MODERN FAMILY
WORKING from home when children are around is a risky business - just ask Professor Robert E Kelly.
The academic expert was carrying out a high-brow, serious interview about the South Korean president being forced out of office on live television, when suddenly the door swings open and his daughter struts in, punching her arms Beyoncéstyle in the air.
Wearing a bright yellow cardigan she danced into the room and sat down beside her flustered father, who tried desperately to push her away.
Worse was to come, as the door opened again and in wheels her baby brother in a walker.
Still, Professor Kelly carried on regardless with his analysis regarding Park Geun-hye’s ousting from office, while in the background the childrens’ mother slides into the room in a blind panic.
She stayed close to the ground trying to keep out of the shot of the camera, and dragged the kids out before lunging back into the room to shut the door.
You can just imagine her horror when she realised the children were missing while her husband was carrying out a live interview.
Viewers loved it, and the funny and charming video of the interview has been watched hundreds of millions of times across the world.
As more people work at home, and as work follows us to our homes through mobile phones and laptops, more people have personal experience of just these sorts of interruptions.
Anyone who has worked from home while young children are around knows the perils. Homeworking is not something I enjoyed. When the children were very small it was very helpful, but, for me, the negatives outweigh the positives.
I only did it one day a week, they were in nursery in the morning and I had some very helpful grandparents on hand in the afternoon but that didn’t stop some very challenging phone calls made to a backdrop of bedlam. I used to blame the television being turned up too loud, but I’m not sure I fooled anyone.
You know that the moment you have to make that important phone call is the exact moment they decide to scream the house down.
When the children started school full-time I increased my hours and returned to the office full time.
Working from home is definitely not something I miss. Perhaps it works for some jobs and some people. But I like having the dividing line between work and home, plus working from home can be quite lonely and isolating.
Added to which, it’s not much good for your waistline. It’s not easy resisting the impulse to make a cheese toastie every 30 minutes and blocking out the need to start on the housework is no picnic, either.
So, as I’m guessing Professor Kelly might well agree, give me the office any day.