The Far Side of Perfect: The Office - home edition

Ah… The joys of working from home.  No commute, no dress code, and no dealing with colleagues worthy of a role on The Office.  To those who venture into a “real” office on a regular basis, it does sound ideal.  Yet, over the years, I’ve waivered in my devotion to my home office. 

If you also work from home or are contemplating doing so, you’ll probably find that while there are a lot of advantages, at times it can be quite lonely.  It goes in stages.  However, just in case the isolation really starts to get to you, here are the top 10 signs that it might be time to turn your home office back into a guest room and lease yourself some office space.   

10. You take personal offence when the local Starbucks rearranges their interior layout without consulting you. How dare they?  Shouldn’t you have a say in what they do with your favorite conference room?

9. The only “water cooler conversation” in your life involves doing Tim Gunn imitations (“Designers … I’m worried.”) while discussing the Project Runway results on the phone with your mother.

8. You look wistfully at your closet full of unworn designer suits and high heels and think about how much fun it would be to play "dress up."

7. On a recent foray out to the Financial District for a meeting (wearing a suit that’s older than your children and tripping on heels that your Croc-spoiled feet can no longer handle), you’re astounded by the number of single men who exist in the world and are actually old enough to tie their own shoes.

6. You’ve given up rationalizing how you can possibly be home all day long and still not have a clean house.

5.  In a lame attempt to actually clean, you challenge your other “work at home colleagues” to bring over their robotic vacuum cleaners so you all can have “Roomba races.”

4.  You realize that Sven in Iceland and other Facebook friends know more details about the monotony of your daily life than your actual friends.

3. You’ve once again eaten your kids’ entire stash of blueberry pop-tarts, Scooby Doo fruit snacks, Spiderman cheese sticks and bubblegum flavored yogurt cups.

2. You are inexplicably drawn to Perez Hilton’s blog throughout the day just so you don’t miss the latest scoop on Britney, Amy Winehouse and those bobble-headed dolls otherwise known as the Olsen Twins. 

However, in my experience, the number one sign that it might be time for you to get out of the house and go back to an office is:

1.  You find yourself asking your children at dinner if they remember whether or not Mommy showered today.

by Diane K. Danielson

Reprinted with permission from the Cohasset Mariner

Comments

[Mary Ellen]

Gotta love Perez!

[Dani Nordin]

oh my. It might be time for me to rent office space. I waste my day at slightly different blogs, but yeah - the focus just isn't there anymore.

[Nancy Loderick]

In my quest for more human interaction, I also find myself getting into extended conversations with the postman, sales clerks, or even anyone walking by my house. Scary, huh?

[LA Blogger Gal - Katy]

playing "dress up" and no having a clean house...yep, that's me to a T.