Freelancers Prove that Working from Home Works

Yesterday's post about the business world pushing employees back to the office went a little off the rails, so I never got around to discussing where freelancers fit in.

When I left off, I was talking about the assumption that management has to physically watch employees or they won't work, and how I believe it comes from Taylorism, which is basically the grandfather of the modern office.  While Taylorism was originally designed for the factory setting, the same principles were quickly put to use in early 20th century offices.  For instance, in the 1910s and 1920s, Sears in Chicago hired young women as typists to type up order slips.  They were not secretaries, trained to handle any number of tasks their employer could need done, such as in a private office.  There were hundreds of them, working at rows of desks in a large warehouse-style office, typing up the same sort of thing. over. and. over.  And there was a manager's office on high, watching over them as they worked.  Start times, quitting times, and breaks were closely monitored, and no talking was allowed during work hours.

That's obviously a very extreme workplace environment to most of us today, but still, you can see the ancestor of the modern office in the structure, the microdivision of tasks, and the intense supervision and fundamental distrust of employees.

Freelancing is obviously the polar opposite of Taylorism.  Rather than believing employees to be untrustworthy and incapable of managing the big picture, the freelance industry puts us wholly in charge of our fate.  We are big picture people.  We manage our client relationships, our marketing, our task management, and our rates, and we do it all from our own homes (or wherever else we choose to work).  We basically say, "You don't have to micromanage us; just pay us for the finished product and we will deliver it to you."  We take all of that assumption that employees are inherently lazy, all of the loud offices with their foosball and snack walls and other "perks" designed to somehow trick people into wanting to be in the office, and we trash it without giving it a second thought.  Cut the bullshit.  Tell me what you want and I'll do it, from the comfort of my own kitchen.  And then I'll feed my cat.

There are, obviously, disadvantages to the freelance industry.  You don't have someone on staff to take your demands at any time.  We don't have a guaranteed salary or other benefits that come with full-time employment.  I have to buy my own office supplies... but hey, you don't have to devote resources to making sure I don't steal yours.

I think it's taken me these two posts to come round to what I've been trying to express the entire time: Freelancing proves that these things can be done, just as the pandemic and the studies I cited proved they could be done, but it's all in how you approach it.  When you give people freedom to work how they work best, you're meeting them on equal ground.  It becomes a matter of respect, and when you respect someone, they will do their best for you.

What Happened to Working from Home?

As a freelancer, it's been interesting to watch the work-from-home tug-of-war over the last few years.  For years there had been a prevailing reluctance to allow employees to work from home, even though I'd seen some of that resistance breaking down more recently, usually in "millennial" type companies that prided themselves on their work atmosphere and perks.  One of those "perks" was often the flexibility to work from home some days, usually on snow days and sick days, but sometimes "just because," a sort of early hybrid schedule.  I had a couple of friends who worked 100 percent from home, but those friends were outliers, exceptions to the rule.  The reigning belief was that it couldn't be done, even though those friends' companies and freelancers like myself proved otherwise.

Then covid hit, and basically the entire business world went to work from home.  There became a new definition of what could be done, because it basically had to be done, unless it genuinely couldn't be done.

I remember a lot of discussions with office workers at the time.  We all felt like covid had tipped the scales, and now that businesses saw that it could be done, and actually done quite well, that more businesses would go to work-from-home models.  After all, why pay for huge offices and all those expensive office perks if they aren't needed?

Over the last two or so years, I've watched my friends, family, and acquaintances slowly creep back to work.  At first, it was just a few lonely businesses who seemed, rather unfairly, to be forcing their employees back to work.  Gradually more companies followed suit, but there were still quite a few holdouts.  And then all at once, it seems, the majority of the business world has suddenly returned to our old normal, without any regard for the lessons learned when practically the whole world worked from home out of necessity.

I've seen companies get almost mean about it, when their employees didn't want to go back to the office.  They asked, they prodded, and when their employees were basically like, "No, we're good," they put their foot down and forced the issue.

I started to wonder, was the work-from-home experiment not as resoundingly successful as I thought?  But then I saw this article in the times, So You Wanted to Get Work Done at the Office?  And it turns out I'm not the only one who is bemused at the push to return to the office.  People really do get more done at home, away from the distractions of a busy office and all of its "perks," and there is research to back it up.  For example, take this study showing that call center employees who worked from home took fewer breaks, called in sick less, and got more done.  Likewise, this study demonstrated that even a hybrid model (two days working from home out of a five-day workweek) led to an increase in both productivity and job satisfaction, and a decrease in turnover.

