Cake! magazine by Australian Cake Decorating Network May 2014 | Page 96
Working from home - It’s Not a Piece of Cake!
Louise Vansleve
More and more women are leaving the workforce in droves to start
their own businesses at home. In
fact women setting up businesses
from home is the fastest growing
sector of the Australian economy
with similar trends being seen the
in US and UK. And its not surprising that women are making this
choice. Especially after having
children, it is common to have
a feeling of not wanting to miss
out on precious moments of your
child's life and have a desire to be
at home more.
But is working from home all it is
cracked up to be?
I started working from home about
6 years ago now and like so many,
I had an idealistic, romantic view
of working from home. Daily walks
by the beach, yoga classes in
between bouts of working. I was
going to have highly effective time
management skills which would
enable me to arrive breezily at
the school gate just in time for
afternoon pickup looking healthy,
stylish and just like a successful
business owner who manages to
balance all of her plates with little
to no effort.
Cue....sound of glass shattering.....thats my illusion smashed to
pieces and laying in a giant pile of
broken glass on the floor.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love
working from home and I love
working for myself. I have learned
so much in the past 6 years about
business but also about myself
and about life. But if you are on
the verge of making this decision
consider yourself warned......
Working from home and for yourself requires more discipline than
an army captain, more drive than
a tugboat has pulling power and
about as much mental resilience
as the White House bomb shelter.
You will inevitably have to put up
with with the confused look you
get when you try to explain to
curious neighbors or friends that
you can’t make the street party
on Saturday night because you
are so far behind with your work
this week. A standard response
usually comes in the form of “But
you work from home......can’t you
choose your hours?”
You will also have to fend of the
demands of your children who
crankily ask why you didn’t have
time to get 17 yellow pipe cleaners
for their school project today because “all you do is sit at home on
Facebook”
I almost dread the question, “What
do you do?” because once I state
that I work from home, there is
often an assumption that what I
do is not a “real” job. My favourite response in this situation was
from one of my daughters friends
fathers who then said to me in his
best patronizing voice “Oh that’s
nice. That must keep you busy” as
if it was nice that I was occupied
and not pestering my partner or
sitting idly in front of the afternoon
soaps. I nodded and smiled whilst
I visualised clocking him on the
head with a large rolling pin.
You will have the challenges of
keeping your workspace just that.
As I write this I am looking around
my desk and I have 1 pair of fairy
wings, one colouring book, a
wooden doll from a dolls house
and 2 dirty school socks around
my computer!
You will have moments where you
will stare at your computer or cake
in the early hours of the morning,
often with wine in hand and empty
bottle nearby having the seeds
of doubt creep into your head.
“Why....oh why am I doing this?
What for? Is this really worth it?
Am I actually crazy?!”
Something that really irritates me
after telling people you work from
home is the assumption that you
don’t deserve to be paid as well
as someone who works in an office. This usually comes in the
form of a request from a “friend” to
give her a discount because “oh,
but you work from home....surely
your overheads are not that high?”
Sometimes I think about telling
people boldly that I run an adult
X-rated website just to avoid the
whole conversation. Somehow I
can’t imagine this friend asking for
a discount on that!
Some of you will yearn for some
adult conversation, some of that
good old stand around the water
cooler gossip. Some of you will
miss actually getting dressed up
for work.
But then you will have moments
when your child is sick and you
don’t have to frantically find a sitter or explain to your boss why
you need yet another day off. The
moment when you realise you can
book a sale flight on the spot because you don’t have to fill out a
form and wait for approval for your
holidays and hope that no other
employee has asked for holidays
that week. Then there are moments when working in your pajamas till midday feels like the most
perfect thing to be doing.
Most of all you will have the satisfaction of knowing that your hard
work is creating something for
you. A business you can be proud
of. That you own. That is uniquely
yours. And then you will know, that
it really is all worth it.
And besides that, if you are like
me, you will quite like creating an
air of mystery and having a smug
sense of satisfaction, knowing that
the neighbors really have no idea
what you do all day. Perhaps I will
start telling them about my X-rated
website.
Louise Vansleve runs
www.learncakedecoratingonline.
com and
www.startyourcakebusiness.com