3 Things You Can Do To Convince Others to Take Your Job Seriously
June 20, 2008 by Deb
Filed under Freelance Writing
In our discussion the other day of the things we dislike about freelance writing, a recurring rant had to do with the people who don’t take our jobs seriously. Boy, could I relate.
In all the years I’ve been working at home. there were always people who didn’t quite get it. My family was good about it because my mom telecommuted for her job as an Instructional Designer. My friends didn’t see it though. In fact, a trio of friends dropped me because I couldn’t always get together and sometimes had to cancel.in order to complete a deadline. This isn’t to minimize my own unreliability, but as the only one among my coffee klatch who had to work, I really wished for their support.
There are also other friends and relatives who feel because I work at home I can take calls any time or that they can just pop over whenever. I’m all about being neighborly, but during school hours I have to work. Period.
Here are a few things you can do to get people to take your job seriously:
- Establish working hours – This is a set group of hours you will work every day without fail. Find a time when your kids are sleeping or in school, your spouse is home or a babysitter can come by and work these same hours every day.
A lot of times the reason people think you’re always available is because you don’t have a set schedule. If they see you picking up Starbucks at 9:30 one morning, and chitchatting over the fence the next day at 9:30, you can’t expect them to know you’re working the following morning at the same time.
2. Get caller I.D. – If you’re busy don’t answer the phone.. Later, when you’re returning the call tell the party on the other end you were working. Let her know your established working hours and nicely tell her you can’t answer the phone at that time. Ditto the doorbell. If you see one of your friends coming up the walk, don’t answer the bell.
3. Lay it on the line - Be firm. Say, "Look. I don’t want to hurt your feelings or ruin our relationship, but you need to take my job seriously. Just because I don’t go into an office everyday doesn’t mean I’m not working hard or contributing. Please respect my time."
I know it’s easier said than done. Part of the reason people don’t take a work at home job seriously is because many homeworkers work hours here and there. You can’t expect them to respect your schedule when there isn’t one.
When you set limits for yourself, you set limits for others.
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My hubby works from home, too, and now he gets what I do and why the house is not exactly pristine most of the time….I’m working! We have our desks in different parts of the house so we don’t get in each other’s way. He has learned that I can’t always drop what I’m doing if he wants to talk to me about something. Now he asks, “Are you in the middle of something?” first. It makes things a lot easier.
Jodee, our situations sound very similar: my husband also works from home, and our offices are in opposite ends of the house. We also ask questions like “Am I bothering you?” when we visit.
I’ve generally been pretty lucky with people understanding that working at home is still working… lots of Mainers seem to have first or second jobs/ventures that they run from home, and that helps a lot.
I really appreciate this article! I’m in a somewhat odd situation since I do work full-time at a university, and then come home and write, consult, and teach online part-time. Friends have a hard time with that, and I too have had a former friend refuse to speak with me after cancelling a happy hour in lieu of making a deadline. (The irony–she had just left freelancing for FT work because she couldn’t afford it anymore.)
Another friend insists that I’m “impossible to catch” at home, even when I have explained “I’m not home those evenings because I’m tutoring” or “I can’t answer the phone when I’m in a LIVE chat working with a student online.”
I believe part of this displeasure comes from believing I’m not as good a friend as I could be if I didn’t have a second career, but until I get a financial break or find that beautiful publishing windfall (it’s coming!), this is reality. If I’m ok with it, and I’m the one working the 70-hour weeks, why can’t they be as well?
This article is soooo helpful. The only friend who actually understands that I have set hours is my roommate. My best friend insists on calling me (repeatedly, until I pick up), emailing me, texting me and IMing me until I respond to her. She’s a teacher and she’s especially bad about it when she’s giving a test or during the summer. She doesn’t know I blocked her online and is always wondering why I’m “never online.” HAH!
My husband works outside of the home, so when he’s there in the evenings, I’m working part of the time. Because he’s right there, it’s easy for him to ask me questions. But when I tell him that I’m working on something, he’s cool.
Luckily, I don’t have the worry with friends and neighbors at this point.
Hmm….Something else I’ve heard of people doing is setting “away messages” on their phones that explain, “I’m working right now.” (This is darned easy to do if your answering machine or voicemail service offer multiple saved messages.)
For people who insist upon coming to your door, another tactic is to place the equivalent of a business “Do Not Disturb” sign on your door. Also, when I was working as a mail carrier, I often delivered to a home-based recording studio. They had a lamp with a red bulb in the window by the front door and a sign reading, “Do not knock or disturb while red light is on” to indicate they were recording/working at that time. It’s a sad-but-true fact that people will often respect signs more than they’ll respect your words.
Robin – LOL my sister does the same thing. She’s a teacher too! That’s funny, maybe it’s the teacher in them, very tenacious!
