*|MC:SUBJECT|*

For all our clients who are having some difficulty adjusting to working from home, I understand your discomfort with this. Many of you have lost your “me time.”

There is no commute to catch up on your favorite pod cast; no time to miss your families because they’re now always around. Your pets are becoming co-dependent, your children have deleted at least 13 emails trying to “help” and they’ve run through your Zoom video conference calls naked twice.

There were memorable conversations I had with several of you last week that felt like cries for help. This one is a microcosm of those:

LABEL: Ok so if we can just find 15 extra spins before Saturday, we should be able to – wait, sorry Meg, hold on – HONEY, THERE’S A DOG BARKING OUTSIDE, CAN YOU GET THE DOGS AWAY FROM THE DOOR?! WHAT? NO I DIDN’T GET TO CHAPTER TWO. WE GOT UP TO PROBLEM 7! WELL I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO FRACTIONS EITHER, CAN’T HE JUST CALL HIS TEACHER?! IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTER! HE’S NEVER GOING TO USE IT IN REAL LIFE ANYWAY AND I’M ON A WORK CALL! IT IS TOO, A REAL CALL! I KNOW YOU’RE WORKING TOO…OH MY GOD WILL YOU PLEASE JUST GET THE DOGS?!
Ok sorry – where was I?
ME: You were basically writing my column for me.

You guys are not used to this and I understand. So as someone who has worked from a home office since 2006, I want to help.

Here are a couple of tips I hope will make your new at-home situations a little easier to navigate.

Sidenote: None of my tips involve how to handle your kids and their home-schooling. That is a sinking, crowded, lost cruise ship from which there is no rescue.

WORKING FROM HOME TIPS:
1). Do not call them pajamas. They are leisure wear.

2). After work, change out of your leisure wear into your give-ups. Changing clothes gives you a sense of switching from work day to personal time. Give-ups are also not pajamas. This might be confusing as they do have many similarities. They are typically made of cotton and have no zippers, snaps or buttons. There is usually some elastic involved but still, not pajamas because you don’t sleep in them. However, you are giving up on the day and that’s ok.
*Every once in a while put on a pair of jeans. You don’t have to stay in them, you just want to make sure you haven’t gotten to the point of cutting off the blood supply to your knees.

3). Don’t ever take work calls in bed. It’s impossible to explain an exploding meth lab through your surround sound from a rerun of “Breaking Bad” after you’ve accidentally rolled over onto the remote.

4). Showers. You’ll start off taking them every day the first week. This will taper off as your Zoom conference meetings devolve into conference calls and then devolve into group emails. Don’t worry. You’re saving money and Fabreze makes a spray for clothes now anyway.

5). Work used to be coffee, blah blah blah, drive home, wine. This does not need to change. Just substitute “drive home” with “walk-around-the-block-while-explaining-to-your-neighbors-from-six-feet-away-that-you-are-in-fact-NOT-wearing-pajamas.”

THIS WEEK’S BEST OF FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM POSTS:
“After years of wanting to thoroughly clean my house but lacking the time, this week I discovered that wasn’t the reason.”

“Apparently Telemarketers aren’t classified as essential. I haven’t gotten a spam call all week.”

“Attention world: waking up not really knowing what day it is and finding things to occupy your time so you don’t start drinking at noon, failing and drinking anyway. You now all know what it’s like to be on tour.”

“I see all you parents aren’t excited about your kids first day of homeschool. Not a single ‘first-day’ picture. Not one.”

“So, after this quarantine….will the producers of ‘My 600-Pound Life’ just find me…or do I call them…or how will this work?”

Hope you’re all staying safe!