower so I wasn't stinky girl when he got home!

Honestly, if the UPS man ever saw someone answer my front door and they were NOT in a red bathrobe he would think he was at the wrong house.  I don't want to confuse him.