The summer hols are almost over once more - thank god. It's been trying, as always, and I'll be glad when I no longer need to arrange childcare for Rowan while I'm at work
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Working at home is great for me, as you've heard over the years. It does take some discipline. I do highly recommend sticking to a schedule, not to mention making it absolutely CLEAR to friends and family that when you are working at home, you are just as unavailable during work hours as you would be in an office.
I can see a lot of advantages, and just as many disadvantages. I might be able to work longer hours, provided Rowan can understand he needs to leave me be while I finish up - and that's if I can arrange things around the school run. And if I can do fewer days, that frees time up for my studies. I'm just easily distracted ;-)
My choir has the same problem about people showing up for rehearsals - most of them are good about it, but there are some that miss rehearsals and then get offended if it's suggested they shouldn't sing if they don't know the piece that well. *sigh*
I really like working at home, especially the not-commuting and not-having-to-dress-up part. :-) But it is hard to convince people that just because you're home, it doesn't mean you're accessible for interruptions, especially if you have to keep up a certain level of productivity. (My husband doesn't always get that yet even after almost five years.) It would probably be better if you could get most of your work done while Rowan is at school.
We don't make that suggestion - thankfully the songs we sing are all chart hits so it's rare if someone doesn't know the song. The difficulty comes when the harmonies come in, as I'm sure you can imagine! The director usually suggests that newbies and returners mouth along till they figure it out - but she's kind like that. The whole point of our choir is motivation, after all. But it still gets on my nerves all the same.
I think I could enjoy it - I tend to go through phases of feeling isolated anyway, even when surrounded by my colleagues, so companionship isn't that big a deal. I think I would definitely need to be strict about interruptions - particularly from Rowan when he's not in school. He's bad enough when I'm trying to study, but if I can squeeze my work time into fewer days I can study more - in theory at least.
"...people in my section bemoaning how they 'don't know this one' - they're not even practising at home!"
Oh yes, I know that one. It's so frustrating when people don't seem to want to make the effort! I haven't been to rehearsals of the community choir for ages, because I want to learn and improve musically, and all I ever seem to hear are complaints that "oh, we don't know that one" or "we can't sing that it's too difficult" etc. If they'd only make the effort to do a bit of practice.... *sigh* I've had enough of banging my head against a brick wall. The worst thing is that recordings I've heard of our singing don't even sound all that good... and the same people who "can't learn; won't learn" anything new think it's wonderful. Head|Desk.
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I really like working at home, especially the not-commuting and not-having-to-dress-up part. :-) But it is hard to convince people that just because you're home, it doesn't mean you're accessible for interruptions, especially if you have to keep up a certain level of productivity. (My husband doesn't always get that yet even after almost five years.) It would probably be better if you could get most of your work done while Rowan is at school.
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I think I could enjoy it - I tend to go through phases of feeling isolated anyway, even when surrounded by my colleagues, so companionship isn't that big a deal. I think I would definitely need to be strict about interruptions - particularly from Rowan when he's not in school. He's bad enough when I'm trying to study, but if I can squeeze my work time into fewer days I can study more - in theory at least.
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Oh yes, I know that one. It's so frustrating when people don't seem to want to make the effort! I haven't been to rehearsals of the community choir for ages, because I want to learn and improve musically, and all I ever seem to hear are complaints that "oh, we don't know that one" or "we can't sing that it's too difficult" etc. If they'd only make the effort to do a bit of practice.... *sigh* I've had enough of banging my head against a brick wall. The worst thing is that recordings I've heard of our singing don't even sound all that good... and the same people who "can't learn; won't learn" anything new think it's wonderful. Head|Desk.
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