Shane Hegarty's encyclopedia of modern Ireland
You can tell a lot about people who are at home during the day by the ads aired on television: debt-restructuring companies, no-questions-asked loans, cheaper car insurance, lower mortgage rates, life insurance and remedies for severe constipation. It suggests that if you are sitting at home all afternoon then you have a hole in your bank account and a potentially fatal blockage in your bowel. But this ignores the large and growing number of people who are working from home. Perhaps they are overlooked because marketing gurus assume they are working rather than sitting in front of the telly doing nothing. Which, of course, they are. Honestly.
People who work from home are very defensive about it. "It must be great working from the house," their friends will remark. "Being able to set your own hours and laze around a bit." At this point the home workers will insist that they work even harder from home, that it's not all coffee breaks and Judge Judy. Although it is great to be able to go to work in your underwear without being branded some sort of weirdo. And Dr Phil is a real improvement on Jerry Springer. That's a tad unfair, actually: home workers are extremely paranoid that those in head office also assume they are doing nothing but watching mid-morning television. This is completely untrue. These days there's nothing good on until after lunch.
Working from home requires an entirely different mentality and daily schedule. They sit at the computer before anyone else is in the office, log on to the office system and perhaps send a couple of e-mails to the boss, to show they're working bright and early. Then it's time for breakfast, when they listen to traffic reports with great smugness. Next it's time to check the e-mails and catch up with the newspaper. Then another pot of tea. Then an e-mail or two. Then lunch. Then Countdown. Then e-mails. Then dinner. It's an exhausting day. With unhappy timing, the boss is always likely to ring during the time they've decided to get out for some air. "That may sound like a golf ball being struck, sir, but it's actually me stapling that urgent report you're waiting for."
You can tell home workers by the fact that, when you call them or bump into them in the shops, they want to talk to you for hours. With only a computer for company all day, cabin fever sets in quickly. When they hear the flap of the letter box they'll be the ones dashing to the front door to greet the postman. To say hello, thanks for delivering the letters, would he like to come in for a cup of tea. No? A glass of water? Anything? It means a constant fear that they'll miss something in the office, such as a new recruit or a big promotion. Or that the company has collapsed and they've been made redundant, but nobody remembered to call them. That and the death of Richard Whiteley coming so soon after one another would be just too much to handle.