Management by walking around

When I worked in an office, part of what I did was management by walking around.

Now that I work in a home office, my management by walking around is a little different.

Back then , I'd walk through the departments I managed to see and be seen. I probably learned more by walking around than I ever did in the endless meetings.

Now, I walk through the halls of the house to put a load of clothes into the dryer, or through the kitchen for no other reason than to go through the kitchen.

Back then, I'd chat with the department personnel.

Now, I yell at the squirrels as they try to make their way from the roof to the bird feeder hanging in front of my home office window.

If squirrels were the only stress then I could argue that, at the end of my second year of retirement, I'm as laid back as laid back could be.

But I'd be lying.

Certainly it's less stressful than the office job with the corporate responsibilities of budgets, deadlines and personnel matters.

But retirement -- especially a retirement of part-time self-employment as a web content provider -- has its moments.

I still deal with budgets -- two in fact, the personal budget and the business budget. I let my accountant sort it out to keep Uncle Sam happy. Funny how Uncle Sam always ends up being happier than me come Tax Day.

I still deal with deadlines, imposed by the people I write for. Back then, I worked a day job, Monday through Friday, for years. What deadlines I had I could usually meet within those parameters those days and those hours. These days I work every day of the week -- it's a piecemeal schedule of a couple of hours here and there during the morning, afternoon and evenings. It's enough to keep me busy, but not so busy that I can't find enough hours to do those things that being retired offer.

It's all good.

I don't deal with personnel who work for me but I deal with the people for whom I work. Generally, we deal with each other by email, occasionally by phone, almost never in person.

The only living things I see during my walk throughs are the birds that come to the bird feeder. They are my office pets. I provide them with seed; they provide me with a distraction of flight, color and behavior that is often amusing, particularly when the male goldfinches are trying to establish territory. I make them happy; they make me happy.

My nemeses are the squirrels. They're like that poorly performing employee you know you have to deal with by trying to change their behavior ... or by getting rid of them.

Maybe the character of work hasn't changed so much after all.

When the salt mine is home

I love the fact that I have a home office where I occupy myself with the daily tasks of writing, blogging and social networking in order to promote the writing and blogging.

But the most difficult part of a home office is that it's located at home.

It's not the distractions that are bothersome. I don't have a fix-it bone in my body, so I'm neither compelled nor distracted to do anything related to painting or fixing a leaky faucet or changing the filter in the furnace or anything like that. I'm fairly disciplined about the tasks at hand. I approach the writing with a deadline in mind, the way I did as a reporter in what seems like a lifetime ago.

I have a few distractions -- the guitars and piano in the office that beg to be played. I can call up Fancast on my computer and watch old episodes of "Spenser: For Hire" with Robert Urich and Avery Brooks. I can cruise the web to my heart's delight, all in the name of research.

The real problem with working at home isn't the occasional distraction, it's the fact you're home all the time.

I used to have a salt mine to go to every day. You know the drill: You get up each morning and prepare to commute to the salt mine to do battle in the work-a-day world of meetings, telephone calls, emails, fires to put out, action plans to strategize. After a day in the mine, you'd return to your sanctuary, your home, the place of rest and rejuvenation.

But now when I commute to the office it's down the hall and to the right. I can do the commute in my jammies and flip-flops, carrying the mug of coffee I just poured in the kitchen. There's no official start time, and there's no official quitting time. The rest and rejuvenation of being home gets a little muddy as it mixes with the need to wander into the office to check my DIGG account after dinner to see how much activity there's been through the day.

There is no rest for the home office weary.

Which is why I can't wait to get out of the house. I look forward to the walk to the end of the driveway to get the morning newspapers. The same is true in the afternoon when I walk out to get the mail. When I go to the gym I extend my workout far longer than I ever did when I was working at an office.

This need sometimes competes with my wife Jane's needs. By the weekend, I'll have a need to escape from the house where I've been at work all week, while she'll have a need to nest in the house because she has a salt mine that she's been going to during the week.

We are scheduled to be away this weekend and next. I am looking forward to packing a bag, pulling together my toiletries, picking out a book for the road. I won't miss the home office for a few days, but I'll bring along the laptop and Blackberry to write and blog and network when I get the chance. When you have a home office, you can leave the home but sometimes the office has to travel.