This is now a concept that more people are familiar with, but not by choice. As everyone knows, the last year has changed working conditions for many in the UK, and one of those changes for lots of people was to work from home. I have given thought to how this may have affected people having worked from home for nearly 15 years now myself. Over the years I have questioned folk on their working habits, asking them why they didn’t want to work from home or for themselves. I find it interesting why people chose different careers and environments and couldn’t help asking them. Keeping in mind most people work to live, they have to find a way to make ends meet, so not everyone is in a job they enjoy, but yet still try to make the best of it.

The main reasons why people didn’t want to work from home, even given the choice were as follows

• Loneliness – they felt they would feel lonely, they enjoyed the social aspect
• Demotivation – they didn’t feel like they would be able to make themselves do the work
• Not enough space or resources – not everyone has a home office or room to allocate for use as one

Now, as soon as the directive was rolled for people to work from home if they could, these thoughts crossed my mind. I know some people would have got over these things and adapted, or found a way round them, with zoom meetings and finding ways to communicate with others through the various forms of media we have at our disposal. But for that to happen you have to have a certain level of motivation to begin with, to be enthusiastic about the changes and make the best of them.

That’s best case scenario. The other side of that is some people don’t benefit from only seeing faces on a screen, from not hearing and seeing the human context for things, only the 2D filtered version to go by is limiting. It must be very odd for children as well having to try and engage and learn via this method. But for a personal example of other factors that can affect this – lets throw anxiety into the mix as it’s relevant to this scenario. I used to have anxiety and depression, well, being honest I still have anxiety but manage it and have developed various coping mechanisms over the years to deal with it. But one of the things I really struggled with, was meetings and answering the telephone, I had to do them, I worked in an office, but it filled me with dread. Every day. And those days turned into months, went into years, into other jobs and never really diminished, I just hid them better and ploughed on through regardless.

It dawned on me one day, after years of trying to fit in and ‘get over it’, to realise maybe this is just how I am. Maybe I don’t need to change myself and be different, maybe I just need to change my environment and accept what it is that unsettles or unbalances me. And after delving a bit further, I worked it out (or at least think I did), I can’t handle being around people for long periods of time because they are so draining to me. The amount of energy and attention it takes to deal with people face to face got too much in the end. I couldn’t just whittle away time talking about nonsense, I didn’t want to hear what they had for dinner last night, and I sure as shit didn’t want to hear about their constant life drama they were imposing on themselves, and by extension everyone else when they wouldn’t stop talking about it. You know the ones, they don’t actually want any advice, just someone to moan at. After putting up with it from my mother for an age, I didn’t feel I had it in me to put up with it for the rest of my life at work, and certainly not from people I barely knew. So the idea of working of home was set in my mind early on.

Secondly, I get so focused on my work and what I am engaged in, I don’t like constant disruptions or interruptions. But I didn’t know any of this really at the time, I just got agitated a lot and annoyed with people. So I took steps. By 27 I went self-employed. My work ethic seemed to fit it and I finally found an outlet for my motivation and ideas. I did employ people too in the first 5 years and had to do client visits, meetings (networking meetings as well which were the worst) and didn’t quite get to work as much from home as I wanted. It doesn’t just happen straight away, I had to find my industry, get qualified along the way studying at home as well, get clients and build their confidence. I had a busy household going on too, band practices happening a few nights a weeks, staff coming and going, two dogs…

And it had happened without me even noticing it. I had my own hectic distracting environment at home that had crept up on me. It had happened so gradually that I hadn’t really noticed until I went from thinking I was ok, to all of a sudden realising I was not. I was dreading every day again, but I loved my job, loved my house, loved my dogs. I just didn’t love the people coming and going all the time, bringing different energies and sad to say again, drama. Which in turn, made me bring it. Big time. I got so stressed by having family, friends and employees demanding my attention, I couldn’t do it anymore. I identified the problems and one by one, got rid of them.

I scaled back the employees first. Managing people is a full time job and one I didn’t want in my home. I disowned the family member who was a massive contributing cause to my anxiety at the time. I had a public outburst on FB at the band people who kept taking the piss in my house, and eventually stopped them happening. I stopped socialising and told people they had to text first and not just turn up. I then got divorced. The only consistent to remain was my business. Then I married again just over a year later, sold my house and moved abroad for a couple of years and then back to the UK. I don’t do bits of drama, I do it all at once. (that is very much the speed version of that story) But became a much calmer person after that. It was quite shocking to me to realise how affected I really am by people and their expectations or demands of you – sometimes without really knowing it. I didn’t and don’t blame anyone else other than myself for me getting like that, I ignored the warning signs and thought I could change myself to fit the requirement that others seem so comfortable with.

I know I have digressed slightly, but the point of that meander does come back round. I am much happier and more stable as a person when I am not around lots of people, so working from home with just my husband suits me perfectly. But this is not what I have observed of others. People mostly seem to thrive and flourish in the direct company of others, they like having family and friends and can get inspired to face the world through people. I came to the conclusion that my dysfunctional upbringing and life is what has made me this way and a bit weird. I have all these coping mechanisms because I needed them to cope with life, and the fact that I have now set up my life to be very strictly within the parameters of those mechanisms isn’t necessarily a good thing. It excludes everything else and I wouldn’t wish or want to impose that on anyone. I also worry that by forcing those conditions on some will create a disconnection between people that does not benefit anyone in the long-run. Not everyone has the space, resources, motivation or desire to be separated and alone. Maybe I’m wrong?

(c) MKW Publishing