My hubby works from home too, it’s nice to see other couples out there who have this arrangement as well. I find we have trouble, okay I have trouble, sticking to a schedule. Which then throws off his schedule. I am still guilty of trying to keep up with friends who have more time.
I hate the phone so that’s one issue I don’t have, but email has been my downfall.
I learned to not only be upfront with my friends, but explain why I’m not available. “I’m working” is actually pretty vague because they figure if you are working from home, you could be working any time you please. But if someone wants to go to lunch, I’ll say, “I’ve got an interview scheduled for X time today” or “I’m in the middle of a deadline, but how about tomorrow?” The more they understand what it is you do, the better they become at respecting your time.
I wonder if more employers will offer some sort of telecommute options as the gas prices continue to rise. Maybe if more people are working from home, more people will take it seriously.
I still wonder why more jobs aren’t work from home or at least offered as a telecommute a couple days a week.
@ Morgan: Change can be scary for employers and they may have concerns about productivity if you are off site. I understand that some companies do offer telecommuting as an option but the employee will still need to campaign for it. The person may need to have been working for at least a few years before even a partial telecommute arrangement will be considered.
Morgan – I agree–think how much employers would save if they weren’t paying all the costs of office space! That could go to paying employees better, acquiring better benefits, etc….
Unfortunately, a lot of employers have the misconception that change is bad, and if you let your employees out of the office, they’ll just slack off. What the employers don’t seem to get is that people who will slack off work outside the office are typically the same people who are easily distracted INSIDE the office….
I really appreciate this article. Just the other day I started scheduling stricter work days, so that people will catch on as to when I’m available and when I’m not. I had one friend say to me when I first start working from home, “Hey, I’m not working right now either, so we can get together whenever!” Interesting how freelancing translated into the equivalent of not working at all, to her.
My guy works from home as well, so we’re mutually respectful of each other’s time and space. We go out for an hour lunch once a week, but just the fact that’s scheduled helps to minimize how much it looks like free time to others.
That’s great advice. My friends know better than to call me during work hours. If they really need to talk to me, they’ll text messsage me first before they call.
Sorry to hear about the friends who dropped you but good riddance. Real friends understand that you have your priorities. Would you drop in on someone’s office unannounced?
Deb, I can certainly relate. Great advice, too.
Right now my mom seems to be the only one who really gets it. In fact, I appreciate it when she does call and I answer, because she always asks me if I’m working, and if I tell her I am, she makes it short or says she’ll call back later if what she has to say isn’t important.
Now, let me explain answering the phone to begin with… If I see it’s mom calling, one of the kids or the school, I will answer just in case it’s an emergency, but those are about the only calls I answer — the rest go to voicemail.
My main problem is with hubby. He knows I work and contribute to the bills, but I guess he still fails to understand it all. When I ask him for help with the house or something, his response is, “I work all day.”
To which I reply, “I work too. Even though I don’t leave the house, I still work, pay my taxes and contribute to the bills.”
Errr… Maybe one day he’ll understand, or maybe he’s just being a typical male (no offense guys
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I’ve been a fulltime freelance writer and editor for, gulp, more than 25 years now, 19 of them married to a wonderful guy who has nothing but respect and admiration for what I do – I’m very lucky. He was a steelworker when we met and is now retired. In the first 13 years of our marriage, he worked a lot of varying shifts, so he kinda understood the idea of my worklife being flexible and unpredictable.
The only time we had a little head-butting over my work was in the first few months after he retired, when I had to turn down a few opportunities to go off and play together because I had deadlines to meet. I had to make a point of letting him know what my workload was like, and it took awhile to get used to doing that – I was accustomed to running things on my own, without accounting or explaining anything to anyone during the day.
My family has always been supportive, and most of my friends have been, too (most of them are jealous of my freelance life!). I’ve occasionally had to say something like, “Can’t talk right now, am on deadline,” and have had to cancel or reschedule social outings, but I always tell people that my plans are subject to last-minute change.
It helps to have published work to show people – they take us more seriously that way. And it helps to just be firm and stand up for ourselves, although I know it isn’t always easy to do so.
Here’s to being taken seriously by friends and family!
Ruth T-C, Rochester, NY
http://www.writerruth.com
I’m barely out of my teens and people my age seem to have a predilection for partying and whatnot–not me, and thankfully, not many of my friends too. However, when they do ask me out and I turn them down, they have a hard time understanding why I can’t go out whenever I please. Those who do understand now have had to see me after working overnight to beat a deadline first (when I look the worst during mornings).
When it comes to family, they do take my job seriously, it’s just that we’re naturally a noisy bunch, so they can’t help it if they suddenly barge in on me for a chat. I don’t really mind–there was a time when I could barely move my jaws because I went on for days without talking since I was holed up in my room working.
It’s usually acquaintances who ask me what I do who don’t respect my job. When I tell them I work at home, they seem to think that’s a euphemism for being unemployed.