Working (or not) From Home

I believe that I need to be wholly done with working from home. No, not that my job is going anywhere, it’s just that I might just have reached the end of my rope with the “home office” thing. When the bosses announced that they were closing the company’s local office and setting everyone up to work from their homes, I applauded the decision. That was June. Now I find myself stir crazy to the point of missing cubicles and noisy office mates.

As an early birthday present I finally bought a web streaming DVD player. At the time of purchase I didn’t calculate how, given my personality, I might never leave the house again. The ability to access Netflix movies and TV shows, gives me the opportunity to watch every DVD on the planet without ever having to walk down the drive and retrieve discs from the mailbox. Other than the gym and Jack in the Box, I might cocoon myself into my own little world.

Since everyone has been speaking of Downton Abbey, I summoned up the first series on the shiny DVD machine. Dear God, it’s amazing. But, I now find that when I’m reformatting spreadsheets and calculating monthly reports, I’m beginning to think about how easy it would be to just walk down the hall, push play and watch another episode. I’ve started to think “I don’t need to go to the gym today. I worked out yesterday.” It’s quite possible that, given my druthers, I just wouldn’t leave the house. Aluminum foil over the windows and keep the streaming crack coming.

Did you know that Dominoes has an app for your iPhone? It’s very handy for shut-ins in need of home bound substance. By evening time, I am just wired enough from the liter of Diet Coke the Dominoes delivery guy brought with the cheesy goodness that anyone trying to formulate social interaction gets hit with a tidal wave of pent up frustration. The frustration that comes from being trapped inside all day wondering if the Younger Countess of Grantham will break the Estate.

Six months of working from home and I thought I had a routine. Work a little, go work out, maybe a run, then an early afternoon of TV before school. I think I need to change it up a little bit. Get more social interaction in my day; because I never realized that a day without face-to-face interaction was going to affect me in a way that was detrimental to... well anyone trying to speak to me.