Mishmash Musings

I’ve been working from home for three years now, and can’t imagine ever going back to a full-time office job. Yes, I still have a consulting position that requires me to be in an office two or three times per week, but that’s a far cry from being the paper pusher I once was. I don’t think I could handle 8-hour days of filing, typing, answering phone calls, providing quotes for life insurance rates, or dealing with angry customers.

Thank goodness my private business ventures are profitable enough to allow me to continue staying home for the time being!

I’ve been thinking about doing more in the line of freelance writing with local clients that I find in the community rather than on the Internet. Towards that end, I’m wondering if I should get an office address of some sort to make my operation seem a bit more professional. There’s a place a couple blocks away that rents out mailboxes for a low monthly fee, and I’d be able to have an address with a “Suite #” in it. Do you think it would be worth the trouble to go set one up?

I just found out that I have to put in 5 office days in the next two weeks for my consulting gig. I guess that’s not too bad, since I only went in a total of four days in June. This is what I expected when I accepted the job, so I can’t complain. It was when my boss was expecting me to be on hand 3 or 4 days per week that I had a problem.

Anyway, I could use some extra cash right now, so the timing is actually pretty good. My husband’s van is probably not going to make it to the end of the year, so we’ve got to start planning and saving for a new one. What a big hit that’ll be to our budget!

Yesterday was another killer day at work. Without going into details, let me just say that I can’t believe how clueless some people can be.

You know, when I accepted this job, I agreed to some very specific terms — especially regarding the number of hours I would be expected to work. I don’t want to be a full-timer and refuse to work those kinds of hours. Nevertheless, I’m getting called in for a bunch of b.s. “emergency” situations, which significantly boosts the number of hours I’m working. Plus, when I do go in, I get sucked into performing chores that don’t fall under my job description simply because we’re shorthanded.

I’ve only been back a little while and I already feel like I’ve made a huge mistake. This sucks!!

I told you all about how I recently went back to work after taking few years off to raise my son. Well, I’ve been back for just over a week and I’m already facing the kinds of problems that prompted me to leave in the first place.

I work for a small, privately-owned company. The owner is a stubborn guy who thinks all the problems that plague his business are a result of employee error when in reality, his poor decision-making skills are the cause of 95% of everything that’s wrong.

To get me to come back to work, he promised me that I wouldn’t have to come into the office every single day. That was a critical point because I am not ready for full-time work yet and told him so 1,000 times before coming back.

So what does the owner (let’s call him Mr. D.) do? He’s got me scheduled to come in every single day this week, plus every day for the next two weeks as well. Some things got messed up (his fault) and he’s likely going to be shorthanded for a long time.

Well guess what? I just can’t do it, and I won’t. But I’m not looking forward to the inevitable confrontation and attempted manipulation that will occur when he broaches the subject. Ugh. I hate this already!

Yesterday was my first day back at my old company. I’m just in a consulting role now, so the job isn’t too bad. But the company still suffers from the same problems and I ran into quite a few frustrations already — all bureaucratic b.s. that hopefully can be eliminated sometime soon.

Although I was dead tired when I got back home, it was nice to get dressed in business attire, put makeup on, and talk to people my own age about non-parenting issues for a change! I’m anxious to see how this whole thing turns out….

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote how one of my old employers contacted me about working again. After thinking about the implications and talking the matter over with my husband, I’ve decided to accept the offer. I’ll be a manager/consultant and will be able to set my own hours. This was a very important factor in my decision. If I had to show up at the office every single day, I would have declined. But with the way things are set up now, I will have a great deal of control over what I do.

Anyway, this should keep me busy while my son is in school and will definitely help pad our bank account. We need to save up for a new car for my husband, so this is actually pretty good timing for us. I hope it works out!