Work from Home = Home Work

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Someone said there are three types of lies. There are lies, damned lies and then, there is statistics. And then, beyond all those lies, there is work from home.

Now there is work from home, plus there is home work. And that is no lie.

A friend of mine told me on a walk yesterday that in the many months since he started working from home, a stark realisation hit him home (no pun intended). It was that working from home leads to a lot of home work. He told me stories about his experience. I couldn’t agree with him more. I gave him some stories of my own.

When it comes to home work, it’s important to accept a few facts in life. You are not going to like everything that comes your way. Home work is like every other job. Some parts of it you take to in a jiffy, and some you could try all your life but get nowhere.

For example, I felt like I was born for washing machine related home work. I experienced an unexplained sort of peace when I loaded the washing machine with the day’s clothes, poured the detergent and chimed it on with its start button. I seem to have an ear for the machine’s sounds too. The machine seemed to call me after it was done to put the clothes on the drying line.

But just as this self-realisation of who I am and why I am here hit me, life got in the way. In a few days, the other not-so-good side of home work turned up (aka plumbing). It led me to an existential crisis. Why me and why this, I cried. I was just not cut out for plumbing related home work.

I always had this intuitive feeling that plumbers have no idea what they are doing. I believed that they do something because they have been called to do something. The plumbing related work I did over the past year convinced me that I was right about my opinion.

The leakages and strange noises that our drainage, pipes, and bathrooms make don’t seem to go away, despite whatever the plumber does. No one knows why they start, and no one knows why they go away. More importantly, no one knows why they restart.

I concluded that bathrooms need prayers more than plumbers. Maybe the next time I will call a pandit. Or someone who fixes the possessed. My bathroom seems like a good candidate.

But till I find someone qualified enough, I get on with it and accept my bathrooms, pipes, and drainage systems as they are. I don’t complain about them and let things be. Turns out that it is not a bad strategy to handle them. On second thoughts, it’s a good strategy to handle anything, actually.

So after a few settled weeks of washing machine peace and plumbing misery, I realised that if I added laundry related home work to my list of responsibilities, then it might add some spice to my life. It would be like a related job diversification, as I already own the washing machine job.

So I took ownership of the laundry bag and found a new laundry app as the dhobi had disappeared after the lockdown and not come back. Others at home were happy and it led to some degree of job enhancement and increased job satisfaction for me, so to speak.

It was all hunky-dory till some work in the kitchen cropped up.

Some things are just not my cup of tea. In the face of rising temptation and boredom, I told myself repeatedly to stay out of the kitchen. As Buffett says, you must stick to your circle of competence. And you must know where it ends. So I stayed out of areas related to the kitchen.

But I realised over the long time that I have spent at home that it is possible to bring some variety to your kitty of home work. It is by adding tasks in areas outside your comfort zone. You need to push yourself and feel up to a challenge. With that view, I added buying fresh fruits and vegetables to my list. Not that I do a great job of it, but like all jobs, one gets brownie points for stretching.

I have realised that new jobs emerge all the time in home work when one is working from home. New age jobs that didn’t exist in the BC days (Before Covid).

One example is that of a door bell attendant to take online deliveries.

A friend told me that he has taken up the mantle of being a child entertainer and online class supervisor.

Another enterprising engineer friend is also a broadband and Wi-Fi fixer.

Fourth is a Netflix movie recommender.

I am sure new ones will emerge in the future. But I learnt that, like all other things, if you leave something alone long enough, it sorts itself out. So I don’t jump into these new job roles in a hurry and wait to see if there is long term potential in them.

Sometimes, those ad-hoc jobs disappear on their own.

So I am happy and free to focus on my core competencies and organise my day well.

Working from home comes with all this home work. But I guess one can’t have everything in life.

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