Work From Home Couple

Sometimes something just strikes you as particularly strange. So it was last night at a local pizza place. My wife and our two kids were just getting ready to order when my wife asked the waitress the obvious question: “Do you have any specials tonight?”

The waitress gritted her teeth and replied: “Everything’s special here, every day.”

I was a bit stunned. The answer wasn’t rude. It was actually kind of clever. But it was obvious that our waitress didn’t really want to say it. She had that look on her face, the one that says: “I’d rather rip out my own eyes then say this corporate-mandated slogan one more time.”

I’m sure the waitress wanted to say: “Sorry, our owners are too cheap to ever offer any specials.”

This isn’t a big deal, of course. But it struck me as funny. When you think about it, there are very few times when people really say what they mean. Look at the presidential campaign that ended last year. Weren’t you rooting for Barack Obama to say, just once, “John, why in the world did you pick Sara Palin to be your running mate? Don’t you want to be president?” Or maybe you longed to hear McCain say something like, “Barack, I’d like to punch you in your smug face, you know that?”

No, instead we get sound bites. Or advertising slogans.

I suppose it could be worse. Our waitress could have said: “No specials tonight. Everything’s pretty lousy. As usual.”

In my last post, right below this one, I wrote about the tough 2008 I had on the freelance-writing beat. I wrote more stories than ever, but still made less money than I did in 2007 or 2006. The reason? More of my assignments paid lower rates. The big payers were few and far between, thanks, I guess, to the rough economy and general upheaval in the publishing business.

Despite that, though, I still believe that nothing beats both working from home and working for yourself. I do both, and I know I’d hate any alternative.

Here’s why. One of my freelance jobs involves editing a commercial real estate trade magazine in Chicago. I go into the office once every two weeks or so. The job is a big one, and comes complete with health insurance. But going into the office is one big drag.

That’s always been the case. But it’s worse now. Now I have to listen to all the salesmen, who are struggling desperately to sell ad space in the magazine, sit in their cubicles and sigh. And if they aren’t sighing, they’re reading aloud dismal statistics from the Wall Street Journal or CNN. It’s enough to make you want to hang yourself by your necktie. (Good thing I’m one of the few male employees there without a necktie!)

If that’s not bad enough, I often receive visits from an assistant publisher who’s especially despondent. I can’t blame him, though. He’s the one in charge of firing people if sales don’t pick up. The last time I went to the office, late last week, he stopped by my cubicle twice to shake his head and tell me which rival magazine or industry publication decided to shut its doors.

I know it’s bad out there. Believe me. My wife and I were considering refinancing our mortgage loan. Turns out, though, that our home is no longer worth what we paid for it three years ago. There go those potential savings!

But as a work-from-homer, and as a freelancer responsible for my own well-being, I think I’m in better shape to survive the downturn. I can always work harder and more creatively. I can change my strategy if things aren’t working: Instead of searching for higher-paying jobs, I can change up and take on as many lower-paying, but easy to complete, writing assignments as possible. I’m learning that you can’t force the writing industry to change. You have to instead anticipate those changes and react to them.

It’s not a perfect system, that’s for sure. But it does beat the alternative. I wouldn’t trust any full-time employer these days.

Ah, yes, the first Monday after the end of the holiday season and everyone’s on suicide watch.

At least it seems that way. One of my freelance jobs is to serve as the managing editor of a commercial real estate magazine. Now, everyone agrees that 2009 is going to be one lousy year when it comes to real estate in general. So no one at the magazine is looking forward to that. But the folks here are especially cranky this morning.

I’ve already been accused, basically, of screwing the company because I didn’t have room to run a column in the magazine’s December issue. The column is running in the January issue, but that, apparently, isn’t good enough. If you look up one day and hear that Chicago is on fire, perhaps it’s because I didn’t run this precious legal column in December… or at least that’s what my salesman — who these days can’t sell an ad to save his life — would have you believe.

At the same time, another salesman has called to complain that I haven’t yet run the results of a riveting interview about a commercial broker expanding its office. Whew! That’s some exciting news, an office expansion. I think this particular salesman would like us to reserve the entire issue for this news.

Maybe I’m the crank today. I’m letting the magazine’s ineffective sales staff get on my nerves more than usual. It’s probably a case of the getting-back-to-work-full-time blues kicking in. And I’m sure I’m not alone in this funk.

Ah, well, tomorrow’s Tuesday. We’ll all be used to working again by then, right?

Today is that most dreaded of days, the days when the Christmas tree comes down.

