Although my previous post showed my current main reason for telecommuting, I have another reason, a few years older that got me started. Here are the pictures - then and now!

Kevin was born in March, 2004. After my maternity leave I returned to work and asked if I could go part-time for a while. I worked at a large high-tech company with a reputation for family friendliness and being a great place for working mothers, and I’d been there a number of years and really proven myself. Well to my chagrin, they said no (new management, politics, etc). So I started searching around, reaching out to my old contacts within the company. While I could not find a part-time arrangement, I did speak to the new manager of a team I had worked for previously. She told me I had a good reputation and although she couldn’t offer me part-time work, she was willing for me to telecommute exclusively, and have flexible hours (within reason).  I had already been telecommuting a few days per week anyway, so this was not too big of an adjustment.

Well the situation worked wonderfully for me. Just as I wrote in my last post about taking breaks during work to grab time with my baby now, I did the same with Kevin when he was a baby. It was the next best thing to working part-time - I still felt like I got to spend much more quality time with my son working from home than if I’d been commuting to the office every day. I could spend my lunch break with him. I could occasionally sit in his room and cuddle with him and rock him to sleep before his nap, and nursing was much easier than if I’d had to pump at the office! Even when I had a phone meeting during his feeding time, the nanny simply brought him to me and I could nurse him while taking my meeting (thank goodness we weren’t using webcams!).

Even after Kevin started daycare away from the house, I had become so accustomed to, and comfortable with, telecommuting, that I never looked back. When I work full-time and every minute working is one less minute to spend with my kids, why would I want to spend an extra hour every day away from my kids to sit in traffic? It just seems crazy. Life is too short and time is way too precious!

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