The Balancing Act

Blog 10 of 10

The phrase work from home in recent years has meant many things with laptops and tablets and mobile phones and excellent internet connectivity and access to data on the cloud. It has resulted in an almost seamless transition from the workplace to the house. In the nineties though, the phrase work from home only existed in the minds of mavericks like me and a few others.

The lack of technology was a problem no doubt but the topic for another blog in this series. The biggest challenge for me and one that has probably not changed much with the passage of time was drawing boundaries between work and home.

My family and friends believed I was at home. My clients decided I was at work. Balancing the two without going too crazy was a challenge.

My maid would often come and stand in front of me smiling sweetly and gesticulating wildly when I was on a call with a client. She could not understand I did not put the client on hold. The longer she waited the higher her pitch would become. I would have to shush her and turn and walk away to avoid getting distracted – something that annoyed her very much.

My sons had been told not to disturb me when I was on a call. So, they would in front of me grinning expectantly into my face for the first minute of the call which was extremely distracting when trying to have a serious conversation with the client. I tried walking away but they would follow me closely and not be deviated from their purpose.

My mother would call and launch immediately into the latest family saga without any preamble. If I cut a short and told her I was working, she would complain that I was working all the time and never had time for her. The long hours I spent taking her out, never seem to compensate for the few minutes that I could not spare on family dramas!

My dad took another route. After being told couple of times that I was busy, he chooses sarcasm. He would pick up the phone and say, “Do you think you can spare a minute for your father?” All in all, it took a lot of diplomacy to keep everybody happy and keep my sanity at work.

One of the ways I defined boundaries was by dressing up to work and going into my office room. Granted the clothes that I wore to work at home were different from those at client meetings – something my sons and dog soon realised.

The minute I dressed up for a client meeting, my sons would look at me accusingly and say, “Why are you wearing something fancy?” I would have to reassure them that I would be back soon. My dog would put his head down on his paws and sulk.

But if I dressed up to work from home, my dog would happily wag his tail and precede me to my office room, where he would settle down under my desk. As for my sons, they ignored me. They really didn’t need me, they just wanted to make sure that I was there. That, for them, was my job.

I love my family no doubt, but there were days I longed to be able to just pause them or mute them so I could complete whatever assignment was on hand. It was intensely frustrating at the time, but years later, with my sons grown up and living far away and my parents aging, I look back and have no regrets at all. In fact, I would give anything today to have a grinning child jumping up and down in front of me while I am on a call!