Is it hell working from home with your husband?
Maria Varallo commented on an article I posted on my Work from Home Wisdom Facebook page about hell being working from home with your husband! Both Maria and her husband Kris Semple work from home, and I asked her how it works out for them:
What do you and Kris do?
I’m a coach and trainer. Kris is employed as a database administrator for a large American contract research organisation with offices around the world.
Do you have a family?
We have two boys aged 11 and 12, an old fluffy cat, a very fast young dog and two rats called Rex and Shadow.
How long have you been working from home with your husband?
5 years since going self-employed. I work in the house with the dog Flash for company.
Kris – 6 years employed, working in the office in the garden.
What’s your daily routine?
It depends on my work load, I have at times got up at 6am to get an hour in before everyone else gets up. Otherwise we’re up at 7, kids to school. I usually take the youngest to school however Kris will do this if I’m working out of the house. More of a juggle for pick up at 3.15 if I can’t do it, Kris will try and if he’s not able then I ask other mums like anyone else.
If I’m at my desk Kris will make a great coffee before we both get on with work. Over coffee or dog walking we talk through the day/week plans i.e. who is doing what and where.
I try to do the dog walk daily if possible as it’s sixty minutes of fast walking which is so good for me and clears my head. When boys are back from school and snacks eaten, I encourage them to do an hours of homework or if it’s done they can get on a computer, this frees me up to do another hour until dinner.
If I have a lot on I will go back to my desk for an hour at 9pm. I can never work late my mind goes I’d rather get up at the crack of dawn in a quiet peaceful house with a cup of tea and get on.
Now the boys are getting older it’s getting easier in school holidays as they know Kris is down the garden. So it’s not so desperate to find child care.
Most of Maria’s work is for Illuminate, a charity she helped start three years ago in Cambridge. She is also a confidence coach, helping people re-connect with their self-confidence and strengthen their self-belief.
Maria will be back soon talking about how she and Kris divide up domestic responsibilities and whether working from home affects their relationship.
Would you consider working from home with your husband or is it a definite no-no?
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I am so pleased to see this post. My partner and I work from the same desk in our living room and I go bats sometimes. He goes bats sometimes. Usually when there has been a deadline going on for weeks, like recently. I’ve been working out of my home-from-home office at my local society when I can.
Looking forward to your how you split the housework posts.
Ah, yes, now there’s the rub, the housework, shopping, cooking etc. I’m very lucky in that A is a much better cook than me, probably because unlike me, he enjoys it, so I frequently don’t have to do that bit. I’m a very good KP, though!
My husband and I have always jokingly said that if we had to work together we’d kill each other! (They do say opposites attract…) Fortunately, we still have separate jobs. I run my own business and work at home all the time but he is here maybe once a fortnight. We have separate offices now but even when we worked in the same room (the smallest in the house – perhaps best called a cupboard) we were both very good at keeping our heads down and focusing on our own work with just the offer of a cup of tea every so often. (I fear my need for tea may be greater than his.)
I think the best thing about when we’re here together is that he usually makes me go out for lunch. Nowhere fancy, and not for long, but it gets me out and I always feel more energised when I come home. I know I should do this more often myself but oh, the guilt!
And the worst thing? I still deal with the washing machine, do the school run and make the dinner…
Sounds to me like you’d actually work together rather well, Liz! My partner A and I are also absolute opposites, but fortunately he’s a coach who works with personality profiling so he understands all about the different ways people respond to the same situation. And I’ve picked up a lot from him over the years so now we don’t take it personally any more!
Look out for Maria talking on the blog about splitting domestic responsibilities with her home working husband. I think quite a few home working women will be reading with interest!