Let’s reinvent the office. I don’t like going there. I’ve always preferred to work from home and have seized every opportunity to do so such as uncomfortable late pregnancies and when my children were babies. I don’t like the office with its distracting chatter and politics, fattening snacks and energy draining structure. When I’m at the office tethered to my desk from nine to six (because it is no longer nine to five), I procrastinate whenever time permits. I surf the net. I read Gawker and the Huffington Post. I play around on Pinterest during conference calls. I ache to be gone from there. My focus flits from one thing to the next with each comment or question from an office mate shouted from across the bullpen that is the open plan room.

Sitting at a desk is as bad for you as smoking

When I work from home I am at peace with my work and I enjoy it. I wake at seven and instead of spending an hour and a half getting ready and getting to work, I am at work by 7:30 propped up in my comfortable bed with my laptop and a nice cup of coffee on the nightstand. I have a full hour and a half to concentrate without having to respond to incoming emails, IM’s or the phone. When I work from home, my breaks brighten my home life, my real life. I might get up from the desk, stretch and go to the kitchen to stir a pot of beans. I take a break by putting in a load of laundry or taking the dogs down to pee. On lunch break at the office I stand on line with strangers to pick up food and wait for the elevator with other strangers so that I can return to my desk and eat. At home, I can ride my bike to the market or walk over to the bank and run into a friend on the way and enjoy a nice chat or hear some neighborhood gossip.

This is my friend’s swimming pond and I can work from there.

I’ve been given the opportunity to work from home this summer. Which means a hiatus from Loisaida NYC and a retreat to an off the grid mobile home in the Catskill Mountains, my rural homestead. We come here on weekends and for vacation in August. The locals call us “seasonal folk”. Frank installed a solar system last summer for our electricity, but there is no running water and our refrigerator is a cooler. I will be here for a solid two months working from home. Yes, I am home from work.