What A Girl Wants

I spent last week driving around Central Texas with a co-worker delivering marketing materials to my accounts. As we drove we visited on various work projects, families, friends, but the most interesting discussion we had was on the lack of choice that society gives to mothers. It made me sit back and think about how I really feel about where I am right now as a mother, an employee and a person.

In a perfect world that didn’t having me owing far to much money in student loans we might be able to afford for me to stay home while we have young children. In reality though I work to make sure we can afford Alex’s school, groceries and the occasional splurge. Although we don’t live paycheck to paycheck we are a far cry from even considering being a single income household, and usually I’m okay with that.

Lately though I’ve been a bit frustrated with how Alex is reacting to changes at his school, the constant colds coming home and as my workload gets busier and busier, the need to spend family time occasionally doing work. I enjoy my job, my family, and my hobbies but my priorities fall with family first. I truly feel that being home with my kiddo would be to his benefit while he’s young, and luckily I’m blessed with a job that allows me to telecommute so the parade of colds and sick days don’t necessarily derail my work schedule.

But how do parents with less flexible employers manage this. My mother worked for a variety of companies when I was younger and at many of them she could only take off for extreme emergencies. She was a single parent doing the best she could and the deck was stacked against her. If we as a society want to tout that the children are our future we should be a bit more careful of who is rearing that future. Society sees motherhood as a part time affair and doesn’t always give credit where it’s due. Our children spend more time in daycare each day than they do at home, and even though I’m very grateful that my son has a safe and loving environment to be at each day, it makes me sad when I see all that he is learning that I’m not playing a part in teaching him.

Companies should explore alternatives for sick days that allow parents to be home with their children and depending on circumstances, to still manage some of their tasks. This is not to say if you have a puking child you should have to take phone calls, but there have been several days this year when my son was fine but waiting out a 24 hour fever free rule to return to school. On those days I can work and he can play outside thanks to my companies telecommuting policy. With phone forwarding, webinars, conference call lines, web cams and free online resources like google docs there are few reasons left to require a physical presence in the office at all times. Telecommuting, like staying home with your children is not for everyone, but for the most part I think it should be more of an option for those who want to pursue it.

Taking Your Work Home

Telecommuting is a growing benefit that many companies are using to hire great employees and keep those that would have once had to leave the office to move or stay home. This video is a great example of a company that is ahead of the game.



Even better, set me up with one of these babies! I love the idea but am not sure if my two year old wouldn't view this as a part of his outdoor playset. Check out the latest in the 10 second commute. Office Pods

Sunday already?

So yesterday things were so slow while I was working at the home and garden show that I boasted about there being many more posts to come. Hopefully no one sat around hitting refresh in vain! :) Things got so slow I got up and wandered the show visiting with other vendors. My faves at this show are the Vita Mix guy who showed me neat new things to try with my Vita mix and the wierd ionic foot spa people. More to come on these later!

Today is moving a bit faster, but boy am I ready to go home and have a weekend. Too bad I have to wait through another week to do that!

I've been pretty worried about Alex lately. He's a smart kid (what parent doesn't say this :)), and seems to be picking up on a lot of the chaos going on at his school, my work schedule and dealing with the after-effects of a fairly traumatic surgery. We've been in and out of doctor's offices for a while and I keep asking myself if I'm over-reacting and creating problems where there shouldn't be any, but my poor little guy just seems different. As soon as I can pinpoint exactly what changed I'll feel better but right now everything is so nebulous that half the time I think I'm imagining things.

Ok off to get some work done and see what I can manage for lunch...then it's off to the airport and jetting home to Austin! YEAH.

Long, Long, Long Day

So I'm back at the Home and Garden show (only a little late due to an unfortunate arguement with my GPS system. It's almost noon and I managed to order lunch and make it through the first two hours. Now just 8 more to go. Good thing I've got a super friendly booth neighbor who likes to chat, has similar tastes in books and is about as bored as I am. Guess I'll soon get started on some work if the traffic slows down anymore. Guess anyone reading today should be prepared for multiple updates! :)

Karma

Be careful what you wish for! During the last few weeks when Alex was cranky and I was beyond exhausted I was wishing for some good uninterrupted sleep! Major sleep! College style, sleep til noon sleep. And what did God send me? Three days and two nights in Fort Worth, in a lovely hotel, a large bed all to myself for maximum uninterrupted sleep pleasure...and He paid my way with a business trip to work the Fort Worth Home and Garden Show.

