karaspeak

Oh the battle of working in the office vs. working from home. I am in Charlotte this week, working at the office. My how different it is after working from home for only the past two weeks. Let me bluntly say, I hate it. :) Not all jobs at the office, and not even this job at the office, but just the comparison of working at the office vs. working at home. There are definitely pros and cons to each, though I am beginning to see the pros of working at home far outweighing those of working in the office. Now, if I had a bigger, more exposure-based role that I could not due from another location, I might very well feel differently. But, in my case, my role is very much one I can do via email, conference call, and phone conversations with the greatest of ease. The slight number of things I cannot do from the house are so slim that this week during my annual review, my change-averse boss gave me the green light (hooray!) to work from home until she "needed" me to be in the office for something.

So, today Nate and I had to go to Columbia, SC to pick up some furniture from Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Joe's shop Metanoia (which means to think differently with a new purpose and new direction. They have an interior design firm and do work all over the country, but have recently opened a storefront which will supplement their interior design work. We picked up some incredible pieces while we were there and hope to pick up a few more once our budget recovers! They have amazing stuff...incredible taste.
(click the pic to take you to their site)
Anyway, after a few days in the office, it was just nice to not be there. The opportunity to do something personal during a work day and still get 98% of my work done, is a nice feeling amidst a stressful week. But during our drive, I realized the vast difference in myself when I am in the office vs. at home, or working remotely from anywhere for that matter. Everything is better - my personality, my mood, my stress level, my outlook, my ability to separate work from personal, etc. It's all just vastly different. And this is when I realized the value of working from home. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I didn't realize it before, but it was just amplified this week once I realized how much I really don't need to be there.

There was a time when I worked from home and didn't like it all that much because I wasn't around people enough. But now, I'm at a different place in my life and I can realize all the added benefits of the advantage it truly is and who cares if I'm around a billion people all day or not, it's one less hour I have to be "on" and let me tell you, that's a breath of fresh air. In addition, it was only this week I realized the huge benefit this is going to be. I'm not sure why it didn't really sink in until now, but I knew once I had kids I would not want to go back to working, not full time, not part time, not at all - at least until they were in school or something! However, I did not want to give up the opportunities I had in a career, or in pursuing things that were adult stimulating rather than child-stimulating and experience that "WHO AM I?" thing after a few months/years. So here I am talking with Bonnie and it was in this moment when I was telling her how great working from home is and once the baby comes, I'll be able to work and be a stay at home mom and it hit me...like lightning...THIS IS WHY WE MOVED TO NASHVILLE. I mean, not the only reason, because I know God has huge things for us here, but seriously. I get to be a stay at home mom and work, but since it's at home, I get to do both. Had we been in Charlotte, I most definitely would have either had to quit or do something to fix up a part time schedule, which would have most definitely required me to be in the office one or more days a week...and I didn't and don't want to do that. So here I am, stoked, and praising God for allowing me to see a glimmer of a reason for our move and having it all make sense in a split instant. I was just in awe of how He doesn't give away the whole picture at once, but he fills our puzzle in piece by piece. I knew all along I would get to work at home and be a mom, but it just hit me in that moment how ordained it all was. Crazy.

So I'm rambling now, I can feel it. But I just had to share that insight amidst my joy in discovering how much I value working from home vs. the office. I'll post my list in a few days. Just want it to be organized. You know? And, plus, I'm bound to think of something else to add on our drive back to Nashville this weekend...