Working From Home: A New (and Old) Family Tradition
I’m been working from home for several years. So the adjustments that many are dealing with setting up a home office, I had figured out. Well, I thought I had. Up until the COVID crisis, it was just me at home. My wife’s parents live with us, and they were out much of the day, usually shopping and visiting parks. My wife is a college professor, and so she would be away teaching, and our daughter was away at her university. As a result, I often had the run of the house.
I had a section of our basement where I could get my work done. Because I’m a career coach and consultant, I spent a lot of time online meeting with clients. I usually didn’t feel the need to wear headphones (unless my in-laws were around). I was pretty much unencumbered, which I really loved. I could break when I wanted and meditate in the backyard or go for a walk.
As working from home became the new norm this spring, our house started to resemble a WeWork office. My wife taught her classes online and our daughter came home from college to finish her semester virtually. In the past, my in-laws would go to Colorado for the summer. But because of the crisis, we prohibited them — they are in their 80s — from leaving the house. So this summer they are with us. My mother-in-law is our barista, and my father-in-law our chef. So maybe better than WeWork.
Growing up, my parents worked from home. Though my dad had a full-time job outside the house, he operated a family printing business in our basement in the evenings and on weekends. My mother worked at home selling wedding invitations, holiday cards, and taking on typing assignments. She had an IBM Selectric typewriter with the fonts on a rotating ball. The typewriter would jump to life (actually shake!) and hum when turned on.
My parents were good business partners. My dad was the quintessential letter pressman with permanently inked hands. He was partially deaf, so when he was operating his press — it made its own clinking sound that would put my sister and me to sleep at night — you’d have to shout to get his attention. My mom’s job was to take printing orders and handle the billing. She was his primary proofreader. In my teens, I started helping him more with proofreading (which I was instructed to do by reading the copy backwards, word by word).
When I was about 13 my parents got me a hand press, which was a smaller model of my dad’s press, and didn’t need electric to operate. He taught me how to set type, lock a chase (the frame that held the type and wooden spacing called “furniture”), ink the press, and operate it. When I ran for student government positions in high school, I was the only student to have professionally produced materials that I had printed myself! That was empowering for a teenager. I now realize the power of the printed word and the influence that printing has had in advancing important ideas. I remember visiting Ben Franklin’s printing shop in Philadelphia and feeling a connection to him.
Decades later, I appreciate the benefits of working from home: easiest commute ever and no one cares if I take an afternoon power nap. I spent much of my early professional life working outside the home as an attorney and college professor. A nice office to impress clients and students may have a purpose, but in today’s reality with virtual meetings being the reality, impressive looking physical offices may become passé. Rather, a Zoom call with a background showing a beach scene could be the norm.
My son is also working from home. Though this is as result of COVID-19, he seems to enjoy determining the structure of his day. Working should not be a matter of “seat” time or clocking hours. The quality of what we do should drive our output, not the number of hours we are logged in or out. He seems to get his work done and have time left in the day. So our family tradition is continuing.
So for Father’s Day (and Mother’s Day), I want to thank my dad (and mom) for starting a working from home tradition. Though their work was very different from the work I do, the benefits of working from home still continue, except for me no inked hands.