In other words, employees who work from home are happier, more motivated, and more productive.  Why on earth wouldn't employers want this?

I believe it comes down to a business philosophy called Taylorism that became popular over 100 years ago, and is the basis for many of our current work atmospheres and attitudes.  It's partly the idea of paring jobs down into assembly-line tasks to save time by creating employees who are each experts in a small part of the big picture, but Taylorism is also all wrapped up in the notion of watching employees who are assumed to be innately lazy and untrustworthy if they don't have their manager driving them at all times.

Of course the modern workplace has softened a lot from the way Taylorism was enforced 100 years ago, but it's still much the same concept.  Now offices have water coolers and coffee machines, snack walls and community rooms, but there is still - apparently - that expectation that if management doesn't keep a physical eye on employees, they won't work... even though there is plenty of evidence to the contrary (not the least of which is that nearly the entire business world worked from home for months, if not longer, and the world kept on turning).

This turned into a longer post than I was anticipating, so tomorrow I'll talk about where freelancers come in.

The joys of working from home

I love working from home.  I love working for myself, more specifically: being able to set my own hours, work at my own pace, and choose my own clients.  Of course, all of those things can also be downfalls if you don't have good time management skills (which sometimes I don't).

But there are consistently stories and research findings indicating that working from home makes employees happier than going into an office every day.  This is referring mostly to full-time employees, obviously, not freelancers or contract workers, but it still applies.

Working from home: Loathe it or love it?

I saw this post the other day and meant to share it much sooner:

The Awful Reality About Working From Home That None Of Us Work-From-Homers Want You To Know

As with all GIF lists these days, it's an entertaining post, especially for those who know what it's like to work from home.  But do you agree?

More on working comfortably

The other day I blogged about relieving back pain while sitting and working all day.  Working from home, we have more options than most office workers, but it's still an issue.

I did promise a blog post about a related article, so here it is:

How A Bigger Lunch Table At Work Can Boost Productivity

Apparently, lots of big companies have discovered that employees are more productive when they work in nontraditional offices.

Freelance writers: How do you avoid back pain from sitting?

I saw this story recently on NPR:

Lost Posture: Why Some Indigenous Cultures May Not Have Back Pain

It made me think about how writers, as well as other office workers who are stuck at a desk all day, often suffer back fatigue from sitting so much.  Ergonomic chairs and other approaches only seem to help so much.

Little hiccups of freelancing

I've been struggling with wifi issues for almost the past week.  These are the little hiccups of freelancing -- the fact that sometimes, usually when you least expect it, something can happen to render you unable to work (or work effectively).

Luckily, the new modem should be here soon, but in the meantime I've let clients know the situation, and gotten a few extensions on deadlines.  I've spent some time at local coffee shops, but because I've been so busy lately, coffee shop hours have been an issue -- and of course, the wifi likes best to conk out at night, when I don't have many alternatives available to me.

Cat business

At Barnes & Noble a few evenings ago, I was flipping through Cockatiels for Two, a book full of cat cartoons by Leo Cullum.  Many of them were business-related, but the one that really cracked me up was this one, because of the similarities to my work day.

My animals pretty much define my work day.  I plan my office hours around the best times to ride Panama; my dogs make sure I get regular breaks from the computer by demanding to go in and out; my cats keep me company by sleeping beside me while I work.  In fact, right now I'm working at the kitchen table, and my cat Cleo is happily rolling around in the sun on the other side of my netbook screen.

Some people would consider all the animal stuff to be distractions, and maybe they are, but in my opinion they make up for the social stimulation that you lose when you work from home.

What about you?  Writers with pets, how do your animals define your work day?

A wrench in the works

I had one of those unexpected things come up today that completely derailed my plans for the day.  I had a doctor's appointment for an insulin trial I'm doing, and since I'm almost done with it, they wanted to dilate my eyes.  It was going to be a scheduling nightmare to try to come back and do it a different time, so I changed my plans for today (which included a riding lesson) and just got the eye exam out of the way.

Unfortunately, not only can I not ride, I can barely see my computer screen.  Every time I get my eyes dilated, it usually takes until evening to wear off.  I can't see close up right now with my glasses — in order to see my computer screen, I have to take off my glasses, and then lean waaaay forward since my vision is so bad.  Not a particularly comfortable way to work, so I'm going to take my usual approach and read (without my glasses) or nap for an hour or two, or at least until the worst is passed.

