A friend sent me this image, which somehow [accurately] depicts my work-from-home life.

Many elements (if not all) of this picture show what I typically do or experience from the time I started working from home to the present.

Let’s break down every element of this image, and let’s see how many of these you experience. I hope you don’t experience all of these as I do.

Starts work well past noon

With my first work-from-home gig, which lasted six years, I would often start work after lunch. The job pays based on output and not on hours rendered, so as long as I can accomplish my work within the day, I can start late.

Desk

I don’t have a desk. I work while lying on my bed and my laptop on my tummy.

I work this way because I was sickly when I started working from home. My health was primarily the reason why I started working from home in the first place. However, years have passed, and my health has become better, but I still work on my bed. I guess it has become too comfortable that I could not shift and work on a proper desk. Sometimes my kids would always say I’m glued to my bed.

Uniform

Since I don’t leave the house, I wear the same type of clothes every day. It’s mostly a long dress, which is very easy to slip into, but when it’s cold, it would be sweat pants and shirt. Before I started working from home, my closet was filled with business and other fashionable clothes. Now, it’s all sweat pants and long dresses. I even only have three pairs of footwear—a pair of running shoes, a pair of slippers, and a pair of sneakers.

Same shirt three days in a row

Yes, it happens that I would be wearing the same clothes for days. Sometimes it is indeed because I’m just too lazy to get up. However, most of the time, it’s because I forget.

When you work from home, you tend to forget many things because you don’t track time properly. In my case, I have reached the point that I even forget what day of the week is today. Thus, I also tend to forget to change clothes because I would think today’s still yesterday.

Lunch break

I often eat while working on my computer. Since my kids are out in school, it’s lonely to eat at the dining table alone, so I choose to eat while doing something on my computer.

Of course, it’s different when the kids are home. I must get up and eat with them, or they’d be complaining and not giving me an annoyed face.

Coworkers

This part of the image made me laugh because I do have a lot of cats–7 to be exact. Yes, we can say they are my coworkers and roommates because they are either beside me or also typing on my computer when I work. Yup, I think the sound of the keyboard attracts them so much.

Forgot how to talk to humans

Not that I forgot to talk to humans because I still talk to people at work, but that would be for meetings. I guess the more appropriate term would be “forgot how to socialize.” I am no longer comfortable talking to people in person. I think the only people I talk to now are my kids.

The experiences that a person working from home have often sounds funny, but if we try to look deeper into it, it’s really sad. Work-from-home is not for everyone. If you are the friendly type, this kind of work setting would be tough. I guess I only lasted for years in this because I’m not a people-person.

What about you? Is every item on this list a check for you?

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