Being On-Call

Part of the luxury of working from home is that during lulls I can do things around the house, personal paper pushing and sometimes (gasp!) read a book. There is a downside to this however. Because I work from home and sometimes it is not necessary that I put in all the hours during the work day, I feel obligated to work after hours. Actually, that's not quite true. It just comes with the territory. But I do feel obligated to be on-call to take care of minor emergencies no matter when they crop up.

Today was the second time in a month that I have been awakened in the wee hours of the morning by my cell phone receiving a text message. I use my cell phone as an alarm clock both because it goes with me when I wander during insomniac episodes and because of emergency work calls. The first time I was awakened, it was truly urgent and I was happy I could take care of things without leaving the house. It was also 5:30 am and I was going to get up shortly anyway.

This morning it was 12:30 am and it really wasn't very urgent. It could have waited until a more civilized hour. No one expected me to take care of it then or even expected that I would get the message at that time of night. It was simply me. I could not go back to sleep until I had taken care of it. Actually I couldn't go back to sleep for a while even after I'd taken care of it. The minor urgency was partly something I had overlooked and partly not enough information. I felt responsible and because my computer was just downstairs, I felt I had to take care of it right then. I lost sleep that I didn't have to lose. I'll miss out on time with my husband this evening because I'll fall asleep on the couch earlier than usual.

It is both a wonderful and terrible that when working from home, you are never away from work. In many ways it allows more balance to my life. Occasionally, work creeps in where it has no business being. I hope it stays an infrequent occurrence.

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