Are there things that come up sometimes that make it impossible for you to work?  Where do you draw the line and say, "Forget it, I'll do it later"?

Co-workers stealing chairs

I guess it was only a matter of time...



You'd think that, working from home, I'd eliminate the problem of my co-workers stealing my favorite chairs.  Ha.  I used to love to sit and work in that rocker — it is unbelievably comfortable, especially with a chair to put my feet up on and a lap desk for my laptop — but since we got the new kitten over the summer, that has become one of our older cat's refuges.  Since there are few places where Cleo feels safe from Ivan the Terrible, I haven't had the heart to move her, so she succeeded in annexing my rocker — you can see she even has her own fleece for it.

It was partly from losing my rocker that I had to get a new, more comfortable desk chair — the old one just wasn't cutting it, now that I no longer have the rocker to retreat to when my butt gets tired of a hard wooden seat.  Unfortunately, lately it seems Ivan has taken a liking to it.

A word of advice for anyone thinking of freelancing full time: Kids and pets can be just as distracting (and sometimes as annoying) as co-workers in an office!

Q: When is a sick day not a day off?

A: When you work from home!

[insert laugh track]

Seriously, though, I have to be pretty ill to not work at all. As in, I'm-going-to-puke-on-my-computer or I'm-cross-eyed-from-medication kind of ill. Otherwise, it just doesn't seem quite honest. After all, how much trouble is it to bring my laptop to bed with me?

I woke up today feeling a little under the weather. As a result, I've been moving a little slow all day. I'm disappointed because I had a lot of plans for today, and now I may not get to anything that doesn't involve curling up on the couch with my computer.

I'd love to hear from other freelancers. How do you handle it when you aren't feeling well? Do you let your clients know and take the day off, or do you suck it up and keep working? And if you usually do the latter, what is your breaking point — how bad does it have to be in order for you to take a sick day?

A change of scenery

Lori Widmer's blog post on coffee shop dwellers has made me crave a change of scenery. It's a beautiful sunny day, a nice change after an often windy and sometimes snowy weekend, making it the perfect weather for a short walk over to our local Starbucks. I think I'll head over there as soon as I finish my apple and feed the dogs.

I find that periodically I need to get out and work someplace else in order to get anything done — staying home day after day increases the likelihood that I'll get burned out. It's been a while since I've worked at a bookstore or a coffee shop, so I think I'm overdue.

I also sometimes like to work outside. In the summer, I enjoy sitting on our porch and working, at least until it gets too hot in the afternoon. Last year I also occasionally took my laptop to the barn and worked after mucking stalls, which my horse grazed on the grass within my sight. I don't think I'll be able to manage anything like that at the new barn, unfortunately — unless I want to try working in the hay loft, which has windows that overlook the pasture.

Of course, I typically don't get as much work done in other places, particularly not with my horse as a distraction. However, I feel so refreshed and happy afterwards that I really don't care that it causes my hourly wage to be cut in half. I figure it keeps me going so that I can maintain my desired income the rest of the time, so it's well worth it.

Where do you like to go to work when you need a change of scenery?

The Office vs. working from home

A week ago I mentioned that Michael and I woke up early Christmas morning and watched several hours of The Office. We started watching this show a couple of weeks ago, when we discovered we could get it streaming on our TV via Netflix and Xbox Live, and we've already watched up through the fourth season. (They're in the middle of the fifth right now, so it's not yet available through Netflix.)

This show reminds me a lot of what it was like to really work in an office. I worked as a technical writer in an office for about ten months after graduation before transitioning to freelancing full time. It wasn't for very long, but my experiences there were rather, er, memorable.

The boss, Michael Scott, has toned down and become more of a sympathetic character since the first season, but early on he really reminded me of my boss at that job. It actually made it difficult to watch sometimes, because it brought back so many memories.

Mostly, though, The Office reminds me of all the fun parts of working in an office. The pranks they play on one another are hysterical. For instance, in one episode there was a squeaky desk chair in the office, and everyone kept switching chairs with their neighbors when they weren't looking. This was funny partly because it was so darn realistic — that kind of thing happens all of the time in an office! The show even manages to make all the usual office drama, such as crazy coworkers and office feuds, seem appealing.

I think part of the reason why I love this show so much is because I don't get to experience any of this anymore. I'm not saying that I don't like being a freelance writer; I love the relaxed environment and flexible hours of working from home. However, there is definitely a social aspect to working in an office that I miss.

