The other day, I read a book review that included a very keen observation of women and men in the workplace. If a man has something to attend to that takes him out of the office during regular business hours, he lets people know that he will be out and that's the end of it. However, if a woman has an outside commitment, she tells all about it - what she has to do, how long it will take and throw in an apology at the end of it all. This does not necessarily include all women but there are many of us who are guilty of this.
That being said, I recently made the determination that I need to work from home from time to time. I have a much longer commute that takes me away from my family much more than in the past so I recognize that I need to do this in order to stay connected with my kids and what's going on for them at school.
When I mentally decided to do this, I started working through a whole speech in my head that I would deliver to my boss - why I needed to do this, how often, etc. Somewhere after this mental speech was developed, I stopped and thought about whether this was truly necessary. The real answer is that it's not. I'm a professional and have a proven track record of excellent work that exceeds expectations. And when I work from home, I am actually less distracted than I am at the office, accomplishing my work in less time.
Although I'm often hard on myself, I would like to publicly give myself a pat on the back, both for recognizing and changing my behavior for the better.
Today, I am working from home and spent an hour helping out at my son's school. I got to watch him interact with other kids, speak to his teacher and reconnect with his daily routine. That hour was priceless. So here's to working mothers who empower themselves and stay true to their priorities. I am one of those mothers today and proud to be.
Cheers!
Renay
1 comment:
First of all...hooray! Finally! We as women know what is expected of us, both during and after work. To go into a lengthy explaination (that NO ONE cares about)doesn't exactly put us in the professional spot light. My goal is to work on not going into detail about what funky weirdness my son has this week. I'm out at least one day every 3rd week with him and I feel the need to make sure my boss and everyone else around me knows how horrible it is. Funny that when anyone else has to go home with a sick kid, I don't feel like I need to know more than that, I don't question them. For some reason, I feel like I have to validate the serverity...as if I'm going to go shopping once I pick him up. We all know being home with a sick baby is no picnic, so why I imagine that anyone would think I'm at home just being lazy is silly. Thanks Renay for coming to your conclusion...I just came to one of my own.
Cheers,
Holyn
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