I've worked lots of these on and off over the last 5 years but never have they moved so slow, been so boring. COME ON! I feel like I've logged hours and yet I still have hours to go. The irony is that I'll probably have so much spare energy that tonight I won't be able to sleep!

PS. Check out the neat giveaway over at Only Sometimes Clever, my favorite Gluten Free resource.

Telecommuting Tuesdays

Image via CrunchBase

Boy is the world buzzing right now with a fascinating new way to save your company some money! The articles, posts and emails I've gotten lately touting telecommuting would make you think someone came up with this genius idea yesterday!

Business Week ran a nifty story that I enjoyed enough to forward to some co-workers (maybe I can subvert the entire office into working from home. Then I'll be the resident expert! WOOHOO.) Shortly after that crossed my desk I got some very interesting statistics about telecommuting.

The guys over at Undress for Success reported
• In response to high gas prices, almost one in four employers are planning to offer a telecommuting option for their employees within the next six months (8/08) and 42% already have. (Mercer’s 2008 Gas Price Impact SnapShot™ Survey)

I'm definitely seeing an increase in those telecommuting. My mother in law now works from home, my husband's field offers a lot of home based telecommuting opportunities, and a few of my co-workers are quietly edging their way out the office door. Although some employers still have a fear of Facebook stalking, slacker employees, most will find that losing the commute allows those of us logging in from home to accomplish far more from the couch than we ever did in the cube. And thanks to instant messaging services like Skype I can stay in touch with colleagues without the commute.

While I'm rambling about Skype let me just say that my husband travels for work and boy do I LOVE Skype for the weeks when he is gone. Our toddler can get a chance to see him, and even though he's hundreds of miles away, the video option (FREE, the whole darn service is FREE) means that he's always here for evening prayers.

Whether you already telecommute or are just trying to figure out how to get a little more flexibility in your day embrace the free services that are everywhere on the web for those of us logging in from home. Some of my absolute faves are:

• Skype
• Fax Zero
• Free Conference Calls
• Google for everything from forms, spreadsheets, tracking websites
• Free PDF Hosting
• Fake Phone Calls (has nothing to do with the business world but is freaking hilarious!)

Work work work

Image via Wikipedia

Telecommuting is more work than many office dwellers think. Not only are you doing the same workload you did before you left the office to work at home, but you are also doing the additional job of marketing yourself to the very company that hired you and continually promoting your capabilities to remind them why you should remain on the payroll.

Over the last three years there have been many times when work that would once have fallen to me by default has been passed on to a co-worker. Largely I think this is due to the "out of sight, out of mind" phenomenon that tends to affect telecommuters. Interesting enough a fellow telecommuter posted this article yesterday, and if you work remotely it has some great advice.

You also have to continually deal with what I call the mini mishaps. The computer trouble, internet going out, nuts knocking on the front door, the gold fish spitting rocks at you through the tank...all fun stories I'm sure will surface soon!

UPS Mishap

As a multi-tasking mama my day is always unpredictable! Today I waited anxiously for a UPS delivery of rush invitations for a special event only a week away...and I waited in vain. Technology is great and this morning the invitation designer and I anxiously checked to make sure that the invitations were on the road and headed our way, especially since we overnight shipped them! At 8:45 they were in Austin and I made myself wait patiently for them to arrive, but by 5pm I was wondering where my elusive UPS driver could be. My husband's family had all arrived to go out to dinner and celebrate his and my sister-in-law's birthdays but I couldn't be pried away from the computer. As a born planner I will admit that I am somewhat of a control freak, it's one of the traits that makes me good at what I do. However this was my inlaw's first experience with the sometimes unpredictable demands of my non stop entertaining. As everyone enjoyed thier dinner I continued to hound UPS on the phone and email an all night printer with emergency instructions to get my order filled NOW. By the time dessert arrived everything was under control and running smoothly once more, but you can bet UPS and I will find the time to chat on Monday!