Good news for freelance writers and telecommuters

As a freelance writer, 99 percent of my business is done via email and the Internet, from finding new clients to researching, writing, and delivering completed projects.

When my husband and I were talking about moving to Missouri a couple of years ago (something that never happened, obviously), one of our main concerns was ensuring that I would have reliable Internet access. Unfortunately, the house we wanted to buy was located in a small rural town, so it wasn't looking good. Of course, it turned out Michael's company wouldn't let him telecommute, so nothing ever came of it anyway.

However, that experience demonstrated that Internet access is something I've learned to take for granted, living in a large metropolitan area. So imagine my excitement when I read that Obama is encouraging companies offering high-speed Internet access to expand their networks to rural areas.

Hooray for progress!

Taking back my desk

For the past month or so I've been working from the couch, which admittedly wasn't very good for the state of my desk — it had gotten quite messy, as I'd been using it as a paperwork dumping ground.

I loved working from the couch at first, but lately it's become more tedious than anything else, so yesterday I decided to take my desk back. That, of course, required going through more than a month's worth of unfiled paperwork (some of which should have been filed in the trash!). My desk went from looking like this to this:



I'll have to retrain my cats not to jump up on my desk, since in my absence they've gotten into the habit of sitting there to look out the window. Also, it's not entirely clean yet — I still have a stack of papers in my inbox that I need to go through, as you can see on the left side of my computer.

Even if it's some work, though, I'm glad to have made the transition. This morning I am working at my desk, and I actually feel like I have my own workstation again (instead of being set up in the middle of the living room). From now on, if I want to work in the living room I'll just have to do it on battery power — though I think I've satisfied myself on that desire for a while!

A blanket, a fleece sweatshirt, and a cup of coffee

Those are the things that helped me get out of bed this morning (see title).

It's currently about 9:30, and I've been awake for two hours. For those of you who have been reading my blog for a long time, you know that me getting up at 7:30 is the exception, not the norm — I am a horrible morning person, not to mention I have an uncanny ability to sleep right through my alarms.

This morning, though, I had a very good reason to be getting up so early: I had to check for an email from a client who lives on the East Coast, and is therefore two hours ahead of me. He had emailed me Monday to ask if I could do some major revisions on an article I wrote for him last week. (And, I should add, he paid me very generously for the last-minute revisions.)

My client needed the completed article this morning so that he could send his newsletter to the printer. I sent him the completed revisions last night, but I needed to check this morning and make sure he didn't need anything else before the copy was due. That meant getting up when the day began in his time zone.

As it turned out, my client didn't need anything else, but I'm glad I got up early: I've gotten a lot done this morning. So far, I've gotten a lot of work email and other administrative tasks out of the way, updated a couple of my more neglected blogs, and read my Wednesday newsletters. And I still have hours left to spend on billable work!

It's going to be a productive day — I can already tell!

My new place of employment

One of my favorite things about being a freelance writer is that I can work wherever I want or need to at the moment. For instance, right now I'm eating lunch, so the kitchen table is my workstation of the moment.

Although I have an office and a desk, I tend to get tired of that setup pretty quickly. Next to my desk I have a comfortable vintage rocker that I sometimes work from, but lately I've been rejecting my office entirely to work from the couch.

I don't usually choose to work from the couch, but right now I'm really enjoying it. It's not as comfy as my overstuffed rocker, but I have more room to spread out — I work with my feet up on the coffee table and my papers on either side of me. Add in a comfy knit blanket, a snack and a water bottle crammed into the cushions so that they stay upright, and the blinds open so that the sunlight streams in the window, and maybe you'll see why I find my new place of employment so appealing!

A lazy day of freelancing

Today was a rather lazy day of freelancing.

First of all, I slept in rather later than I had intended — until about 11:00 am. (My mother-in-law and I had gotten on a later schedule while she was here, because we'd be up late talking and then we'd both sleep late the next morning.)

When I got up I really didn't feel like doing much, so I hauled my laptop to the couch, wrapped myself up in a blanket, and parked myself there. I also worked in my pajamas all day — something I haven't done in a long time, although I used to do it all the time.

Whereas I usually would have ridden my bike up to visit Panama in the afternoon, I decided to stay home and work until Michael got home. As a result I got a lot of work done, despite my lazy attitude!

After about two months of having horse responsibilities to attend to every day in addition to my freelance work, today felt like a vacation — even though technically I worked. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy those lazy freelance days!