In praise of home offices

It was still dark as I drove my husband to a 7 a.m. doctor’s appointment yesterday. Traffic was building on the highway, but at least it was moving. In another half an hour, cars would probably be keeping no better than a snail’s pace.

It suddenly occurred to me that in my former corporate life, this is where I would have been at this ungodly hour on a weekday. I would already be stressed out by being up early enough to shower and dress, get the family organized and get on the road. The radio would be on to give advance warning of accidents and traffic jams, incoming snow storms or heavy rain. A drive that takes just half an hour in ideal conditions — perfect weather, middle of the day, light traffic — routinely took at least an hour, sometimes even when getting on the road at 7, since plenty of others had the same idea of “getting a jump” on traffic.

I smiled and said, “I am SO LUCKY.”

Lucky to be able to do what I do best, write, in a home office. Lucky that I don’t have to be somewhere else at a certain time every day. Lucky that I don’t spend one or two hours on the road every day. Lucky that now I usually listen to weather reports with mild curiosity rather than anxiety.

Do you feel lucky today? Why?

This entry was posted in The Red Jacket Diaries blog and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

One Comment

  1. Posted December 22, 2009 at 12:14 pm | Permalink

    Oh, oh, so lucky to be working from my home office. For some, it might be a sign of success to grow a business so big that you need external offices to bring everyone together. I can’t see the attraction at all. I would never want to have to go to an outside office. I think I will always want to work from home, no matter how big a success I might become. And I think this is true for other members on my team, too. Although there might come a time when we need external storage space, though! Still, this would not be a reason to have to commute to an outside office anywhere.

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>