Working from home
I've taken on two short-term accounting contracts I can do 90% from home, in addition to the long-term one I do two days a week at the company's offices in the city. Working from home sounds good in theory, but I'm still learning how to manage it. Given that it's winter and I have a lot of other demands on my daylight hours (read: tree planting and weed spraying), the obvious times to do most of the work are the early mornings when I consider it too cold to be outside, and the evenings after dark. The mornings are no problem, but I'm finding that working late at night means my mind carries on thinking about accounting in bed and I'm not getting enough sleep. I guess I need to cut my evening work short, do something else before bed, go to bed earlier and get up earlier to make the mornings longer. I'm sure I'll figure out a system, but at the moment I'm conscious of not knowing quite how to organise my life to do what I've said I'd do.
The extra work means I'm spending almost all my computer time working, instead of playing. That's been surprisingly tolerable, though I probably wouldn't think so if I was obsessively fannish about anything right now. I like the physical act of using the keyboard and the connectedness of sending email and the bright shiny screen, even if the email is work-related and what's shining on the screen is a corporate annual report.
Through my role as the treasurer of a GLBT organisation and thanks to bardiegrub, I got to attend a consultation forum today run by the Women's Advisory Network of WA on "gendered aspects of social inclusion". That's a topic that's way over my head, but it was a really interesting opportunity to briefly meet people who work in very different fields to my own. I don't think I'd ever spoken to a union organiser before. I found many of the participants quite inspiring, particularly the older ones who got their educations and early work experience (often in the opposite order) when things were much more difficult. At one point I made a list of the reasons why gender issues have never really made themselves felt in my own life and why I often find it hard to relate to what many other women consider common concerns. It's a pretty comprehensive list, but I guess statistically a fairly unusual one. Someone in one of the discussion groups I was in said, "It's the fundamental rule of organising: you engage, you relate..." and I thought, that's my difficulty right there, I don't relate because those issues have never seemed to be my issues. Still, I can listen, and there were plenty of interesting stories to listen to. ETA: Also, one of the five key areas identified by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner to focus on in her "Listening Tour" report jumped out at me as something I'd like to be involved with: reducing the gender gap in retirement savings. That's related not only to how much people earn and their years in the workforce, but also to financial literacy.
As a result of all the comments to my email salutations poll in which people said they dislike receiving email that begins with only their name, I've been using some Hellos and some Dears. However, I can't bring myself to say Hi in a written greeting. There isn't a single person on the face of the planet I think I could address with a Hi in email - not my mother, not anybody! I've tried, but the "i" just won't come.
I organised the first extra accounting contract by phone, and got to receive email from the person I'm working for (an investment banker) before sending any to him. I was most interested in what salutations he chose to use. Email 1 was "Dear Zebra / Kind Regards", so I replied "Dear Person / Best regards". Email 2 was "Hi Zebra" and fortunately didn't necessitate a reply. Email 3 was "Zebra," at which I breathed a sigh of relief and replied "Person," and email 4, in which he confirmed an arrangement to meet, had no salutation and just read "See you on Wednesday." Since then he's been using "Hi Zebra" if it's the first email for a while and "Zebra" if it's one of many during the day, and I follow suit as best I can and say "Dear Person" first thing in the morning before reverting to my preferred "Person". Communication that's satisfactory to both parties is very difficult!!
Time to go do some work.
The extra work means I'm spending almost all my computer time working, instead of playing. That's been surprisingly tolerable, though I probably wouldn't think so if I was obsessively fannish about anything right now. I like the physical act of using the keyboard and the connectedness of sending email and the bright shiny screen, even if the email is work-related and what's shining on the screen is a corporate annual report.
Through my role as the treasurer of a GLBT organisation and thanks to bardiegrub, I got to attend a consultation forum today run by the Women's Advisory Network of WA on "gendered aspects of social inclusion". That's a topic that's way over my head, but it was a really interesting opportunity to briefly meet people who work in very different fields to my own. I don't think I'd ever spoken to a union organiser before. I found many of the participants quite inspiring, particularly the older ones who got their educations and early work experience (often in the opposite order) when things were much more difficult. At one point I made a list of the reasons why gender issues have never really made themselves felt in my own life and why I often find it hard to relate to what many other women consider common concerns. It's a pretty comprehensive list, but I guess statistically a fairly unusual one. Someone in one of the discussion groups I was in said, "It's the fundamental rule of organising: you engage, you relate..." and I thought, that's my difficulty right there, I don't relate because those issues have never seemed to be my issues. Still, I can listen, and there were plenty of interesting stories to listen to. ETA: Also, one of the five key areas identified by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner to focus on in her "Listening Tour" report jumped out at me as something I'd like to be involved with: reducing the gender gap in retirement savings. That's related not only to how much people earn and their years in the workforce, but also to financial literacy.
As a result of all the comments to my email salutations poll in which people said they dislike receiving email that begins with only their name, I've been using some Hellos and some Dears. However, I can't bring myself to say Hi in a written greeting. There isn't a single person on the face of the planet I think I could address with a Hi in email - not my mother, not anybody! I've tried, but the "i" just won't come.
I organised the first extra accounting contract by phone, and got to receive email from the person I'm working for (an investment banker) before sending any to him. I was most interested in what salutations he chose to use. Email 1 was "Dear Zebra / Kind Regards", so I replied "Dear Person / Best regards". Email 2 was "Hi Zebra" and fortunately didn't necessitate a reply. Email 3 was "Zebra," at which I breathed a sigh of relief and replied "Person," and email 4, in which he confirmed an arrangement to meet, had no salutation and just read "See you on Wednesday." Since then he's been using "Hi Zebra" if it's the first email for a while and "Zebra" if it's one of many during the day, and I follow suit as best I can and say "Dear Person" first thing in the morning before reverting to my preferred "Person". Communication that's satisfactory to both parties is very difficult!!
Time to go do some work.