Month: February 2020

Why Remote Workers Take Fewer Sick Days

In the Remote Workforce, no one can Feel your sneeze

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

On Tuesday I woke up feeling like I put on an extra hundred pounds. I stumbled through my morning routine wondering what was wrong with me. I went to bed at a decent hour, but felt like I’d pulled an all-nighter. It wasn’t until later that morning that I realized I was sick. I excused myself from work and slept for another five hours.

On Wednesday I was quasi-sick. That’s when you’re too sick to do more than sit still, but too healthy to sleep. Had I worked in an office separate from my home, I would have had to take another sick day. Instead, I worked through my to-do list, bottle of DayQuil at my elbow.

Most managers new to remote work worry that their employees are slacking. The reality is that most of us work more. Could I have taken another day off? Sure. I didn’t want to. I have things to do. Not having to worry about infecting my colleagues gives me greater control over my paid time off.

It’s not a sick day unless I decide it is, and that’s exactly how I like it.

Access to a Couple of Articles on Remote Work

I may have missed my weekly blog post last week, but that I wasn’t completely unproductive. The Meeting Magazine did a feature on the future of work, and I appear in it. You can find the article on page 34.

Forge, a Medium publication, just published another excerpt of my book ‘Working Remotely.’ This one has to do with email management. It’s called ‘How to Manage Your Inbox.’ As usual, this is the friend link, so you can read the article without the paywall. Do you do something different to manage your inbox? I’d love to hear about it.

I Was On the Radio Again

Last of all, I spoke to Dean Rotbart on the podcast Monday Morning Radio about why remote work is important for small businesses. Can you tell I’m hopped up on DayQuil? I hope not. Don’t tell anyone.

It’s been a privilege appearing so many places to talk about remote work. The biggest privilege, though, is talking to all of you. Thanks for sticking with me, and I’ll see you next week.

I Want Work/Life Soup, Not Work/Life Blend

Photo by Cook Eat from Pexels

I don’t like the term work life blend. It makes me think of a scene in Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel ‘Sisters,’ where one of the girls forgets to put the lid on the blender before using it. She leaves a mess everywhere.

Work life blend feels messy to me–and not in a good way. Think about what happens in a blender. Everything you throw into it breaks down and mixes into everything else. It’s a destroyer of structure, a creator of amorphous mass. Work life blend is taking care of a sick kid while running a work meeting. It’s talking an employee through a tough situation while eating dinner with friends.

That’s not to say that I haven’t done these things. I have. I’m very glad that I don’t have to miss work or take a pay hit when life intrudes on my business hours, but I pay for that privilege in other ways. Generally, the currency is my focus, my sleep, or my peace of mind.

Does anyone really want to clean their house and put in a full day of work? Is this the ideal that we should all aspire to? That sounds too close to have it all hustle porn.

There’s a healthier way to think about our lives.

Let’s Talk about Soup

Somebody is out there thinking but Teresa, people blend soup too. Yes. They do. But as it turns out, I am the boss of this blog post, and my metaphor is about the sort of soup pictured at the top of this post. The bowl pictures your life, and the liquid is the time you’re allotted on this earth. The ingredients bobbing about in the liquid are what you do. Sometimes things sink to the bottom for a time, only to reappear when other things are removed. The activities remain distinct but mobile.

And in the end, that’s the ideal that most of us aspire to if we think about it. We aren’t looking for opportunities to hold a screaming baby while interviewing clients. Instead, we want the freedom to move our day’s activities around to accommodate a richer life.

So the next time someone asks if I have a good work life blend, I’m going to say no. I’m working on a work life soup, and the day has never been tastier.

What’s Teresa Been Up to, Anyway?

The interviews keep rolling in! I’ve decided that instead of taking up an entire post for these things, I’ll sometimes just add a post script after a blog. Last week I did my first ever Facebook live event with Bert Martinez from Money for Lunch. That was super fun, especially since the construction across the street was quiet during the entire interview. Woo! And the podcast episode from Humanize Your Workplace with the fabulous Alyssa Carpenter just came out today. Interviewing people is an art, and both Bert and Alyssa are at the top of their game. Check them out if you’re so inclined.