You Know I Have a Real Job, Right?

My husband and I play a game. It's called, "You know I have a real job, right?"

The rules are incredibly simple. Someone in my family comes into my office during the workday and asks me to do something they would never ask me to do if I were sitting in an office 20 miles away.

I stare at them. They stare at me. And I say, "You know I have a real job, right?"

That's it. That's the whole game. No one wins.

I've worked remotely since well before COVID, so working from home wasn't something I suddenly had to figure out in 2020. I had already figured it out. Or so I thought.

Then my husband and I decided to build our current home. This was our dream spot, the place we'd wanted to live. People told us how wonderful it was out here. You'll love it. It's beautiful. The neighbors are great. And they were right.

What nobody thought to mention until after we got here was, the internet was non-existent.

It reminded me a little bit of becoming a parent.

Before you have a baby, everybody's like, "You should have a baby! Babies are wonderful! We'll throw you a party! Here are seventeen blankets!"

Then you have said baby and everyone who's already had one goes, "Oh yeah, this is gonna be really hard."

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE MENTION THAT PART AT THE PARTY?

That's basically what happened with our house. Beautiful spot, lovely neighbors, dream home, no internet.

There was one additional problem. I worked from home.

And we'd planned for that. We built me an office.

Not just an office, my dream office. It had a chandelier.

Do you know what my dream office with its beautiful chandelier did not have?

Internet.

Do you know what did?

The laundry room.

So for the first six months, I worked off a Verizon hotspot in my laundry room.

There weren't internet lines available to our house. I couldn't get a reliable signal in the office we'd specifically built for me, and I was genuinely terrified that after years of successfully working remotely, I might not be able to keep doing it because I couldn't get internet at my own house.

Every meeting depended on that little hotspot working.

Nothing says successful professional woman like leading a meeting with a washer and dryer over your shoulder while silently praying that your internet and possibly your career doesn't drop.

And there was another unforeseen downside. When your office is your laundry room, you really lose the ability to pretend you haven't noticed the laundry.

It's right there. Watching you. Judging you. Missing one sock. Always one sock.

Eventually, thankfully, actual internet made its way to our house and I was able to move back into the office we had actually built for me.

The chandelier incidentally did not survive. Turns out chandeliers are excellent at looking pretty and considerably less excellent at helping you see.

So now I have carpet, good lighting, internet, and, most importantly, a door.

At the beginning of this year, I took things a step further. I bought a battery-powered doorbell for my office and a welcome sign.

Because apparently the only way to convince the people that I live with that I was actually at work was to turn part of our house into a small business.

When I'm busy, they have to ring the bell.

I realize this sounds ridiculous. It also works.

And frankly, if you work from home with other human beings in the house, you know that sometimes a boundary isn't a philosophical concept.

Sometimes it's a twenty-dollar doorbell.

And I love working remotely. I really do. I know working remotely is a privilege.

My husband is a machinist. He physically has to go where the machines are.

Nobody expects him to come home after dinner and say, "Hmm, you know what? I think I'll just machine a few more things before bed."

His work is at work.

Mine? Mine lives downstairs, which creates a very different problem.

You know that moment in a horror movie when everyone realizes,

The call is coming from inside the house? That's my laptop.

Remote work gives me flexibility that I genuinely value. I can get my kids on the bus in the morning. I can throw something in the crockpot during lunch. I don't commute. I don't pay for parking. If I need my kitchen or my own bathroom, they're right upstairs. I can be comfortable in my own home without spending money simply because I went to work that day. And I don't need a massive work wardrobe.

Those things are wins. Real wins.

But there's another side to it.

Work is always right there. Just downstairs. Waiting.

And apparently capable of whispering, you could just finish that one thing.

Which is how I'll stop at five becomes I'll just wrap this up, becomes why am I still sitting here?

There is also a strange perception that working remotely isn't quite the same as working.

You know the image: bathrobe, coffee, bonbons, check a few emails, wiggle the mouse occasionally so everyone thinks you're still online, maybe throw in a load of laundry. Living the dream.

Meanwhile, I'm often actively working from the moment I've decided that my workday starts until well after the time I've told myself it's going to end.

Even my family occasionally forgets.

One day my son walked in and asked, "Mom, how come every time I come in here, you're working?"

And I looked at him, "You know I have a real job, right?"

Apparently this was news.

Because this is my job, and I am working.

But there's another piece of this that

I don't want to gloss over. Remote work has become a sore subject.

Some people want it and can't get it. Some were remote and were called back. Some people love being in person. Some people absolutely don't.

I don't want to sit in my carpeted office with my reliable internet and my doorbell and pretend there isn't privilege in being able to work this way.

There is. I'm grateful for it.

And at the same time, choosing to remain remote has consequences for me too.

There are job opportunities I may miss because they require me to be somewhere else.

There may be development or career progression I give up because, at this point in my life, working remotely matters enough to me that I'm willing to make that trade.

I can recognize that this is a benefit and still admit that part kind of stinks.

That's the part I think gets lost when we talk about remote work as though there are only two teams.

Remote work is the future versus everybody get back in the office.

Real life is messier than that. There are gives and takes. Right now, I’m happy with mine.