My Telecommuting Life

• Dress Code: Sweat pants, t-shirts and bedroom slippers. I usually don't get dressed and/or showered until after 3 pm. The reason for that is I try to be on line at 7 am (9 am DC time). I walk across the hall from my bedroom into another bedroom that is my office and start rolling. Its disruptive to spend time getting dressed.

• Water Cooler: But it is not too disruptive to spend minutes here and there on FB and such in between work tasks. Why not? I am at my desk, at my computer already. My husband doesn't understand my multi-tasking. I can crank out some emails and then spend 2 minutes on FB and then go right back to cranking out more email responses. It is my equivalent of the water cooler/coffee room break. I used to get up from my desk, walk into the office kitchen to grab some coffee, say hi to a few people. Isn't this the same thing, just in my house? I also spend a lot of time on conference calls on skype or my cell phone. I've learned how to switch back and forth between speaker phone/speaker off and talking mode, thus enabling me to walk around the house, make food, get more coffee, check out FB, etc. all while participating in calls.

• Office Environment: I sit cross legged on my chair, often with an old cat in my lap, hunched over my desk, with my keyboard positioned way too high. Not good and this has to be corrected. Two laptops running - one for work, one for fun (my Mac). Typically listening to Pandora radio (love it!). I love NPR but typically can't listen to it as the talking distracts me. Nice view of the apple tree in our yard and the mountains in the distance.

• Lunch: I eat way too many plates of fast nachos (chips, cheese, microwave 1 minute, hot sauce) for lunch. I also find I graze a lot. I have an early breakfast. Then a late breakfast/early lunch. And then a late lunch. Small meals are better, right? Right?

• Office Mates: My cats. The big cat one wanders in and sleeps on my papers. The little cat typically walks in making a lot of noise, always when I am on a conference call, causing people to ask me if I have a baby in the house. I have to shut her out of my office to shut her up. And then she scratches at the door. Sigh.