Life on the Road

Remember the rat race? For a few years, my life consisted of waking up in the morning, meeting my husband at a coffee shop for a latte and muffin, then driving for an hour in challenging, frustrating Bay Area traffic, hoping that this would not be the day my car was totaled by some jerk juggling a coffee mug, cell phone, and electric razor while driving an enormous SUV or shiny pickup truck.

I would get to work and go into my cubicle. I am a very short person, and I can tell that cubicles were invented by tall people. Short people would never invent something with 5′6″ tall “walls” that only tall people can look over.

I worked in my cubicle, using a Windows computer (hate), until 5 or 6 at night, when I’d head out to the car and start the horrible drive home. Sometimes, the drive was easier. It was lighter during the holidays, and it was a lot lighter when I first started, when everyone had been laid off.

Today, I work from home. My home office is a small desk in the living room area of my RV. It’s less than 20 feet from my bed, and I can work from bed if I choose to. I can work from the picnic table outside if I really feel like it.

But I still work. From 8:30 in the morning until 3 or 5 at night, I’m at my computer, thinking about and doing work-related tasks. I might be writing a blog post, reading other blogs, writing a script, formatting a document– but I’m working. Monday to Thursday, I’m usually at work.

I like my life, and I love working from home. I work for myself as a freelancer, but I suspect I would be happy if an employer hired me, as long as they wanted to preserve my productive hours by letting me continue to work from home on the road. I know employers want to have employees present and viewable, but I suspect that comes from a mentality that needs to justify the existence of middle management, and one which neither trusts nor empowers employees. An organization that really trusts its employees to do right by the company and which is honest with itself and its purpose? That’s my kind of place!

[I promise, I’ll get around to talking about U.S. travel soon. Really.]

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