Telecommuter

How can something that sounds so right turn out to be so wrong? Easy, add me to the equation!

Yesterday, I got permission to leave work early because a high priority paper I was going to work on was going to come in from the proof reader "around 4pm." Because we wanted to spin this paper around as fast as possible, someone needed to type in the changes that night. I was volunteered. Sounded fine to me - leave work early, then finish working at home.

Lesson: to determine your productivity at home, multiply how long it will take you to finish a task normally by 2.3.

I received a pdf of the document, complete with hand written changes, around 8:30. That was an omen. Because of the amount of changes to be made to the document, I really thought it'd be easier to just type the whole thing anew. Not having a soft copy of the original helped propel me down this path. I worked until midnight then went to bed.

Murphy's Law takes effect here: if something can go wrong it will.

Sophie got sick and woke up about every 2 hours all night. At 5:30 I tried to get her to sleep on my chest, but both of us ended up getting frustrated. She was probably trying to find a soft spot for her head, but my bones kept getting in the way. I was just trying to sleep but she kept squirming. Then I realized Lisa was a little under the weather, and finally it dawned on me that I was sick too!

Since sleep wasn't an option, I decided to get a head start on the document. I admit I laughed to myself about how surprised my co-workers would be having the finished document in their inbox by 9am - then I could take the rest of the day as a sick day.

As I sat down at the computer I realized 3 hours of work the night before had me less than 1/4 way done. So I started trying to type faster. Have you ever had a finger cramp? Me either - until today. Apparently after all my shoveling yesterday, typing was just too much to ask.

So I decided to take a break and put Lisa down for a nap, then Sophie. I couldn't resist starting a batch of Cris' baked oatmeal to surprise Lisa when she woke up. (She was)

After breakfast, Lisa started a flurry of cleaning to prepare for Jenny, our guest for the weekend. That mandated a break to shower, and help with the cleanup. Long story short, but noon I was barely halfway.

Then my co-workers started checking in for updates - someone finally sent me the original soft copy. Amazing what changed - in the first 9 hours (on and off) I had typed half the document. In the final 3 hours I did the same amount.

Except I got interupted by our Boy Scout Troop Comittee Chairperson who urged me again to cancel our scout meeting tonight. I gave in - but then had to spend a half hour letting everyone know. I had two paragraphs left, but put it off for a half hour. (Great sense of prioritization, don't you think?)

I went back and forth with my colleague a little to finalize the document and finally signed off at 5:55PM. I telecommuted and worked a 12 hour day! I would (almost) never do that in the office.

My take-away - while I loved being home, I think I need to develop a real discipline to be able to work here! It'll come in handy when school starts.