I am becoming a teleworker. That is, I not only work from home, I will no longer have an office in any of the buildings - and there are many - that my company uses. Instead, when I go to an office for something other than a meeting, I will use hoteling space. They've set up a website to reserve these spots, though I'm not sure how often people actually use it.
It wasn't my choice to become a teleworker. The company is trying to cut down on facilities costs by asking people to work from their homes. I suppose there are some who would choose to be a teleworker or telecommuter (the difference being telecommuters have an office, they just aren't there much and may share it). Parents of young children. Folks, like business development types, who aren't in their offices much in the first place.
It's an interesting experiment, but one of the benefits is supposed to be improved work-life balance. The idea being, I suppose, that you can flex your time more around other things in your life.
The problem is that, for me at least, what it means is that I'm available to work 24x7. Yesterday, I last dealt with a work issue at 11:00 pm. I started working this morning at 7:30. That's not much of a work-life balance. Granted, I can do laundry and work at the same time. I can accept packages, too, which has been handy as a new homeowner. But working proposals is hard enough without adding the fact that my computer is up and running almost all the time.
This extended work schedule may ebb and flow. Right now, I'm in the middle of a proposal that's due in a week, so we are putting in a lot of hours for that. Many of which would probably have been put in whether I was at work or at home. Although I'm not sure I would have started work at 7:30 am if I was going into an office. I'm so not a morning person.
Other interesting changes to my lifestyle. I used to have my home's thermometer set to turn up the temperature during the day in the summer and turn it down in the winter. Since I'm here during the day, I've had to change that. Not sure what that's going to do to my energy bills yet. And not sure what the impact might be on the environment, though my fuel consumption is presumably less than an entire building's worth if they reduce the company's footprint sufficiently.
My cats are quite confused. They are used to not having me here all the time. Now they are getting used to having me here. And I'm not sure whether that will ultimately create anxiety on those days when I am in an office for most of a day. We'll see how that goes.
It's strange to go through the day only talking to people on the phone, via chat, or via email. It's weird to have days when I don't leave my house except to get the mail or go for a run.
On the plus side, I listen to music during the day, something I've rarely done in an office environment. It's also nice not to have to dress up every day, though I'm of two minds about that since I do like to wear nice clothes. But working in a t-shirt and shorts when it's 90 degrees outside does have its advantages.
I worry a bit about the things I may be missing in hallway conversations and the like. But a bunch of the people I work with are telecommuting or teleworkers, too, so it's not quite as bad as it might be.
I just have to master the art of turning off the computer and the Blackberry. Of not feeling like I have to respond to everything instantly. Even though I can.
And making sure that life isn't subsumed by work.
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