It’s not that I’ll miss the tree — or Christmas — that much. To tell you the truth, I’m a bit tired plugging and unplugging the thing every day. It’s just that I hate the work involved in putting our fake tree away for another 11 months.

Putting the tree up is one thing. Yes, it’s still a pain. But the kids like it, and they’re always eager to help and excited about seeing the ornaments again. Of course, no one is excited about seeing those same ornaments when they’re being put away. And those helpful kids are nowhere to be found.

So up to the attic I’ll go today, with bins of ornaments and Christmas tree parts. The only joy on this day? At least I won’t have to do this again for another 12 months.

Ho, ho, ho.

The last two weeks of December are tough. No one wants to work. I don’t want to work, either. Unfortunately, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid.

That’s one of the challenges when you work for yourself from home: You can take as many days off as you want, but no one’s going to pay you when you don’t turn in your assignments.

Sometimes — rarely, I admit, but sometimes — I envy those folks who do work a traditional office job. These last two weeks of the year, it seems, none of them are working. I should know: Whenever I call them to get a quote or two for my newspaper or magazine feature stories, I only get voice mail. But because they work on salary, they still get paid, whether they’re at home sipping eggnog or at the office slaving away.

Now, when you work for yourself from home, you have to work around all the holiday hubbub. I don’t get my paychecks if I don’t turn in any stories. I can’t afford, especially with as tough a year as 2008 has been, to take two weeks and slack off. I still have to work, which is a drag during the holidays.

This week is especially tough. We have friends in town from Texas. It’d be easy to take these days completely off and play cards, chat and have a beer or two. Unfortunately, I’m working. Now, it’s not a full day of work, but, still, it’s work, and, like I say, it’s a real drag.

Oh, well, the holidays are over soon. Then I can go back to snickering at all those poor souls who have to travel to an office every day.

This holiday season has been a bit rough because my family during its course has lost two people due to cancer. We had our second funeral in as many weeks today.

Both funerals were sad, of course. But today’s particularly struck me. Not because of the emotion involved, but because of the emotion it lacked. The reverend who spoke didn’t know the deceased. No one from the 25 or so attendees got up to say anything. And it was all over in under a half hour.

In contrast, the first funeral we attended, about two weeks ago, was packed. At the wake the day before, people had to wait outside in the cold to get a chance to view the body. On the day of the funeral, the entire church was filled, and at the reception afterward, people lined up for the chance to tell their stories about the deceased.

Is the funeral you have an indication of the type of life you’ve left? That’s a tough one. Both deceased were good, kind people. One was more vivacious, immersed himself in his family and his community and made everyone he spoke to feel like they were the most important person in the world.

It’s hard not to imagine your own funeral at times like this. It’s hard not to hope, either, that yours is like that first one I attended two weeks ago, and not the one where the only personal item the reverend speaking could include was that the deceased was feisty.

It’s the day after Christmas … and all I want to do is sit around and munch on chocolate Santas, read my new books and watch some DVDs.

Unfortunately, I can’t quite do that.

Yes, I’m not working a normal day today. I am taking it a bit on the easy side. But I’m still turning in some work. I have no other choice: If I don’t write, I don’t get paid, and I have several stories due to editors by the end of the month.

That’s one of the few disadvantages of not working full-time from an office. Office workers, I’m assuming, can take some time off around the holidays. There aren’t too many repercussions.

But for me, the holidays are often a struggle. I still have to get the same amount of work done in December as I do in November or October. It just have to do it while dealing with two weeks were it seems everyone I want to interview is out of town. I have to do it when it seems as if no one is interested in returning my phone calls. And I have to do it when relatives and friends want to drop by during the middle of what would otherwise be the middle of a regular working day.

Don’t get me wrong; I do like the holidays. (Notice I said “like,” not “love.” I can certainly live without some of the forced merriment of the season. I can also survive without the Bill O’Reilys of the world telling us the lie that there is actually some kind of “war on Christmas” going on.) It’s just that sometimes they can wear a work-from-home freelancer out.

And today? Yep, I’m worn out. Terribly.

My wife had a sobering experience on our snowy Christmas Eve here in the Midwest. All of us — my 9-year-old son, my 14-month-old son, our 9-year-old niece, my wife and I — headed out to lunch. My wife had to make a quick stop, though, at the office of one of her bosses.

She showed up at the restaurant after the kids had ordered their pizzas and I had ordered everyone’s drinks. Turns out, she’d had a heart-to-heart with her boss. The woman is older, but not old, maybe in her mid-60s. She’s busy, and active in the community. She runs her own theater.

