Working at home is best done solo
by Kate Zimmerman for the North Shore News
THERE ought to be a law against spouses working for the same outfit.
Employers are aware of this, since they often state sternly in the company handbook that dating between staff members is verboten.
Of course, this only has the effect of promoting affairs between staff members. They are off the hook as far as having to arrange, and go through with, dates. That saves them lots of money and means they can proceed directly to the hanky-panky.
Sometimes the office affair even leads to marriage, though of course employers frown on that, as well. After all, a messy divorce, in which both halves of the weeping couple are short-circuiting numerous keyboards on company time, decreases productivity. But after a while, the boss has to make a choice. He must either fire them both for their transgression against the handbook or throw in a few dollars for the couple’s wedding present and sign a card wishing, say, Brad and Angelina well.
Sadly, the self-employed cannot function in the same ruthless fashion as your average employer. Those of us who work at home with our mates don’t have the option of suggesting that we break up “because the boss is getting suspicious.” The fact is that if going to work with your spouse is a poor idea, staying home and working across the carpet from him (or her) is considerably worse.
The problem? When you toil in close proximity to your spouse, you cannot avoid his professional persona. We all have these: perhaps we are more jovial at work than we are at home, more prone to flirtatiousness, or tidier. Our work personality has to be better than our personality at home or, frankly, nobody would hire us. But this character is also different — more obsequious, more agreeable to irritating proposals, more self-protective and more easily amused. It is not our real self, but the self we think our co-workers want to see. It’s the self we present on linen paper, resumé-style.
This masquerade functions well if you keep your office and home lives separate. It’s even effective if you toil in your house, alone. But it’s a dangerous charade if you work chez vous alongside your spouse. The trouble is, he or she knows you to the core — and will call you on every move you make.
Stanley, for example, has been slaving in our basement for a year. For several decades previous I had a certain impression of him in the workplace that was quite alluring. If I had been asked to write a speculative blurb on his office alter-ego, I would have ventured that he would be “competent, charming and hardworking.”
How was I to know that he took business calls in the nude? I have to wonder: how did his co-workers feel about him prancing around in his birthday suit when it wasn’t even his birthday?
I had also been unaware that he enjoyed several showers a day and liked to fry things for lunch. Smelly things — oysters, old bits of ham, car parts and such.
I had not realized, either, that Stanley loves to talk on the phone and puzzle things out with clients in a loud voice punctuated by a laugh that I do not recognize and wish would go away. (There’s a reason that 98 per cent of divorces are caused by having to go with one’s spouse to the office Christmas party. “Who is that person I came here with, and why is he eating the centrepiece?” we find ourselves asking.)
For Stanley’s part, he was not conscious that I need to schedule my own grueling work-day around The Young and the Restless. He did not know that my labours begin with half an hour of breakfast and newspaper-skimming, then 15 minutes of staring out the window with a stupid look on my face. (This latter portion of the program can be extended indefinitely.) He had failed to register that the day’s highlight is always the arrival of mail because of its potential for cheques, or that the non-appearance of cheques necessitates one hour of agonized sobbing plus 45 minutes of uncoordinated self-flagellation.
He has also discovered, to his irritation, that I will do practically anything to avoid talking on the phone. Recently, I was griping ceaselessly because a certain magazine had not paid me for work submitted long ago. I had already sent numerous e-mails to the guilty party and her colleague, asking subtle questions about whether she had been kidnapped, fed to wolves, or what. Answer came there none.
“Why don’t you pick up the phone and call, you frickin’ crackpot?” asked Stanley, who does just that, it seems, about 1,000 times a day.
He is an extrovert and thrives on human contact and collegiality. I am an e-mail-vert who would rather type just about any conversation than have it live. (If I ever get really fed up with Stanley, I will likely type “I’m leaving you” and send it to him via e-mail. He will surely phone me back to wish me bon voyage.) Two zoo animals with such disparate temperaments forced into an equally tiny cage would have fought to the death long ago.
Therefore, I have recently concluded that it is time for us to start treating our basement as if it were a real office. I plan to run it like a factory, actually. I will blow a whistle to start each shift; I don’t think 4 a.m. is too early for Stanley to be up and making money. To get him into a truly productive routine, I will set the clock every time he vanishes to “use the facilities” and, naturally, insist on surprise urine tests.
I will install a chocolate bar machine in the dining-room to facilitate more efficient re-fuelling. I will spy on him when he goes out to lunch to “network” and report him to myself if I see him drinking alcohol at noon. I will constantly hit him up for contributions to our imaginary colleagues’ retirement gifts. I will put job postings on his bulletin board and offer myself as a reference.
Every so often, with a sort-of “Take courage, my good man” expression on my face, I will tiptoe by his desk and ostentatiously drop on it an “Employee Counselling” brochure. I will have written it for his specific needs, of course. “Do you find yourself turning more and more to familiar barbecue rituals rather than gainful employment?” one brochure will ask.
Finally, one day I will announce that I have installed the dog in a seat right beside him and from now on, they’ll be sharing a desk — and a computer. When he complains about the dog’s “licking problem,” I will accuse him of unprofessional and malicious office gossip.
He’ll be out of here and back somewhere cushy with a pension and family medical plan in no time. Unless, of course, he reads this column first and tries out all these stunts on me.
Writing > Humour
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