When You Work At Home, You Can’t Go Home From the Office

Copyright © Patricia Brucoli

Are there drawbacks to working at home? NOT LIKELY!  Can you handle working alone? YES! I get along much better with my co-workers.

Okay, no problem, guess I will have to come up with something, as I am unaccustomed to so much bliss in the workplace!  I love it so much that I can’t stop until I am literally blurry-eyed EVERY NIGHT! I log in first thing 8-9:am and go home to the living room about 11:00pm and even later sometimes.

Of course, I do take frequent breaks throughout the day, but they are getting shorter and shorter. I do know when I have reached the maximum amount of information that I can process - and I force myself to watch a movie or lay down, or go shopping, but I rush back as soon as possible! I was never this enthused when I was ‘punching a time clock’.

Wait, I thought all these home business schemes are called ‘autopilot’ - well, yes, they really are - but just like the sports cars of all our dreams, autopilot is ’someday’ - a goal to shoot for. In the beginning there is so much to read, so many things to set-up, that will be awhile before you can lounge around all the time - but yes - it is true with an online home business you can and do ‘make money while you sleep’!

To clarify, especially with ‘affiliate programs’, everything really is done by the entity that you represent - they do the customer service, the order fulfillment, the technical support, the billing and payment process, the inventory - all of it. If you have your own business entity websites then you will have lots more to do.

Well, what do I do then, other than run ads, check email and track stats and try to figure out the latest traffic strategy? Somehow, with all the drudgery taken care of, I have come to a place where I can think and become creative! I hate to admit it, but working for yourself there is a lot more impetus to excel in what you are doing, than when working for some ungrateful, grumpy mega-corporation.

My websites give me more pleasure than even a new outfit used to! This - from a natural woman, ‘born to shop’! I get so much gratification everytime I add a banner, or do some other little modification! I have limited technical skills, so it makes it even more gratifying when I figure out how to do something. Lately, even just looking at my websites gives me pleasure!

Having said all that, I hit the wall last week - I got on the freeway to go to a relative’s house in the hills for the holidays, and when someone 1/2 mile ahead of me put on their brakes, I slammed on mine, going 65 miles an hour - as if I would have rear-ended them if I hadn’t. I almost caused the poor guy in back of me to hit me, speaking of rear-enders.

I didn’t realize what had happened until he came around me to shake his fist and other parts of his hand at me: My eyes are fried! I wear reading glasses that magnify everything - with so many 12 hour, 7 day weeks glued to my home office PC monitor, it has really distorted my depth perception.

It was also difficult reading those huge highway signs! This has never been a problem before, and I actually at one time not too long ago had better than 20/20 vision far away. I made a vow when I got where I was going, that other than driving home in a few days, I was not going to drive again on the freeway unless I could get some correction in my vision, be it driving glasses or even lazer surgery!

On the other hand, convinced I was going blind, I sat for a couple days in a house where there is no internet connection. Thankfully, by the end of my stay, my eyes had finally rested enough to adjust from virtual to reality. But the lesson is still there, and the horror that I could have caused an accident.

Bottom line, don’t love your home business so much that you harm your eyes. Get up every hour or so and stretch; and don’t forget one of the oldest lessons in ‘ergonomics’ - look at something far away for at least a few minutes, while you are up, so that your eyes don’t get fried at 16 inches or so between you and your PC. Remember that your monitor should not be positioned where you have to look up or look down at it - you should be looking straight ahead.

OK, so working at home is not perfect, unless you can stop loving it too much to stop! Happy, healthy, home business computing!

Feel free to publish my article, as long as you acknowledge me as the author and include my links. Thanks!