October 27, 1995 – the first day I wore a uniform.
I had turned 14 and was legally allowed to start working at my family’s business. I had been ‘volunteering’ for many years, baling hay, driving tractors (with adult supervision of course) and otherwise helping around the farm – but this was day one with a name tag.
I worked at Young’s off and on for the next 14 years, wearing many different uniforms. When I moved up to Columbus to become a teacher, I traded in my name tag for a dress shirt and tie.
I always enjoyed wearing a tie, I have about 60 ties of varied professional levels. Which as a teacher, worked very well. Female teachers have awful sweaters, I have awful ties.
But in March of 2010, when it was becoming apparent that my short-lived teaching career was coming to an end, I realized that I had only one more uniform change left in me – pajamas.
Working from home sounded like the perfect job. You see all the signs on the side of the road promoting $100k+ jobs “All from the comfort of your own couch!” I’ll wake up whenever I want, roll out of bed, sit down at the desk for a few hours, take a nap, play some Playstation, work for a little longer, get a round of golf in for the afternoon. Why doesn’t EVERYONE work from home?
My wife and I discussed how great it will be when we start having kids and how much money we can save on child care. I’ll already be at home, it will work out perfectly.
Well, reality set in about 2 months later when I realized that I was getting up with my wife at 5:30 in the morning when she needed to get up from school and often would still be at my desk working away when she got back home around 6. Still wearing my pajamas, of course.
We don’t have kids (yet) but I can’t imagine that I’ll be able to swing my full-time home job along with taking care of a rugrat. Hopefully by that point I have a local daycare as a client and we can trade services 🙂
Some days, when I’m out and about networking, I’ll dust off the tie rack, shine my shoes and ‘purty up.’ But for the most part I am at my desk in my favorite concoction of clothes: shorts and a hoodie. My wife has worked for years to get me away from this combination, but alas, I still dress like I’m in high school.
The best part about working from home is, you guessed it, no boss. My hand-picked clients are the only people I answer to. And for the most part, they don’t care what I’m wearing when I get the job done. There aren’t chapters of attire restrictions in an enormous 3 ring binder of how I need to do my job.
I LOVE not having a boss (except for my CFO/wife, of course). But even she allows me as much freedom as I need, which is what everyone wants – freedom.
And if she comes home from work and I’m still in my jammies, she doesn’t judge. What a boss!