Productivity

As I near the end of my maternity leave, I'm struck again by the staggering dependence we Americans have on our automobiles. A staggering number of the vehicles on the road only have a single occupant. And we're driving farther and farther to get to work. Now, granted, some of us just can't get to work using public transportation. Some of us don't live anywhere near our coworkers making carpooling less of an option. And some of us just can't juggle all of that, plus the demands of family, kids, errands or whatnot with sharing rides. To be honest, how many really try? But there are options that can reduce the number of cars on the road at least one day a week. I'm one of the lucky few whose car is parked for more than 90% of the time in front of the house. Why is that? I telecommute. I'm very fortunate to be able to work from home with a combination of the internet and telephone. Every few weeks, I get on an airplane and head into the office for a week. Come on people, this is the age of Information. Why can't more employees work from home, even for just one day a week?

I understand the risks: people will goof off all day and not get anything done costing employers valuable time and resources, workers could become more detached than ever as they hole up at home and have no social interaction at all, or the work cannot be done remotely. With some jobs where there is direct work done that is true. With more and more jobs, most of the information, work or output is done on a computer. If this is the case, there are options to get things done in a less traditional setting. Now obviously this isn't going to work for some jobs: pilots, waiters, mechanics, etc. where the work being done is directly needed. But all those office drones: computer programmers, insurance adjusters, industry analysts, or hundreds of other jobs where people are sitting in front of a computer everyday could benefit from the idea that productivity does not necessarily mean driving into the office for a day.

People ask me how I do it all the time. It's staggeringly easy once you get used to the concept. I spent 10 years driving into the office of the company I work for still, only now I work remotely. How did it happen? Well, my husband got an opportunity too good to pass up in another region. I went in to work and told them I was leaving, they told me I wasn't quitting. I told them I was moving, they worked it out for me. I'm not an executive; I'm not the most valuable employee in the company with industry knowledge greater than the next guy; I'm not irreplaceable. I'm a hard worker who loves what she does. Since the move I've worked from home. You know what I discovered? 70% or more of my time in the office was unproductive time. Unproductive does not mean wasted. I was building rapport and team skills with my coworkers for some of that time. A surprising amount of interaction happens spontaneously in an office setting. Between trips to the restroom, getting refreshments or traveling hither and fro to meetings or appointments a fair amount of an employee's day is spent in the hallways or common rooms. Now some are more efficient at staying focused than others, granted. That's true in any situation. Home workers don't have that distraction and can be more productive than they are in an office setting.

When you're a project manager, like I am, you spend time analyzing resource productivity. For example, a full time programmer only spends 2-4 hours per day actually writing or designing code to attribute to a project. Why the discrepancy in how much work gets done? I mean after all, aren't we "working" for 8 hours a day on average? (We'll stick with that number, though anyone who's been in the industry knows that actually working 8 hours a day is NOT anything close to the reality.) The rest of the time a developer spends at work involves meetings, reviews, planning and all the other nonsense that goes into software development. This doesn't even take into account the re-work that happens when issues are found with the code written, called bugs. Yep, people make mistakes. Happens all the time. No one is perfect. If we could all get that through our heads we'd probably be a lot happier as a society, but that is a topic for another time. If you're more easily distracted, the less valuable work you actually get done. Imagine that. People have a short attention span. They get distracted by new, different or interesting bits that come their way. I've heard it described as shiny object syndrome. Something new and shiny comes along and people just have to get involved, investigate or obtain said shiny object. Think about how many times during the day that someone just pops in to say hi. If you only talk for 10 minutes, 6 people stopping by have used an hour of your day. You say that it isn't that bad, you only talk for moments. Track yourself for a day or two. You might be surprised at how much time you've actually not been working. And we're interrupt-driven as a society: phones, email, instant messages. They all distract from the end goal: productivity.

Working at home can be more productive than working at the office, even for just one day a week. Just think, if you turn off email for an hour or two a day and focus on the document, project, code, plan or whatever it is you're working on . . . you might actually get some valuable work done. When you launch email again in an hour, you've not been out of touch that long and can respond to all those important messages. At the end of the day I can see visible progress on the projects I have. It doesn't take very much discipline at all. How do I work from home? Very easily, thank you very much.

Girlfriends

All my life I have been a very odd girl . . . I don't really have all that many girlfriends. To be perfectly honest, most girls drive me nuts. Since I graduated from college, women have done the same thing. I have very little patience for gossip, makeup, shopping or any other of the major activities that go with being female in this day and age. Put me in the mountains with a backpack and compass. Ride across the country on a motorcycle with a day's change of clothes in the pack. Give me a good book to read or computer game to play. Most of these things will not make the top 10 list for girly activities. Most of the time, I'm ok with that. I have a couple of really good friends who are gals. They aren't what you'd expect either. One's a real jock. The other is fearless in most social situations and wouldn't leave me alone to eat lunch until she became my best friend. I love them to death. But why is it when I'm confronted with a 'girl' situation that I freeze? I don't actually freeze; I'll just sit back and watch.

