Home Workers: Addressing Some Stereotypes
“What exactly do you DO all day?” is an inquiry that many people who work at home are likely to face.
Many believe that those who work at home don’t really work. Their lives are seen as endless vacations; enjoyable joyrides envied by those who are forced to punch a clock each day.
A home work schedule does indeed permit for a certain amount of flexibility. A home worker does not have to punch a clock or fill out a time sheet, and won’t be penalized for vacation time or sick days. No one will berate a home worker for returning late from a break, taking a nap at work, or for working in his/her pajamas.
Even so, a home worker is a genuine worker. To earn a decent living, the home businessperson has to complete his/her work assignments, thoroughly and quickly. Home workers face deadlines and workloads, just as everyone does; if they take too much time away from their jobs, then they will fail in their professional endeavors.
Another point to consider is that home-based workers actually might spend less time on vacation than their office laborer counterparts. People who work in an office for major corporations earn vacation time; which means that, ultimately, they can take off for one- or two-week periods, with no need to report to the office or complete any work assignments during that time.
Home-based professionals, by contrast, often work on a continuous basis throughout the year, taking their laptops and notebooks with them wherever they roam. It takes a great deal of continuous time and effort to make a home business work.
Furthermore, as these businesspeople work at home, they’re technically never ‘off work.’ An employer or client could call anytime, day or night, and projects sometimes are not completed within a standard, nine-to-five time frame.
A work-at-home novelist, for example, might get a flash of inspiration at 4 a.m., taking them from their bed directly to their computer desk. A person who runs an online store might get a rush product order at 6 a.m. Sunday morning, a time when many office workers are sleeping peacefully in their beds. A caterer might get a call to prepare a four-course meal for an event scheduled that evening.
Home workers also face a great quantity of distractions not encountered during a typical office workday. While an office worker might take a coffee break at work, a home businessperson might take a break to change the baby’s diaper, retrieve an older child from school, talk to a visiting plumber about repairs needed in the home, deal with a family emergency, or prepare dinner for the family. Friends call (often assuming that a person at home has time to chat), dogs bark and bills arrive in the mail.
All of this is not to say that working at home is not a fun, pleasurable experience. Ultimately, though, home-based professionals work just as hard as their office-based counterparts. They don’t call it ‘home work’ for nothing…
Lacy Foxnau writes articles on the internet regarding home work, that works. In the past Lacy’s written regarding her experience with online survey jobs, sites that offer surveys that pay money, and a lot of other real home based ventures.
