Early Days of Telecommuting

I began working from home back in the early decades ago after the birth of my second child. I started a company of my own and even though I didn’t report to a manager, I was accountable to clients.

As my company grew and I hired employees, they would check in every morning for their various assignments, swinging by my home/office each morning for their work cards, supplies, and team assignments. My son, toddling around in diapers, would be perched on my lap as I typically had a phone in one ear, and assignment cards for the employees in the other as they lined up waiting for their assignments.

I had a dedicated space, which had formerly been the (twice a year utilized) formal dining room. My employees were in and out of my home each morning between 7:00 am and 7:30 am Monday through Friday. They knew never to come any other time of day or night so there was definitely an absolute separation between work and family time responsibilities. Once my children were home from school, I was completely theirs’ until bedtime. If I had leftover work to do for business, it was done after they were asleep.

While I have watched other of my friends telecommute over the more recent advancement of technology and its popularity, I have seen how difficult it can be for some to balance work and family when they work from home.

I had never considered telecommuting or working from home in any capacity to be a potential challenge, because my experience was that working from home allowed me to focus without worrying about other responsibilities. I was able to be a working mom and still insure that I was there every morning and every afternoon when my children came home from school. I loved the added discipline it took to run a business from my home, an early version of telecommuting, because it helped me to live a more balanced life and save an hour or more each day that I would have spent on the road commuting.

Oh, another perk…laundry seldom piled up because I was home to keep the washer and dryer going each day in between talking to clients and handling other business matters.