Thinking of
quitting your job and working from home? Read this first before you take the
plunge.
Will it make
you happy to be Superwoman at home? Sure, it’s nice to dream about being your
own boss and being there all the time while the kids are growing up. But
everything has a price. Is it one that you’re willing to pay?
Here are 8
realities you’ll need to face when you switch from being Superwoman in the
office to being Superwoman at home:
Reality no.
1:
You may not have time to make home cooked meals after all.
A lot of
work-from-home moms don’t even cook. They’ve got a household helper to do it
for them. Why? Because cooking is time consuming, and clients can be demanding,
and there are only so many hours in a day. What if your client says, “Can you
do a rush job? I need this in two hours.” -- can you say no? Clients are so
hard to get and can be easy to lose. Will you refuse the rush job that earns
you money per hour because you need to cook lunch for your kids? If you say no,
where will your client go – and when they go, will they ever come back to you
again?
If you’re
like many work-from-home moms, this kind of scenario usually results in a happy
client and instant oatmeal for lunch. And it happens more often than you may
think, because for many clients, the deadline was always “yesterday.”
Reality
no. 2:
You still won’t be there all day for the children.
If you were there
all day for the children, you wouldn’t have time to work at all. Usually, the
kids of work-at-home moms learn that there are at least eight hours a day when
Mommy is either locked up in her room or simply uncommunicative. “Don’t knock
unless you’re bleeding.”
If you don’t
have a rule like this, you’ll find that kids are forever discovering
interesting things and wanting to show them to you while you’re in the middle
of a difficult sentence in your email. By the time you get back to your
computer, you’ll need to read the email from the start to re-gather your
thoughts and resume your flow. Hopefully, by the time your flow resumes, your
kid hasn’t found another interesting thing to show you again.
While this
may be tolerable if it only happened once a day, it’s far more likely to happen
every half hour if you don’t set the “No talking to Mommy when she’s at work”
rule right at the onset.
Reality no.
3:
Your productivity will go down.
Offices are
specifically designed to minimize distractions. Homes are not. What you could
accomplish at the office in eight hours, you will only be able to accomplish at
home in sixteen hours. Why? Because children quarrel and would need a referee.
Or somebody would actually bleed and only Mommy can comfort them.
When we’re
at home, even during work hours, we are expected to set the table and wash the
dishes. We are expected to sweep the floor, launder the clothes, and answer the
doorbell.
The fact
that you’re at work will not deter your housemates from living their own lives.
They will continue to watch TV or listen to the radio.
We’ll say it
again: homes are full of distractions. If you expect to maintain your old
office productivity, expect to work double your work hours as well.
Reality
no. 4:
You may miss adult companionship.
Do you like
chatting with your colleagues during lunch break? Do you like going out after
work? You may miss these more than you think when you’re stuck at home with
nobody to chat with but your children’s nanny and your husband. Hey, we’re not
saying it’s not fun to chat with your nanny or husband. Maybe it is, maybe it
isn’t – you tell us.
On the other
hand, if you prefer to stay alone at work – you have lunch alone, go to the
bathroom alone, go straight home from work – then you may find working from
home very comfortable, a sanctuary where you’re finally freed from most of the
pressures of having to socialize with your fellow adults.
Reality no. 5:
Work can be seasonal.
This may not
apply if you’re still employed as a regular employee who is simply working
under a telecommuting scheme, but most work-from-home moms run their own
business. This means you will have times when business is slow, as clients’
needs fluctuate.
Unfortunately,
your electricity bills and water bills and Internet bills and childcare bills
do not fluctuate at the same rate. Whether you’re earning little or a lot, the
bills remain practically the same. So if you haven’t learned yet to save for a
rainy day, you’ve got to learn fast!
Reality no. 6:
Client payments get delayed.
Oh, this is
painful. There are times when work is fast but client payments are slow. Some
poor work-from-home moms have even gotten clients who don’t pay at all!
There is
nothing more demoralizing than finding that, after working sixteen hours per
day, your wallet is still empty and you don’t have money to pay for basic
groceries because your clients say they can’t release your payment yet because
their clients haven’t paid them yet either (that’s supposed to be your
problem?). On days like these, you will definitely miss the days when you at
least knew that when the 15th and 30th of the month comes, you’ll have a
salary.
Reality no.
7:
There’s no such thing as holidays.
Well, this
is not exactly true. You can take holidays if you like, but if your income is
directly proportional to your output, it’s unlikely you’ll be taking holidays.
Some of us don’t even take weekends. Some work-from-home moms who don’t have
childcare help don’t even sleep more than four hours at night, as that’s the
only time they get to work in peace.
Reality no.
8:
If you don’t have a high level of self-discipline, you can very easily fail.
And when
you’re a work-from-home mom, productivity is everything. Often, our income
depends on how much work we churn out. The longevity of our clients depends on
how perfect our work is. You’ve got nobody but the clients themselves to do
quality check on your work, and if they don’t like what they see, they probably
won’t tell you; they’ll just go find somebody else. You need self-discipline
when you work from home. It will not work otherwise.
Working from
home is also dependent on your personality: Will it give you peace, or will it
drive you crazy? Do you find the idea of staying home all day stifling or
liberating? Will being your own boss teach you to fly, or will it take away the
wind beneath your wings?
Now that
you’ve had a glimpse of “the dark side” of working from home, you may be asking
yourself, “Why, then, do women bother to make the shift?”
A lot of
women bother because, for some, the rewards are greater than the costs; the
gain is greater than the loss. The income may be less stable, but it
compensates by becoming more substantial (when it does come). They may not have
more time with their kids, but they are able to be there at the exact moment
that it matters to be there – like when somebody is actually bleeding. The risk
of failure may be higher, but the potential for success is greater as well.
Is it for
you? You decide.
By: Blessie
Adlaon
Photo
Credit: Google Image
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