Everyone thinks that working from home is a walk in the park. ABSOLUTELY NOT! I had a 9 to 5 job inside a cubicle until I got pregnant and decided I wanted to work from home. However, as I eased into it I realized that what my friends called ‘taking the easy way out’ was actually the hardest job opportunity one might deliberately choose. Working from home seems to be a party for everyone who is not in your shoes, right? Only you and I know how nerve wracking it is to juggle everything at once, all of a sudden!
So let us be together in this and bust all the myths and misconceptions that well meaning friend or that intrusive stranger might decide to bombard you with, shall we?
1.“You have such a flexible schedule!”
The moment you tell someone that you work from home, they instantly assume that you have a relaxed schedule where you spend all the day eating potato chips on your couch while watching a sitcom and working for half an hour at night. However, this cannot be more far off from the truth. Working from home entails that you might have to stay awake at night for a business conference with your boss who is in a different time zone from you. You have to maintain a strict schedule and put in a lot of effort so that you can execute both your domestic duties and professional life with ease.
2.“You must save so much money on childcare”
You are much too familiar with fellow moms flooding you with requests to babysit their children on the weekdays because they have to ‘go to work.’ Though taking care of one’s child is one of the most popular reasons to choose working from home, eventually you realize that you have bitten off more than you can chew and have to hire a nanny to look after them when they are a bit older.
3.“Are you a Stay at Home mom?”
The teachers at your kid’s school are always confused when you can’t make it to a parent teacher meeting. After all, you are a stay at home mother, right? Wrong! Working from home isn’t the same as staying at home; the former requires you to perform some professional tasks and meeting the demands of your clients round the clock whereas the latter mainly revolves around accomplishing your domestic chores.
4.“It’s not a job. It’s a hobby”
Now don’t get me wrong. It is entirely possible that you are earning money freelancing from home through your hobby, be it writing or selling the crafts you make online. But more often than not, people who work at home have to dedicate their time and effort to a proper salaried job which requires some essential technical skills. It’s not as easy as you might think!
5.“You must miss having a professional career.”
People consider working from home to be a retirement from a serious professional career. What they don’t realize is that you have not quit your job but rather you have taken up a much bigger project which advances your career and occupies you 24/7, just not from a corner office but your home.
The next time someone passes a sarcastic comment about working from home, be sure to show them this. After all, when they would be sleeping after work, you will be making money working through the night!
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