By Mims Cushing
mail@floridanewsline.com
The first thing my son did when he started working full time from home was to get Brodie, a dog. He and I believe leaving a dog alone at home for eight hours is cruel. I feel like shouting “Bravo!” when I see on “Bark Post” that a dog has torn up pillows and eaten shoes out of sheer boredom, having been left home alone all day. My favorite show was a dog who chewed up his master’s Playboy. And incidentally do look at “Bark Post” on the internet if you love dogs and need a lift.
Working from home is not for everyone. You have to be strict with yourself. Somebody told me that he himself was the toughest boss he’s ever had. If you work from home you need to take a hiccup — get away from your home office — once every couple of weeks. Even better is if you go to a conference in California or Arizona. Brodie is sent to a spa, while his master alternates meetings with swimming in a pool, being massaged and networking. Brodie also enjoys swimming in a pool, being massaged and networking. I want to come back as my son’s dog.
You must be disciplined if you work on your own. Things in the house are always calling you to — first of all, eat — and second, repair, rearrange and refresh, as in throw out. Mostly plants. And then your pajama/lingerie drawers, and every other drawer in the house, calls out to be straightened up. Your cutlery drawer needs to be dumped and cleaned from the bottom up, probably monthly. How do crumbs get in there when all you do is stack the utensils straight from the dishwasher?
When you look out the window from your home office and see that yet another 100 pods have flopped on your pavers and lawn from your two magnolia trees, you must levitate from your chair and march right out there and deal with them. The seeds might turn your pavers a horrid red unless you pick them up quickly.
Once they have died, they are black and look like large (here we go again) rats all over your property. As an aside, somebody told me magnolia leaves and pods are not biodegradable and that they are forbidden in at least one community in Ponte Vedra Beach. So help me, before I got permission from the homeowners association, I wanted to chop down my two 50 – 60 foot trees under cover of darkness, and lay them down near my gutters for the haulers to deal with. I’d tell the HOA tribunal,“Yessiree, Hurricane Matthew just picked them up and dumped them there. Can you imagine?”
Back to working from home … I started researching polls to see how many people telecommute. I think it’s 45 percent, at least for a couple of days. But as I delved more thoroughly, I decided I’d had enough of polls in 2016 to last me a lifetime.
Jim Shea wrote a column for the August 14, 2016, edition of “The Hour,” a Norwalk, Conn. newspaper titled, “Now that he’s self-employed working from home just got easier.” He ruminates on a feeling of uneasiness you can get when you work from home. “Give this a try,” he says, “Wear a tie with the pajamas. Always worked for me.”
Personally, I put on earrings.
