Hardly a Workplace

As many of you know, I now work from home.

And although it's probably not wise to admit this on the internet, where my boss will probably find it, I just haven't been as productive as I was in the office.

Not for lack of trying, my attention is just so easily stolen that, without co-workers around to be constantly directing it towards work related goals, it tends to get shaved off to other ends.

I've taken some steps though, like declaring one room in our house "my office" and making sure there isn't anything "fun" in there, and that has definitely been helping.

Also don't take it as gloating "ha ha I can not work as hard", I really do enjoy my job, find the work interesting, and only feel good when I think I believe myself to be hyper-competent.

Recently, I believe I found an added benefit to working from home, which helps keep me focused, and makes me miss human contact a little less.

Now, ever since I've worked professionaly, I've been able to listen to music at work. That's one of the tools I use to both keep my pace up, and to stop me from overhearing something which is likely more interesting than what I'm working on at that moment. It's a wonderful guilty pleasure, and I once turned down a job based largely on the fact that I wouldn't be able to listen to music while coding.

So, of course, when I work from home I listen to music. But it wasn't until yesterday I discovered an additional benefit of working at home. That being, that I can sing-a-long to my music, while working! So far this has helped a great deal, as I think it entirely wraps up the obnoxious part of my brain which keeps asking "I wonder what else I could be doing?", and frees up my number crunching side to rotate six-dimensional objects required for writing most computer code (and/or writing a long string of if/then statements I forget which).

I began thinking what a unique position it is to have such freedom. I mean, outside people whose job it is to actually sing all day, the only people I can think who might have such freedom is anyone who works outdoors. However, I can't think of an outdoor job environment where belting out your favorite tune from your walkman, while not exactly forbidden by your employer, would be at all socially acceptable to your co-workers, unless you happened to enjoy being the target of homophobic slurs.

Please do take this as gloating:

So in summary, my job is awesome, I can sing at work which you probably can't, and I'm a uniquely special person throughout the entire universe.

Bad good deed.

I would like to take a moment to congratulate the Internet. Not only for providing the means by which I make a living, but also for reinforcing all the previously held biases towards certain types and groups of people I held by quickly pointing at the worst possible example.

But that's nothing new. People gravitate towards what they want to hear.

The reason I'm congratulating the internet is that they have made me now dislike a whole new group of people whom I was previously positively disposed.

That group? "People who do good deeds".

After reading this I'm not sure I care for them anymore.

So hear this citizen "joe", if you're ever in a position to assist me, please, please only do so if you're absolutely sure the method you use will not resort to hokey ironic theater that will make me want to strike you with a cement encrusted shovel.