Working at-from-in-around-home

JON COLVIN/ FLORIDA WEEKLY Through no fault or virtue of my own, I’ve become self-employed.

And that means I work at-from-inaround while home, where I also cook and eat and sleep and clean and feed the farm animals and child-rear and fixup, all within about 50 feet of the place I sit to tap out my livelihood as a writer.

Can you imagine doing any of that at “The Office” — either your real one or some version of the NBC workplace comedy where Jim and Pam brought a baby into the mix last week?

At home, babies may be in, but water coolers are definitely out. Intimate conversations don’t happen. “Jim” and “Pam” are nowhere to be found.

And good gossip? Or a sudden idea blazing past like a comet that can be shared eyeball-to-eyeball with an office mate?

Nonexistent.

At home, no one disguises his or her inner child in artificial proprieties of dress and behavior while observing the ferocious office etiquette of profiteering at-close-quarters.

Instead, it’s all personal and frequently solitary.

For anyone who tries this, there are two inviolable rules: One, you have to find the right employer or manager. And two, you have to find the right vocation.

In my case, the editor and co-owner of Florida Weekly meets my standards for the right employer.

He understands both the value of technology and the range and potential of disciplined creativity, for lack of a better term.

The second rule — finding the right vocation — comes naturally. You probably have to love what you do, or at least like it. Failing that, working from home could become screwing-aroundfrom home, which is an easy enough trap anyway.

To avoid that trap, here’s how I deal with five prominent issues of the home office.

First: Children

When you work from home, your children quickly learn to let you work, always observing a respectful silence. And if you believe that, you better find the nearest corporate office and apply for a job.

Some people, therefore, create lines in the sand, backed up by doors in the wall. If the door is shut, daddy’s working, so DO NOT ENTER.

I don’t do that, because I won’t ever shut out my children. I’ve told them what my father once told me: “I don’t care if Jesus Christ himself shows up for a meeting. If you have to talk to me, he can wait because you come first.”

What do I do after delivering that line? I explain the situation to them. Please don’t interrupt me if I’m on the phone unless it’s an emergency. And if I’m writing, take the noise outside. Often they do, but it’s not a perfect work situation, at least not at my house.

Frequently I work on the weekends when my hard-working office wife, Amy Bennett Williams, a writer for

The News-Press, is not at her corporate office 20 miles from here. As a mother and an entertainer of boys she’s a magician, which means I can work unfettered. Second: Visitors

Amy and I avoid a lot of formal socializing, but we have frequent visitors. And we have a rule for those who don’t call, or solicitors of one stripe or another: If the gate’s open, come in. But only if the gate’s open. (Unlike others, people selling me religions, meat, a new roof or an asphalt driveway quickie will either get a cool or a hostile reception from me.)

If you live in a place frequented by visitors and friends, then your life is rich. But you can get a gate, and tell them that if it’s shut, you’re “otherwise occupied.” I like employing that phrase, because it implies all sorts of delicious things that often aren’t the case in the pedestrian moment.

Third: Domestic duties

No question about it, domestic duties can become tyrants. From the light bulb that needs replacing to the laundry that needs doing to the mower that needs fixing to the groceries that need buying to the fence wire that needs tightening to the deck that needs painting, they can reach out and grab you.

Sure, you have to pick the kids up from school, and pay attention to them, right then.

As for the rest? You control them. You work and perk, work and perk, work and perk. By that I mean you break up the telephone calls with little things. Break up the deeply concentrated efforts less frequently, but with bigger things.

Fourth: Food

Unlike at the office, and especially if your spouse is an extraordinary chef whose leftovers should be tabled in a gourmet restaurant, eating while you’re working can become a dangerous habit. The refrigerator hums quietly but insistently in the next room all day long — and not to itself.

“Roger, come here for a moment,” mine says. “Roger, the chicken’s on the second shelf, the rest of the Stilton is in the box, and remember the ratatouille she made?”

Yes, I remember. I think I’ll step outside now and study the umbrella of live oaks that canopy the house, for a moment. I might do some push-ups. Push-ups make the best short workbreak I know.

Fifth: Regular hours

Forget it. That doesn’t mean work all the time — you can’t let that happen unless you want an intervention.

“Roger, we’ve brought you here because you’re a workaholic and we love you and want you to get help. You need to join WA, Workaholics Anonymous.

(Roger, later: “Hi, My name’s Roger and I’m a Workaholic.” Room full of fidgeting, depressed-looking people, all together: “HI ROGER.”)

To avoid that, you have to find the hours you’re most comfortable with, and then be willing to compromise occasionally.

I like to work early, and sometimes I get to.

But if not? I work later, or just plain late. And is that worth it?

I can’t imagine a better work life, for me, than out of the office. 