This morning I saw a post on LinkedIn by an executive in his home office. He was dressed in a dress shirt, shorts and colorful socks. He was relaxed and feeling very at home in his office. His workspace looked like he had improvised the best way he could to put couple of desks together to create a temporary yet functional workspace.
The social media has been full of such posts of people working and sharing space with their kids, significant others and pets. I have noticed that a good number of these posts are by men but not many women are posting what their workspace looks like. I think I know why..
I wouldn’t have been bold enough to post a picture of my workspace when I used to work from home with little kids.
My workspace wasn’t pristine. I had kids’ toys on my desk. Sometimes I had to work on my bed or the floor using a pillow to prop my laptop. It wasn’t elegant by far and I kept it all hidden from my coworkers by keeping my Life’s “messiness” – kids, their crying or needing my attention, laundry, cooking… all of it hidden. I learned to use the mute button strategically. There were times that my daughter would come over and would want to talk to me or would get a little loud singing with her favorite TV show…
Life, you know.
I would quickly mute myself to make sure nobody on the other side to hear anything associate with my Life.
As if Life is a contaminant and Work is a sacred entity that needs to be kept separate from it.
I didn’t have the courage to share my Life with work people. There were times that I did, and it was only with people I trusted and who were used to working remotely. It made work and Life both pleasant and built trust within the team. We all accepted each other as human beings and worked together to achieve a common goal. My organization benefitted from my talents because they created a safe and trusting environment for me and others.
I had a scary moment once while on a conference call working for another organization. My daughter had a melt down and started banging at my door. Everyone on the call heard her screams and one of the male attendees, who obviously didn’t appreciate the sound of a screaming child on a work conference call, angrily started questioning – who had the audacity to allow a screaming child on a conference call?! I froze! Of course, my fist move was to mute my phone and pretend to not hear anything. I told my son to take my daughter to her room immediately as I finished my call, not missing a beat and sweating bullets at the same time fearing for my job. I will never forget how vulnerable and helpless that man’s reaction made me feel. Needless to say, I didn’t stay at that company very long after this incident and found a friendlier environment to work for. Yes, this organization lost an exceptional and dedicated leader!
I think that women are still reluctant to share the messiness of their work at home scene on social media. Even though so many men and women are working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Is it the hold over fear from years of having to prove ourselves as worthy of the “favor” we received as working mothers? The pressure of having to work twice as hard, maybe even more, to “pay back” our organizations for giving us the opportunities to make a living while raising our families? Or is it just our vanity? Or fear of being judged as being imperfect?
Today, during this crisis when everyone is dealing with life’s messiness and trying to balance work and life, I hope all of us have learned to appreciate what working moms, especially single working moms go through as they balance work and life. We get work done and we keep moving forward despite life’s challenges.
Family and kids have traditionally been treated as challenges to our ability to be productive at work unfortunately. This tradition has dictated that we keep our “Life” separate from work. This way of working is convenient for men traditionally as they have their spouses to take care of the kids, family and everything related to “Life”. Women haven’t had this luxury, but they find ways to handle Work and Life one way or another. Sometimes it means they have to find workarounds. For example, work early while kids are asleep or find other creative ways to accomplish Work and Life.
Moms figure it out!
Life is messy when you take risks and live on the edge. You get knocked around once in a while you may suffer few cuts and bruises, but you learn and grow. You create new opportunities and that’s why messiness is good. Women are good at dealing with messes. And we Need to Own it
This is my work from home workspace. It is not as messy as it used to be 12 years ago, but I am proud to share it any way. I hope it empowers other working moms to do the same. We accomplish a lot; we juggle family and work and we do it in a remarkable way because we know how to balance and be flexible.
Life, family, our passions, everything that makes us feel alive is the fuel that motivates our hard work and dedication. We work so we can live fully. Not the other way round.