Sense of Purpose

  I had mentioned previously that I am lacking a sense of purpose at my job. I struggle daily with going to work because I am not at home to school my child. If I take a day off to school my child, I feel uneasy because I know I have to return to work.

  It's exhausting.

  I like going to work because I like the people I work with and I enjoy being with people in general. The company I work for has integrity, they are generous and we have fun. It is amazing to be proud for the company you work for. I have worked for many that I have not been proud of.

  That said, my sense of purpose at work, my identity crisis if you will, is making it really difficult to wake up every morning with a smile on my face. I do like having a job. I like working full time and bringing money into the household. I wish my job could be teaching at home though and therein lies my struggle. I want to be creative. I want to teach. I want to feel like I am making a difference.

  I could do my current full time job from home (most days) but this company does not like to function in that way. The only time people work from home is in bad weather and even that is frowned upon. They would prefer you just take the day off. Their time off policy is generous for this very reason.

  Prior to starting homeschooling (even prior to thinking about it), I had been slowly working on getting myself into a position where I do not need to go to work every day in order to be able to do my current job. Right now, I can do it all via email, phone and the Internet and would only need to come in a couple days a week. I am unsure how to approach my company about it so I have not said anything. Yet. I am hoping an opportunity will arise soon.

  My workday is from 7:30a-4:30p. The rest of my team (and the other half of the company) gets in at 8a. In the 30 minutes prior to them arriving I get as much done as I do in about two hours with everyone being in the building. The phone is ringing (internal and external calls), people stop by my desk to ask questions, the team has chats about work stuff (and sometimes not work stuff)... I do not mind the interruptions but I have found that I get to the end of my day exhausted and I have not completed one task! I have been busy working on helping others and while I love helping others, I need to get my own work done.

  If I were home, I would obviously be available via phone, email, text and even Instant Messenger so I think it would be beneficial to everyone. I am the go-to person for many things in my company (I even won an award for being a go-to person lol) but I think if I were not there (and I am going to try to say this gently), people would stop and think or refer to their notes before they called me on something they likely already know the answer to.

  As much as I love the drop in's and quick question phone calls that give me little breaks throughout the day, I think most of that could be eliminated if people thought before they reached for the phone or took a walk to come see me. I have gone on a field trip to ask someone a question so I am no stranger to wanting to get out of my chair but it is distracting. Like I said, I am not getting my work done which means I start to lose momentum and when I lose momentum, I lack motivation to get anything done. It is a really long day when you do not want to start anything new and are just waiting around for people to call you or drop by to keep you busy.

  Since I implemented my mostly electronic work day, I have saved the company more than a couple reams of paper, boxes of staples, pens and toner (the toner for the printer at my company is $400 a pop). Might not seem like much but the incidentals of running a business add up. All of this I plan on mentioning in my annual review next May. I hope to minimize my footprint there. If I reduce it enough they might not oppose my desire to work from home and give me a shot at it. I may not be successful working from home. It might fail miserably and they will see me there every day after a week. I will not know unless I am given the chance to try it.