Research shows increases in people working from home, presumably because they’ve got more time on their hands to complete questionnaires. Despite lack of audience, working from home is actually an art form, often practiced by artistic types honing the art of home working at the cost of doing any actual creativity.
You can be present for deliveries that your housemates/partner will never know you’re buying (apart from the burgeoning book and vinyl collection). You know what time local residents leave for work, and can count in minutes for how long you’ve been out of your pyjamas when they return home. The closest you get to the rush hour is watching it on BBC London, while most of the day is spent moving between rooms forgetting the reason why. There’s infrequent water-cooler moments, unless stubbing your toe on the kitchen bin counts, and to the untrained eye, or indeed the highly trained specialised eye, you appear to be doing little beyond blurring the distinction between wondering and wandering
It’s solitary, but you chat to street cleaners and know your postman, both of whom nod politely at your desperate friendliness, while mumbling something about having some actual work to do. You can spend afternoons adding correct English spelling to the American MSWord spelling and grammar, but there’s nothing more important to home working than the afternoon nap. The entire day swings upon its fulcrum; it’s something worth staying up for, and certainly waking for.
Of course the siesta remains popular with court room judges, and remains practised in Mediterranean countries, which is probably why they lost their empires; after all it’s hard to maintain law and order while its proponents snooze off their lunch. But where it truly prevails is in the day of a freelancer.
For home workers it’s important not to look the nap directly in the eye. You can’t slope upstairs to sleep; you’re working from home for goodness sake. But you can lie on the bed to do some paper work. Any will do, The Guardian, The Telegraph, even a monthly magazine. You take it with you, lie down beside it and close your eyes for a moment, with the FULL intention of resting them momentarily, although not before you set your alarm for 40 minutes later. And as your blood thickens like treacle and bird tweets meld with the traffic hum and children playing and babies crying next door, comes the magical obliteration of drifting to sleep. Upon waking 40 minutes later, it’s important to act surprised, and disappointed that you so carelessly allowed yourself to doze off. To compensate, it’s advisable to leap up, make a cup of tea, and look for some cake. Generally speaking smoothing out your body’s imprint from the bed and re-positioning pointless scatter pillows (from photographic evidence of original formations) is best left for when you’re reminded to do so by the sound of a key in the front door.
Home working has other benefits; it’s impossible to leave the sandwich you made for lunch at home, you can survive entirely upon flapjacks without hiding them behind your work station, and no one asks why you’re not picking up that damn phone. But nothing beats the planned accidental post lunch nap.
January 29, 2015 at 12:46 pm
A very English perspective on what is a scientically proven to be a major contribulry factor of a persons health and wellbeing.
Viva la Siesta!
LikeLiked by 1 person
February 2, 2015 at 10:49 am
One day I’d love to read a blog post about working from home that ISN’T about pyjamas, naps and not working much at all!!!!!!!!!!! I generally do a fair bit, does that make me a boring square???!! Having said that, I do take frequent afternoon naps, often exist all day on flapjacks (how did you know??!! They’re the best thing for stopping you feeling hungry for AGES and take no preparation!).
A note for all men over hundreds of generations who’ve thought themselves the superior sex and women the also-rans: women actually sussed this out right from day one. Like, Eve, right? Let the men go out to do the work while we stay at home and chat to the postman, spy on life passing by our window, have afternoon naps, etc…. it’s much nicer than all that going out to work stuff. Works best if you’re also wise enough to not have children. Of course, during the 1970s some daft movement started out to make women think they needed to be a presence in the workplace, or something equally dumb, but we smarter ones resisted when at all possible, because we know it is best to have whole days to ourselves without having to sit in offices with people who get on our nerves, worrying about a load of shit that doesn’t matter.
Loved this post, Tom; if I can work out how I shall follow your blog 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
February 2, 2015 at 1:22 pm
worrying about a load of shit that doesn’t matter.! haha. Very well put. Ad thanks for enjoying it! I’m chuffed.
LikeLike
May 25, 2015 at 8:40 am
Very funny, Tom! Actually, I find that my day hinges around Pointless. I know consider Alexander and Richard to be my friends, and can tell you on any given day what the jackpot is. And I don’t eat flapjacks but I’ve currently got 14 Mini Magnums in my fridge because my dealer’s just been.
LikeLiked by 2 people
July 1, 2015 at 3:52 pm
haha, i bet your dealer is rushed off his feet today
LikeLike
July 1, 2015 at 8:06 am
see, I work from home and I hit the desk at 7.30 and, apart from quick coffee breaks, don’t get up until 5.30. 9Did I mention that I am a congenital liar?)
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 4, 2016 at 6:52 pm
Add in a six-figure salary and this is “the dream” for me!
LikeLiked by 1 person
January 4, 2016 at 7:07 pm
That’s the crucial element isn;t it
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 14, 2016 at 5:05 pm
Lol. That’s exactly how my day works!
Have you been spying on me??
Angel x
LikeLiked by 1 person