This week, we saw the video of the BBC news reporter who’s children interrupted him while he was doing a newscast from his home office. Anyone who’d ever worked at home with children completely understood his situation…trying to remain professional, while cuteness and hilarity prevailed in the background.
This week we’re focusing on the lighter side of working from home. These experts are sharing some of their most memorable experiences on their WAH adventures! If you have any interesting or funny stories, please share them with us!
Amy Lockrin, a virtual assistant, shared this super sweet story with us!
“I have been “climbing the corporate ladder” for over 12 years. This past year I turned in my fancy dress clothes for a corner in my kid’s playroom and a business I have built during early mornings and very late nights. The first week of my new “job” my three-year-old came out of her room disorientated and sad from a bad dream. She asked, “can I have a snuggle?”
I got to say YES. Yes, you can. No more rushing mornings, no more crazy barking mom yelling at you to move faster because of traffic. Have a snuggle, have 10. My heart melted immediately. We are doing this together now.”
Arash Khurana, owner of Spiffy Spools has this funny, if not slightly embarrassing story to share! Oh the joys of working alongside a little one!
“I run two start-ups from home so I can supervise and spend time with my son. A couple of years ago when he was three, he walked into my office, found my work phone, started playing around with it and randomly dialed the number of one of my top suppliers – while the nanny was cooking his lunch and I was in the garage packing some samples. The supplier thinks it’s a dial-by-mistake of course and asks “Where’s mummy?” To which my little troublemaker says, “No one’s home”. The good man on the other line gets very concerned and conferences in local police thinking a toddler has been left alone without any supervision. I have no idea what all transpired but I walked into my office to a cop and a business contact desperately trying to squeak out our home address from my three-year old. Oh the joys of working from home!”
Laura Winton, a Freelancer shares her embarrassing experience with social media!
“I’m a freelancer who works from home, writing content and managing social media. It can be isolating but there is often something that lightens the mood. Usually it’s one of my cats invading a conference call, or my desk (the dining room table) being covered in Cheerios. I organize and host a podcast in my industry. I had one episode all sorted out for recording, Zoom call set up, I was ready to go. In fact, I was so pleased with my set up I posted to Snapchat and Instagram that I was all set up. Or so I thought. What I hadn’t realized was that I’d misread the messages from my guest. I’d got the date wrong and sat on the conference call waiting for at least 10 minutes before I realized my mistake. To make matters worse, my guest saw my social media posts and knew I’d got the wrong day! It was quite embarrassing when I finally did get to record with her!”
Jenny Spurling, Owner of Simply Be Creative LLC shares not only her story but a picture of what her daily surroundings look like. Anyone that tries to balance work and kids knows how this feels!
“As you can see in the photo, nothing is sacred in my home office. My most “BBC” moment? I’m not proud to admit…but I literally ran out of the house on my two year old. I was in the middle of a conversation with a new client. We were just starting to discuss costs and benefits to my services when my daughter starting chasing me down and doing that high-pitched screech that kids master from the womb. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran out the front door and tried to continue the conversation from the stoop as I watched my daughter pounding on the glass between us. Of course, my neighbor’s lawn mower started up at the exact same time. Thankfully I have amazing clients who understand. The whole debacle lasted less than a minute but now I try to limit calls to times when my daughter is in school.”
Notes from Leslie: Today, my kids are in college. That and the fact that I’ve been home for so long, I don’t have many unexpected events during my day. But I do remember that first week I was home, I binge watched television and didn’t get anything done. Many times I was on a conference call, and although I told my kids not to interrupt unless there was blood or fire involved, they’d interrupt. My stories aren’t as fun or interesting as the guest experts above, but it does highlight that with flexibility there can also be some unpredictability in working at home.
