Published: August 29, 2008 03:18 pm            

KISSEL: Reflections on working from home

One of my favorite aphorisms is “You can’t have everything at once.”

Youth and wisdom. Bliss and growth. Adventure and stability.

Rarely do these dichotomies travel together.

The same can be said for working at home.

Although it’s often rife with unforeseen compromises, for many people engaged in office-bound occupations, it can seem a tantalizing fantasy.

No more office politics to ensnare you or worries about keeping your work ensembles up-to-date.

No commute, wasting on average, 1.8 years of your life.

And no obligatory illness when the flu sweeps the office.

Simply, the flexibility to work and live your life as you see fit.

Well, that’s how I saw it when I said sayonara to a two-year stint at The Hollywood Reporter in Los Angeles and began freelancing full-time for Muscle & Fitness magazine.

How could I resist? Instead of a frenzied A.M. race to work that made most video games look tame, I enjoyed leisurely mornings, stretching on the patio, reading the news, eating a healthy breakfast, and when I was good and ready, I started my work. I barely saw my boss, and best of all, my apartment was never cleaner.

When I needed a break, I vacuumed, did the dishes or watered the plants. Housework stopped being an impossible-to-fit-in chore and magically became therapy.

And if I needed to run an errand or felt like going to the beach, I only had my own nagging conscience to clear it with.

As the months morphed into a year and then two, however, the downside began to wear though. Where have all the people gone? Could have been the lead song on my life’s soundtrack during that time.

Sure, I’d talk on the phone with various personalities from the endlessly engaging bodybuilding and fitness world, and again, see them later in the evening when I went to “The Mecca,” Gold’s Gym in Venice, California.

But somehow I began feel increasingly isolated from the outside world.

Inside my perfectly arranged and immaculately kept apartment, the sound of students shouting and laughing outside Venice High School (where the movie “Grease” filmed the exterior scenes) sounded increasingly like taunts through my sliding screen door.

As the time approached when my roommate would return home from his job as a teacher, I started to resemble nothing more than an attention-starved puppy.

They say to work efficiently at home, you must be a “self-starter.”

Otherwise you can end up working every day and late into the night to meet your deadlines, as I sometimes would.

With no defined work time or the ability to escape the home office — especially since I worked out of the living room — everything blended together, creating an increasingly inefficient and stressful environment.

Not that this is the case for everyone.

Parents with very young children often find a working at home a godsend.

And with some experts saying we spend 40 percent of our time in the office chit-chatting, those who are able to shut the door on their home office at a defined time each day can find it a more productive situation.

I like the camaraderie a good office environment brings. For someone like me who tends toward hermitage, it can also be essential to maintaining a semblance of sanity. At the office, you can bounce ideas off one another, hear all the dirt, tell jokes and stay on top of new projects and what’s going on in the community.

Out of sight, out of mind, can unfortunately apply to home workers, who often miss out on promotions — not to mention essentials like health insurance.

Regardless, because of advances in network technology, globalization and the cost of travel, working from home seems to be the wave of the future.

Often, only through the ability to compare and contrast can we realize when we’ve found the right job and the right work environment.

One may not be able to have it all at once, but through experience and change, it’s reassuring to know when you don’t need what you don’t have.

        

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