Poor Traildreamer is sorely neglected these days. The two things that drove it in the beginning were my dual passions of running and travelling. Those two threads led to all sorts of rants and research into work culture, freedom and how to pursue your dreams.
No wonder then that the Traildreamer blog has faltered since then – I’ve hung up my travelling shoes for the time being while I commit to staying in one place for a bit, probably about 3 years. I’ve hung up my running shoes due to injury. And many days I don’t even make it into a pair of work shoes…
I work from home. If I feel like it, I can stay in pyjamas and slippers till lunchtime. I might not have an open fire lit every day, but I am surrounded by all the comforts of home. I work at a desk with amazing views out across fields and hills, I can have total silence or blaring music depending on what will inspire me that day, and I can pop out and feed the chickens at lunchtime. I have total control over my environment to maximise the work I do. I’m also pretty passionate about my job, and have an excellent manager who’s clearly sussed out that she gets the best work out of me by leaving me to it, apart from a once monthly meeting and the odd email.
I’m still assimilating the novelty of this new work set-up. I often marvel at it, and speaking to colleagues in other areas of the Highlands who’ve been doing the same thing, they all say the same thing…
“How’re we ever going to return to a normal work arrangement?” It’s true. We were all selected for these jobs based on certain qualities and values, and this job has allowed those qualities to flourish. I have a job description, I have a laptop and a mileage reimbursement rate, and I have outcomes I have to achieve. But how I go about achieving those outcomes is entirely up to me. Help and advice is there for when I want to ask for it, but generally I’m trusted to get on with it entirely on my own. I love that.
Taking on that kind of working arrangement needs high levels of autonomy, integrity, discipline and creativity. And after working like that for several years, how would you go back to an office environment, hierarchies, knowing your place, being closely monitored and controlled, enforced dress codes, having to get approval for every decision or action, being told what to do…?
I think the answer to that is, you wouldn’t. Not if you could bloody well help it. Would you?
Have you worked from home? Did you find you worked better that way, or worse? Did it help you focus, or create too many distractions? Do you ‘trust’ that people who work from home are working hard enough? Or do you think its probably a bit of a skive?
Image by DDFic
