Waiting For the End of the World

One day to go until S.B. and I go on vay-cay and what am I doing? Trying to get as much work done as possible so as not to totally freak out once I get back home? Uh. Nope.

Instead, I am blithely catching up on my blog reading, savoring each and every word of these wonderful gals' posts and dreaming of the day when I will be grown up enough to purchase a tri suit.

I mean, I figure that one should take at least a full day before leaving on vacation and a full whole day after coming back from vacation, to rest up.

At least if you work for yourself. Because those of us who work at home are not as blessed with as much free time as you'd think. In fact, contrary to popular belief, working for yourself is actually in many instances not better than working some slave wage 9 to 5 job.

Why?

1. Moi may like to think she charges on average $40 an hour for her services. However, in the really real world, once she divides the amount of time she spends researching, phone calling, emailing, writing first draft, then worrying in a mother-hen-like-state over each and every word of the second draft, her actual salary is more like 1.675 cents per hour. (Note to self: in next life, go into plumbing or engineering.)

2. Nine-to-fivers are guaranteed vacation, sick leave, and bereavement leave to the tune of at least a couple weeks a year. Which they can schedule months ahead of time. In work-at-home land, no one gives a crap if your mother just died or you just ran over your dog or you're so dead tired you could sleep for a week. No. This article on 51 ways to beat wrinkles before they beat you simply MUST be complete before you do anything else. Including brushing your teeth, showering, or shopping for shoes.

3. When you work at home, many clients feel perfectly free to call you at all hours of the day, including first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and during lunch. That's because the majority of your clients are NOT located in the fly over states and therefore have quite the loosey goosey relationship with time. Mountain Standard Time? WTF is that? On the Left and Right Coasts there is only Client Time. You cannot hang a CLOSED sign on the door. You do not have a secretary to tell callers that Ms. Moi is out to lunch and will be back at 2:00. Hell, you can't even ignore your emails. No, sir, don't even think about opening those missives unless you are fully prepared to deal with them right at that very moment. Because the crazed client at the other end will know exactly when you hit the "read" button.

But, soon, I will be in a place with no cell phone coverage and no Internet service.

Which is so righteously anarchical I'm relaxed just thinking about it. Now, if only there was a way to guaranteed there won't be 1.5 bazillion emails and voice mail messages waiting for me when I get home.