Manic-Depressive Monday

Working in my company's Dept. of Diversity, I'm often in the position of advocating new ways of working, ways that might be more inclusive of traditionally disenfranchised employees.

For instance, when advocating for working mothers, a topic that comes up a lot is "work/life balance," or the ability to satisfy the demands of one's non-professional life while still meeting the needs of your team and your clients. Something we push for a lot is the idea of telecommuting (which is corporate-ese for "working from home"), a solution which employees tend to love but managers tend to hate. Or moderately dislike, at the very least.

So, to help prove that telecommuting really can work, my team decided that each of us could choose one day a week that we would work from home. If it worked, they said, we'd make it a permanent policy. If not, we'd try to figure out why. Apparently, it worked; we've been doing this for the past five years.

Most people on my team picked Friday as their "work from home" day. When they're done working, their weekend starts immediately, without a commute through horrendous rush hour traffic standing in their way. Unforunately, I have a lot of classes and a standing meeting on most of my Fridays, so I picked Monday. It's a choice that works for me -- on Sunday night, when everyone is lamenting that the weekend is almost over and the morning rush hour is already making them tired, I know that all I have to do on Monday morning is roll out of bed, start the coffee, put on my PJ's and fuzzy slippers, and fire up the computer. Boom; I'm at work.

And yes, I can often be more productive at home than I am at the office. And I really enjoy facing the aformentioned horrendous rush hour traffic (DC is always in the Top 10 lists of horrendous commutes, always) four times a week instead of five.

But ... (cue the violins) ... most Mondays, I get lonely. Oftentimes, I spend my entire Monday with no interpersonal human interaction whatsoever, save the occasional phone call. And yes, it's relaxing -- almost as relaxing as prescription sleep medication. I'm a big time extrovert, and wasn't meant to stay home all day. Seriously, sometimes I get so languid I feel as though my joints are made of lead.

I know it's very little use complaining, that most people with the Monday-through-Friday-nine-to-five office job will not have much sympathy for me. And no, I don't plan on giving up my Monday at home anytime soon, which says something. But what also says something is that I'm actually looking forward to going to work tomorrow and communing with my fellow humans. Which never really happened before we started working from home one day a week.