Home Office Site

I loved working at home. Really I did. I home-schooled, had kids interrupting my phone calls and didn’t care, had everything in one place…..if I needed to stop what I was doing, I stopped.

I realize that must sound chaotic to most of you, but it is exactly what I loved about working at home. I am sort of a schizoid type and distraction ready. Thrive on distraction was my motto at the time.

So why do I write about “home office site” stuff when I don’t work at home any longer? Well…..I sort of still do. Just that I feel like I am always working no matter where I go. And I’m not saying that in a negative way. My view is that our life’s work is our lives, and I try to make the most of it where ever I am. I would not be able to be sane in my outside paid job, otherwise. I once told the woman who hired me that I would be dedicated to the position as long as I could blend my “outside” life with it and it with my outside life. And I do.

I manage two kitchens, have two office locations, supervise a staff fluctuating between 12 and fifteen people at two locations, manage several contracts, manage more than one type of business, manage a family ……(my youngest started high school this week – sigh – the other three are in the beyond of college land), I’m on the steering committee of two separate organizations, I’m politically active and sing with the Raging Grannies, I try to keep up with the remains of my “working at home days” business of managing several websites, write for three blogs…..and it isn’t as much as it sounds simply because I meditate every morning, practice Reiki, and stick to the plan of blending it as one whole instead of all the separations implicated by the many uses of commas in this big long run on sentence I have just written. Take out the commas and it is still one who sentence. If I didn’t see it all as some whole shape that fit together I would not be able to pull it off, or be happy with the fact that this journey is what I enjoy and what I love waking up to.

Anyhow, I carry my home office site with me wherever I go. My car resembles my frizzy hair in style. I have at least three carry-all bags. One of them is I swear an old diaper bag from the Goodwill store. Nice weird tan/peach shade, well padded and compartmentalized. Perfect for my laptop. The other’s are soft $10 satchels from Staples. And I carry my office online at my server space. More on that later.

Right now I’m at one of my EcoCenter Office Space that the Center for Sustainable Living allows for me to use in exchange for Food Works supplementing some catering needs. I’m here because my fourteen year old daughter needs to be fourteen and hang out downtown with friends and recuperate from the first week of high school. Blending. That is what I do. Working at home because home is where my heart and mind are. Wherever that may be.

Peace be with you.

donna

One of the work hats I wear is that of Business Manager for Food Works for Middle Way House. Food Works is a catering business that is ran as a social enterprise (there will be another post about that later). One of our rented kitchens provides the meals for the local Head Start Program, the Villages Child Care Program and the Senior Nutrition Sites operated by Area 10 Agency on Aging.




It had always been a challenge to deal with changing meal and supply orders from the senior nutrition sites. There is a very low percentage of profit possible on each meal, and to find that you have fixed 80 meals for one site only to find out they only needed 75 was a frustrating and common situation. Keeping track of each week’s meal order was also cumbersome……this is only one of two kitchens being managed (the other is for special events) and each contract has its separate wiggly details that can drive a person mad on a daily basis. Trust me on that. Keeping up with requested menu changes, complaints, shortages, compliments….well you get the idea. Invoicing correctly was definitely becoming a nightmare.

I lucked out, and Area 10 hired a great manager for the nutrition program (Hi Cheri!) who was comfortable with using the computer as a go-between. She already used Gmail, so getting her onto a shared blog with Blogger.com was not a problem, Blogger was a more comfortable route to go than a blog I would set up on a separate server. Once I was able to assure her that the blog was open only to us, she was on-board. We have our own individual user names and passwords.

Once a week Cheri posts the food order for each week. She then makes changes during the week as needed. We write her back on the blog if there are questions. She lets us know which sites are out of trays, what meals are a hit and which one’s don’t fly with the seniors (no un-cooked carrots because of dentures, limit the spiciness please, too many seniors can’t have grapefruit,etc.). We agree on meetings, post menus, etc. I have set up the sidebar with links to our web pages, a list of our important contact phone numbers, and our current menu download. This all may seem rather unremarkable, except that it lightened our work load considerably. For instance, Cheri and I are both people who are constantly receiving phone calls and this cut that down dramatically. I am no longer required to fill out and change paperwork constantly because of meal order changes. I just do the invoice once a month and pull the numbers straight off of the blog….no writing and re-writing. Jo, the kitchen manager, checks the blog every morning before meal prep and our costs are controlled more tightly because of the resulting improved ordering from our suppliers.

A blog like this is quick and easy to set up. I tried to convince the Head Start People to use this process, but they were more computer-phobic and worried about confidentiality. These concerns are groundless to a person once they really look at the process. No one sees our posts but ourselves and there is never any client data shared, regardless. I think people who have Gmail are more open to the idea because they have often been exposed to shared documents. The advantages of using Blogger is that it is quick and easy to set up, and it doesn’t take hardly any time at all to train a contributor in how to navigate the blog. We did have to agree not to use comments as communication on posts – just actual posts – because they were too easy to miss. We are on the run and need the information right in our face, not on a “to-be-clicked button” .




While I was at it, I set up a quick private blog where I keep track of personnel issues. Like most businesses we have a warning system including verbal and written warnings for tardiness and other work issues. This blog is open only to me, but I can quickly record details about employee incidents so that when I do type the incident up later it is correct, fair and not subject to the whims of my memory. I had been using email for this, but this is all in one place and requires no search. The chronological nature of the blog system is a definite benefit for this use because one can easily see an employee pattern developing.

I have also set up a blank document blog. I have uploaded all of my business forms to my server and I link to them on this blog. It is pretty much one long post of these links and that’s it. So when I am at one kitchen or another, or one office or another (I have two in addition to my office at home) I can download a PTO (personal time off) form for an employee when they request it. I have the blank time sheets available there, the personnel policies, all of the interview and new hire forms, W-4 forms, safety manuals…..you name it I’ve got it there. When your car is your mobile office as often as mine is, this is a real survival measure. I run in circles enough as it is to have to track back to another location to hand someone a form. This works better for me than Google Documents, because I can upload original formats (pdf files, jpegs, etc.) and land on them all in one simple page. Perhaps if I had already been using WordPress at that time I may have set it up on that, but I don’t think so. If I ever have to transfer my knowledge and resources to a replacement person crazy enough to take my job, the Blogger format is more convenient and transferable.

Please feel free to comment!