Work At Home Mom (WAHM) Pitfalls

As some of you may know, a few months ago I began working from home.

There's a little 'blurb' about how this work-at-home opportunity happened here.

There's been more afternoon training sessions at my boss's home than time spent at my home working, but that is okay for now. The past few weeks I've handled a number of calls from my work station in the basement, which is a start. Most if these were outgoing calls that I needed to make to inform customers and suppliers of certain details. One thing this slow start with working from home has showed me is that I need to try to develop a routine. This may be difficult as the company is a kitchen remodeling business and sometimes things do not go as planned.

For example, this morning our contractor traveled to the cabinet warehouse which is about an hour and a half away, and when he arrived at the customer's home he did not have the security code to get in the home. Yesterday when I spoke with the contractor he said our boss has the code and he will call him for it tomorrow. Well, when our contractor called our boss he was out and about with business appointments and such and did not have the code. Our contractor called me and I did not have the code so I needed to call the customer. As luck would have it, my internet connection (which was fine 20 minutes earlier) was down! Luckily I had an order form for the customer with their cellphone number on it. Unfortunately, I the customer did not answer, so I left a voice mail. All this time our contractor is waiting for me to get the code so he can get into the house and begin installing the cabinets! I call him back about 10 minutes later to tell him that I could not get a hold of the customer and I left a voice mail. As I am on the phone with him, he gets a call from our boss, so we hang up. I wait a few minutes, call our contractor back and find out if he got the code. He says yes, gives me the code so I have it if anyone needs it (which I should have had from the beginning; this is a live and learn situation.) Somehow my boss got through to the customer while I was on the phone with our contractor. Aye, aye, aye.

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This afternoon, while I am eating my lunch and browsing my news feed on Facebook (as I normally do most days) I notice a link to a post entitled:

5 Pitfalls of Working From Home (and How to Avoid Them)

by Jamie from

The Wonder Years: Musings & Misadventures of Motherhood

The first pitfall, ineffective income management, does not really pertain to me.....yet.

We've been managing our family solely on my husband's income for almost 11 years now.

I see my income (as meager as it has been thus far) as a help in paying down debt or purchasing items such as clothes for the kids. For now, it is just a small extra bit of money.

The second pitfall she mentions is lack of a set work schedule.

Now this I can totally relate to! There have been days where urgent mattes have come up and it is almost the end of the work day. I've just returned home from picking my daughters up from school and need to handle something at that moment. It is pretty difficult. I try to get my daughters settled and explain to them that I have something very important to take care of and that I will help them and listen to them when I am finished. Sometime being finished doesn't happen for another hour and a half though. Most of the time Jay has come home within 30 minutes of when I start to handle said urgent matter, but you know how kids always come to Mom even when Dad is there. They need to get in the habit of respecting my work time and going to Dad for whatever they need when I am occupied with work matters.

Pitfall number three is Blogger's Butt.

Honestly, I have never heard this term before. In my past working career I've always worked in an office cubicle setting and this was referred to as the secretary's spread. The urban dictionary online defines it as the word spread refers to the widening of the hips and ass. This usually happens to secretaries, who sit in a chair all day snacking on sweets; thus the name, secretary spread.

I have been fighting this for many years and need to get into a workout routine and fast!

The difficult part for me is motivation, time and panning! I hope to do it very soon though!

Pitfall #4 she states is little personal connection.

I've suffered from this just as a SAHM, especially during this afternoon Kindergarten year!
I barely have time to get out and run errands because I have to be back home to prepare lunch for Kaye before she has to be at Kindy for 12:45pm. Then I have to make sure to pick up both kids at 3:20pm. Next year things will be a lot different. My boss has mentioned getting together at Panera Bread for meetings with the contractors who will be scheduled for jobs so we can talk about the ordering of materials and such. I'm hoping this bit of personal connection will be enough for me, as my title is Customer Service Manager and I will be talking on the phone to suppliers, customers, contractors and my boss on a regualr basis. Yes, it may not be face-to-face, but it will be more interaction than I've had as a SAHM over the past few years (minus social media interactions that is.)

The last pitfall Jamie mentions is your family feeling left out.

I've experienced his already with both of my daughters. As stated above, they would come downstairs to my work station (which is in the basement) while I'm trying to handle said urgent matter and I kind of shoo them away because I'm on the phone. With Kaye she got a pouty, sad look an walked away.

It is going to be a learning curve for both of my daughters and probably my husband as well in that I'm not always going to be available for them as I once was.

Currently I am quite worried how this will all work out this summer with my daughters being home from school. I'm hoping my Mom will help me out on days that get a little hairy for me. There's a possibility a neighbor who works from home as a real estate agent will swap kids on days that we both need it. And one more option I have is a mothers helper. I hope this doesn't turn out to be more challenging than I am anticipating it to be. Time will tell.

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