There is this notion of "sisterhood" among women. The men have their bonding moments over beer and sports. Give me a cold brew, bag of peanuts and a double header (doesn't really matter who's playing) and I am a happy camper. Admittedly, during my most formative years I spent the days playing football, baseball, soccer, smear the queer . . . (yes, that's the guy running around with the football), hockey, climbing trees and fishing. It wasn't until I was about to hit puberty that it dawned on me that I was the only girl in the neighborhood who was "one of the guys." Then we moved and I got to go to a new school. Needless to say, my comfort zone was not conducive to making lots of friends. The guys I felt comfortable around didn't want anything to do with that "weird new girl" and I had no idea how to talk to the girls. All they wanted to talk about was makeup, clothes, hairstyles, and of course, boys. Not knowing anyone as I was new . . . well, my conversational range was limited. The other subjects did not interest me at all. Still don't for that matter. I was at the grocery store just last week and someone commented that I had really clear skin. She asked what my secret was . . . I had to stifle a laugh at her expression when I told her occasionally cleanser, cold water and moisturizer. I don't have any secret. I just don't clog up my pores with that chemical crap they call makeup. I did eventually learn how to put it on, but I couldn't see spending all that much money on it to cake it on my face and wash it off every night before I went to bed. To quote a movie, "I'd just look like me only in color." So now, I just wash my face once a day and all is good. Makes too much sense to me, but then logic has always been one of my assets.

There are times where I've felt the lack of girlfriends in my life. My 2 best friends don't have children. Now this is not a criticism of them as they've chosen other paths for their lives. But I don't have someone I can call and chat over what's new with my son. I also feel a bit weird talking with them about the ins and outs of parenthood. I don't want them to think . . . well, that I'm boring as all I talk about is my son. It probably gets old to them as they don't really have kids, and aren't all that interested in the day-to-day occurrences of being a parent. But then I think maybe I should make some new friends. And therein lies the rub . . . I really don't like most women. The more I think of it, the more grateful I am that I have a son. With my fabulous relationship with Mr. Murphy . . . I'd get the girliest girl in the world as a daughter. At least I know how to throw a football and baseball. My son won't tell me I throw like I girl because I don't.

Of course it'll be several years before the Peanut sees Mom riding off on her motorcycle (there's no place to strap in the car seat,) toss the ball around the yard or have a beer with as we're watching the game. I suppose I should be Thankful for small favors. In the meantime, I just wish I had more friends . . . male or female.

Fear

I can honestly say that until I had a child I didn't know what the true meaning of fear was. Oh sure, I've been afraid before. Who hasn't? But I'm talking about bone chilling, soul curdling, deep down bone cracking fear. The kind that makes you stand up and take notice of what you're going through. Time really does slow to a crawl. The world caved in on me. My breath caught in my lungs and I felt that I couldn't breathe. My vision narrowed to a small mote of dust dancing in the air.

What scared me? It wasn't one thing, it was two. And I can tell you that they happened within four days of each other. Yep, that's right, the two scariest moments of my life in the same week. The first came right after I gave birth to our son. The placenta didn't detach as expected. Here I was just having had the greatest moment of my life, giving birth to my soul mate's and my son, and an hour later I still had not delivered the placenta. There were concerns that the placenta had grown through the uterine wall. There is a medical term for it but I didn't hear that. All I could think of was the fact that if I started bleeding I could die. And it wasn't death I feared . . . it was not ever seeing my son grow, boy, teen, man. I still cannot think about it without just breaking down into tears. At least I'm not shaking uncontrollably like I did before. So an hour after I gave birth I'm being wheeled into an operating room not knowing if I'm ever going to see my best friend, partner, soul mate and husband again . . . not to mention my newborn son . . . it was terrifying. They didn't give me any additional anesthesia since I'd had an epidural. I went out on my own. Yep, I shutdown completely. My reaction to gut wrenching fear? Hide . . . don't face it. So I was out when they went in to figure out what was wrong. I'm sure that the 23.5 hours of labor had little to do with it. Needless to say, I didn't die. I didn't need a hysterectomy. The placenta had one spot that did not come loose. A small amount of teasing and everything was fine . . . but they didn't know that until they got in there to check. It hit all that much harder because we'd fought the gestational diabetes to get to this point to have a healthy baby boy. I know they have to tell you the risks up front so you can make an informed decision. My reality came down to "save my life" so I could be with my husband and son.

The second scare came 4 days later. My son and I had been released from the hospital right on schedule. We took him to the Pediatrician for his 4 day check up. Nothing new or unusual there. The doctor thought he looked a little orange (the first time I've ever heard "a little" being equated to the color of a pumpkin) and asked to do another bilirubin test. Yep, you guessed it, he had jaundice. At the time, I had no idea that this was a common occurrence in newborns. I know that now . . . hindsight is 20/20. But when they tell you that you have to take your 4 day old son back into the hospital NICU all the really bad things go through your mind. After all you've had this small, fragile little person for all of 4 days. You have responded to his every little cry. Held him. Cuddled him. Cared for him in the dark of the night. And now you have to take him to the NICU because something is wrong. This is something that if you've never been around many newborns that you would not know. It took my husband, who is the oldest in a rather large family, to explain it to me. This of course happened after we got the little one to the hospital and into the baby tanning bed. Everyone else just assumed I was losing it I guess. And trust me, I wasn't losing it . . . I'd lost it. Gone. Bye-bye. He wasn't in the hospital for long. Just barely 24 hours. They left him in the tanning bed all night and into the morning. I don't know that the tanning bed did all that much good, really. My milk came in and he started actually getting more to eat. The nurses were saying that getting more milk through his digestive system would also help clear him up as well. So we fed him, and fed him, and pumped and fed him some more. We took him home the next day. Thankfully he's been the right color, gaining weight and growing as expected ever since.

Even though I can now write this without shaking, I can't really articulate how afraid I really was. It's taken me almost 2 months just to get to this point where I can write about it. They say that time heals. In this case it has to a point, but I will never forget how deeply afraid I was. I'm sure that there will be other times where the fear reaches up and grabs me by the throat. That's called being a parent, isn't it? I can only hope that those moments are few and very . . . very . . . very far apart.