What a title, not usually my norm, however it does state my exact thought.
While some people crave and thrive on social environments, I tend not to… not because I hate people, but because it takes a lot of mental energy (which eventually leads to being physically draining) to mingle. While I do enjoy being in social situations, connecting with new people and learning new things about existing people, at the end of the day it sometimes leads to an exhausting decompressing state.
A craved decompression–where I can be alone with select people, movies, music or just plain ol’ surfing the web … or doing nothing at all but looking at a wall and pondering all things in life.
Today, or in this past week I have felt a shift. I feel as if I’m able to start writing/recording more often while maintaining social interaction and it not feeling overwhelming. Ironically someone has offered help in editing footage, publishing and syndication–I tell you, this will relieve some of the stress of worrying about the after stuff. Just maybe I will be able to focus on more of what I currently consider to be “the fun.”
Shifting from work at home to not work at home
2020 was an interesting time for workplaces. Many people were (are they still?) flocking to work at home jobs, filling in many areas people thought couldn’t be accomplished. A lot of people realized how easy, and not easy it is to work from your own home and this lead me to get out of it.
For several years I worked in general support, tech support and “home security” which lead me to become easily exhausted with “people.” When you’re handling thirty-to-fifty calls per day you’ll be done with the phone at the end of the day. I kept separate headsets for this reason, 1 for customers, 1 for personal – and I never let the personal one hear a customer voice as to not “taint” the headset.
Tips for working at home
It is not easy, but I’ve did it for years and want to let people know just in case you’re wondering.
- Your family will never be quiet enough
- This means you need to have a quiet place, live by yourself or have the capacity to soundproof the room you’re in.
- Get a “busy” light for your door. Jabra sells them and… you can pretty much DIY.
- Do not cheap out on hardware.
- I highly recommend commercial headsets, Jabra being one (no, I’m not sponsored)
- PC Parts?–Buy 2 of everything.
- Mechanical keyboard, NOT membrane.
- Have a backup modem/router.
- Separate the space
- IF you have the room, one space (room) should be for work and the other for not work, ever.
- This means have separate computers, separate chairs, etc.
- Put a sign on your front door stating do not knock, send a text.
There is less luxury working from home
There, I said it. If your employer is a typical slave driver they will expect and demand more from you because you are home. Installing invasive software onto your computer (this is why you should have separate computers), monitoring you more than normal and hounding you just for having Internet issues.
Conduent was a company I worked at for a very short while which insisted looking in at your home office (via webcam). Sure, they sent you an iMac to work, but it did in fact come with many, many strings. And, getting it back to them was just as tedious as I thought it’d be–being threatened with a “legal team” because I refused to tote it across town to the nearest UPS drop-off – No, I am not carrying an iMac cross town. I explained to the assets person I do not have that type of transportation. Essentially, they were making pay to have it sent back, no… no, thank you, but no. The other terrible experience with this company is how disorganized it truly was–this person did not have access to my address at all, nor was I submitting it through email.
Support.com Inc, another infamous company known for their fraudulent software and not paying their employees made a habit of targeting low cost areas. This was because they could underpay the employees, get the most work out of them, and I mean overload them with many, many tasks and never work with them on raises. I knew a guy who had been there for three years and never received any raises. They truly expected you to simply quit so they could bring in the next warm body.
On-top of the odd workplace at Support.com, they put in a “reimbursement” on your cheque, but that meant nothing when you were still paid peanuts. So while you were employed by them, they expected you to pay for all the hardware out of pocket. I expect this type of deal as a contractor, not as an employee.
Both of these companies …were interesting, to put it politely.
It’s good to get out
Coming back to the social interaction bit, it is a good change to be slightly interactive with people throughout the day. The desk life treated me well and maybe one day I’ll go back to it, but for now I am content in expanding my skill sets outside of the computers and keeping it only as a hobby (and some side work).
Thinking more on it, I believe “getting out” as helped bring me back to writing and recording. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve released a podcast episode or have put out a full, (not random) random post such as this one. Come on, I’m even doing small movie reviews…what’s gotten into me!
I hope you have a good day and thank you for reading! Feel free to email me if you want, [email protected]
TL;DR: I’ll be publishing more often.