The Isolation of Homework

My current client allows me the comfort to work at home. At least, that’s the way they described it. My typical day is filled with the occasional email, and not much else in terms of communication from the client.

Sounds like paradise, right?

No boss hanging over your shoulder, constantly bugging you to get your ass in gear. No office gossip, and none of that office politics.

However, it is actually quite lonely working from home.

I don’t like office gossip. Those who have all the time to talk poorly about someone else have too much time and not enough work. And I can’t stand office politics – people kissing someone’s ass to get that much anticipated big promotion.

But when you remove all the contact from the office, and reduce it to a mere handful of emails, you realize how alone in the world you are.

Granted, my current client is a little too carefree for me. I don’t like having someone constantly watching my every move. But, the client should have enough self interest in their invested dollars to at least call me every week and ask for a progress report.

I have gone weeks on this contract without talking to a single person.

I’m wrapping up this contract and I am looking forward to getting back out in the working world of the living.

We human beings are social animals – or so Darwin and many anthropologists tell us. Working all by oneself without any form of human contact, I can see why.

The isolation of being surrounded by nothing more than the voices in one’s head is all the proof I need. Guess I’ll just have to learn how to tolerate the office gossip, and live with the politics of an office.

That’s a small price to pay, for a little human contact at work.