But she was dreading this year’s Christmas. Her mother had passed away earlier this year. And though her kids were coming home for the holidays, they were bringing along boyfriends, friends and pets. My wife’s boss wasn’t in the holiday spirit; With her mother’s death, whom she missed terribly, she would suddenly become the oldest person in the room. That kind of stinks, I’d think.

She told my wife: “Christmas is for the young.”

I wonder if that’s true. Leading up to Christmas, I certainly felt that way. It’s a drag, isn’t it, fighting the crowds at stores, running around for that last-minute gift? It’s even a pain to get some lottery tickets to throw in a stocking. (I never play the lottery and had no idea you couldn’t pay for them with a debit card. Who knew the lottery cared so much about the customers they fleece?)

But today, after the holiday parties, the shopping and the slow traffic snarled by snowstorms were all over, it was a wonderful Christmas morning here. My 9-year-old son loved his gifts. Our 14-month-old loved the wrapping paper and the empty boxes. My wife and I exchanged some nice, and relatively inexpensive, gifts. We won’t have a huge credit-card bill this season. We spent the day overeating and playing games. So it was a nice, relaxing day.

But I do understand the lament of my wife’s boss. There are times when we all wish we were kids again, right? It was nice to sit back, let the gifts come to you and not worry about any of the added stress and responsibilities that come with Christmas.

Regardless, the holiday season is just about over. New Year’s is left, and my wife has scheduled a New Year’s Day get-together at our house. But somehow New Year’s, no matter what you’re doing, never seems quite as stressful as does Christmas.

My wife came up with a good idea this year for the annual Christmas gift exchange we hold for members of her family. She suggested that everyone limit themselves to $5 gifts as a way to save money in these rough economic times.

You’d be surprised at how tough it is to spend only $5 on someone’s Christmas gift.

(A quick disclaimer: My 9-year-old and 13-month-old sons were disqualified from the $5 minimum. Everyone was free to spend as much on them as they pleased.)

Here’s what I got this year from my in-laws: An M&M dressed as Elvis Christmas ornament. My nephew received a $5 gift card to McDonald’s. My father-in-law unwrapped a stuffed reindeer that sang “Jingle Bells.” My niece received a key chain with a stuffed monkey attached to it. Press the monkey and it screeched.

And so it went.

Now, none of those are exactly stellar Christmas presents. But you know what? They were funny. And they made everyone laugh. All of us can survive without some expensive sweater or perfume or scarf for Christmas. Sometimes a laugh is worth far more than the $5 it cost.

Because I work from home, as does my wife, I’m sure you’re interested in knowing my thoughts on current DVD releases. What? You’re not? Surely, you’re joking.

My wife and I are home a lot. We have a 15-month-old child who goes to bed at 7 p.m. It’s not like we’re going anywhere once that happens. So we watch a lot of movies and television series on DVD thanks to our trusty Neftlix account. So I know movies. (Or at least I like to think I do.)

And here’s another thing I know: Ben Still isn’t that funny anymore. And he plays the same lunk-headed character too much. I also know that his latest movie, the big summer comedy Tropic Thunder isn’t funny, either. It is loud. It is busy. It is bloody in scenes. But it’s just not funny.

I will give the movie credit for one funny bit. Robert Downey Jr., one of our best actors, if you ask me, stars as a pompous Academy Award-winning Australian actor. He wins the part of the main African-American character in the fake movie that forms the basis of Tropic Thunder’s story. Of course, Downey Jr.’s not African-American. In the film, his character undergoes a medical procedure that darkens his skin’s pigmentation. He also stays in character throughout the movie, constantly spouting “y’alls” in what he mistakenly thinks is a terrific interpretation of how African-American characters talk. A real African-American actor in the film is constantly annoyed by Downey’s antics, and their scenes together are outstanding, and really funny.

The rest of the film? Boring. Jack Black, who’s usually quite funny, is a complete waste here. He’s not important to the story and doesn’t even have any funny lines, unless you consider him describing how he would give one of the characters a blowjob funny stuff. (It could have been, I suppose, but it’s not in this movie.)

Tom Cruise turns in an interesting performance as a horrid Hollywood studio head, all bald head and bear-rug-furry arms. But he’s not on screen enough. And Ben Stiller, of course, goes through the movie making his usual dumb monkey faces. It seems like his Zoolander character escaped for that movie and made it to the jungles of Laos.

To sum up: Melt your Tropic Thunder discs and seek out a comedy that’s actually funny. The 40-year-old Virgin fits that bill. This loud, annoying movie does not.