I Have to Be on the Phone or I Don't Get Paid

I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted. Boy, has time flown. Guess that's what happens when I'm busy and the kids are out of school more than they're in it. The weekend of Presidents Day they had early release on Friday and were off on Monday, then this week we had a snow storm Thursday causing the schools to close Thursday and Friday - so over the past two weeks they've been in school six full days. Add the weekends in there and I feel like they've never left the house.

I love my kids but I work from home and that's hard to do with them running around the house playing, laughing, yelling, fighting, asking me for one thing or another... Most of my work is done on the computer but there are days, like yesterday, when I make a lot of phone calls and it's hard to sound professional with the noise of the kids behind me.

See, my work isn't something that can be scheduled. I work for an event planner and when she texts me that she needs something she usually needs it right away; it's not generally anything that can be put off "until tomorrow". For instance, yesterday she texted me that she needed glitter paper from two different suppliers and then she needed me to find women's black socks to be used as party favors for a party this weekend.

Some of the glitter paper and the 36 pairs of socks she needed in hand today so I had to call in the order for the paper and then search different companies to get the best pricing on the socks. A lot of online companies have a live chat that I try to use for asking questions but when it's a rush order I want to speak to someone whose voice I can hear. I must have called 15 different companies looking for black crew socks for women - I found out that most companies only sell white socks for women and none of them can explain why - but each time I picked up the phone three of the four kids here were making so much noise I almost had to yell at them to be heard.

My most-used line of the day was, "Yo! I'm on the phone. Please keep the noise down." I think I said it thirty-or-so times throughout the course of the day and it was getting frustrating. My kids don't understand that I get paid for the work I do at home and they really don't understand that the business world is not filled with the noise of children. If I worked in a school or daycare it might be different.

I dread the days when the kids will be home during the week simply because I don't know when I'll get a text from Ursula requesting something from me that has to be done ASAP. I feel bad for the kids that they have to either stay in their rooms or be completely silent in the living room and kitchen while I'm working, but I also need the extra money so the work has to be done. A lot of people think I'm being crass when I say that I don't want the kids home during the week but those are the same people who don't work from home so they don't know the difficulties I face.

I guess I better get used to the kids being here, though, with the end of school getting closer each day. They let out at the end of May and will go to summer school for June but I'll still have July and half of August when they'll be home all day every day. I'll just have to set some boundaries for when I'm working and we'll all have to adjust. Until then I may just make up a sign and hold it up when I need to - "Yo! I'm on the phone. Please keep the noise down." Do you think they'll get the hint?

Until next time...peace to all.