Right now, this post doesn’t even have a title…I just have a few things that I need to get off my chest. No offense to anyone, but this may be…harsh in some spots. You’ve been warned.

First off, “Must be nice to work from home.” I am SO sick and tired of hearing this statement from anyone. Sure…it sounds like it would be fun to work from home, but why don’t you just try for a few weeks and see what it’s really about? First off, sure, you can work in your PJs, get up when you want, use your own bathroom, etc…but at the same time, there’s that many more distractions. House needs to be tidied up, guess what will distract you. What if you have pets? Huge distraction there, what if you’re on a conference call with a boss, or really any important call, and someone knocks at your door…you can’t just ignore it…most dogs will go nuts, and won’t unless the person at the door leaves, so you have to get up from the call, if you’re not using a cell phone, go answer the door, probably find some unwanted solicitor, or someone you really just didn’t want to talk to there, deal with that, while at the same time calming the dogs down and trying to make a beeline back for your phone call. HOW JOYOUS! Next, sure – you can work at your own pace, in a sense, at home, because you have your own environment, if you have a laptop you can work from your chair, your bed, your couch, etc…yay? That might sound like such a big perk, but start associating your favorite furniture with work…yeah, kind of like having your favorite song overplayed on the radio, you get sick of it, and fast. Try using your laptop in your bed for 8 hours a day for more than a few days…yeah, not as easy as it sounds now is it? Third, you think your boss is bad at work, wait until you work from home out from under their watchful eye. They start to expect a lot more from you, you can expect twice as many emails and phone calls as before, if not more. Since they can’t see how you’re spending your working hours, they’ll want it documented as to what you’re doing, sure, I don’t mind, but it’s another thing you have to spend your time on. You do get a nice bit of flexibility for quick doctor appointments, etc during the day, but guess when you make that time up…yep, at night. People who work from home don’t always get the joyousness of extra time to themselves, instead they wind up spending MORE time working than those who don’t.

So, does working at home sound like it’s all cracked up to be? I know I don’t. I do it more by choice than anything, the money it saves me in gas is nice, especially since it is about 60 miles round trip to/from work..add that up to 5 days/week…that’s easily 4-6 tanks of gas in a month, and at $48/fill, that’s $150-$350/mo I’m saving in gas. That’s a few bills right there. I’ll take the savings, but NO, it’s not all cake to sit at home and work all day, regardless of what you think.

Next…One thing that I’m entirely tired of hearing, is this (or any variation thereof): “The Bible is a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold.” This statistic is so bloated full of crap it’s not even funny anymore. How many of those Bibles that are sold are actually bought by the person who is currently using them? What I mean, is how many bibles are actually bought by churches, or church/religious groups, or hotels, etc as a courtesy? How can you count those as being purchased in comparison to another book? I mean seriously…that reminds me of the good ol’ saying of “You know, 84% of statistics are made up on the spot.” HAHAH, get it? Yeah, it’s a lot like that.

Oh what bothers me next you ask? Jobs in general. You know, it’s possible to stay in a job and hate it, and you have every right to complain about it, it’s your life is it not? Until someone else is living your life for you, they don’t have the right to tell you that you shouldn’t complain about your job and you should “be happy that you at least have a job.” Yeah, I’m happy I have a job, it pays the bills (or mostly) and puts food on the table. Saying “get a new job then” is probably one of the biggest insults of today. Don’t you think if it was that easy to get a new job I would’ve already done it? Yeah…way to use some common sense there. Have you LOOKED at the job market lately? No, a stupid fast food job is NOT going to be any better than what I have now. Not only does it pay 40% less, I get less hours…oh hey, look at that, I just tore apart that argument. Every job that would fit me is so out of line with what it should be, I’d be better of scraping gum off of floors. I’m looking for IT…cool, now everybody wants a Bachelor’s degree and 5-10+ years experience. Well, I can’t really afford to spend another $40k on school…not for a job that only pays $45k/year…Oh, it gets better…the jobs you DO find want Graphics Designers that get paid less (usually $35-$40k), to be their GD, but also to be their on-call network/IT admin…you know, the jobs that typically range a lot higher, into the $60-$90k+ range…So, thank you for that oh so wonderful advice that you’ve given me. Now shut up and go away.

Eh, that’s all for now, just wanted to get a few things off my chest…maybe a proper post later.

TTFN

-Michael