Today Mr F drove me in the rush hour to his place of work. It took one hour 15 minutes, which is one hour 14 minutes and 55 seconds longer than it normally takes me to get to work. But I am very spoilt as I work from home and my daily commute is from the bedroom to the office, both of them on the ground floor of the house. 'I wouldn't stick this for a week', I said, 'and then I'd be begging for a fortnight on a Greek island to recover from it.'
I have a zero tolerance of meetings that entail travel in the rush hour. Too stressful and time-consuming. To be honest, I have zero tolerance of work, yet am a workaholic at the same time. That might seem like a contradiction, but I guess it depends on your definition of work. Many people labour in jobs they hate at worst or tolerate at best and can't wait for the weekends and holidays. My Grown-Up Art Graduate Daughter has an admin job and, after 10 hours a day out of the house, returns to her bed-sit chez moi to whirr away on a sewing machine making designer bags or to pore over her computer creating unique greetings cards using images from her camera. She has to have her creative outlet. I have been lucky enough always to work in jobs I love only moving on when more exciting opportunities have presented themselves. Rarely has it seemed like work, but the proof was in the pay-slip. If your work is your passion, you are indeed blessed.
The nature of work has changed dramatically in the past few years. Thanks to the IT revolution, more and more people are able to work from home these days and it's not seens as sciving. Hot-desking means that workers are actually encouraged to work from home to save office space. The human energy that would have been wasted on commuting is lavished on an early start on the lap-top. Sometimes in bed in my case.
The danger is not switching off. Yes, you can have your personal email, favourite blogs and facebook open in windows alongside your work email and the report you are writing, but it's also tempting to take a peak at the work stuff in the evening. The technology is around us all the time and boundaries blur. Worse than that, colleagues know this and exploit it for instant response even out of work hours.
Sometimes Mr F works from home. We sit side by side quietly exercising our workaholic muscles, pausing only to make cups of tea requested via Facebook.
