Surviving Home-Based Work with a Husband in Your Office

The day started the same day it typically does with the sun rising over the beautiful farm hills to our east slowly illuminating the kitchen with its golden rays. The amber light bounces off a mirror onto a French press slowly roasting morning coffee. My bowl is filled to the rim with delicious greek yogurt, fresh blackberries, and healthy granola to fuel my body. Noticing the temperature will be in the upper 40s by 9 a.m. I plan my 12-mile bike ride before I open business for the day.

Entering my two-decade home-based office space with two desks – one for me and formally one for my sons when they were in high school which turned into extra office workspace for my interns and part-time staff afterward, I notice a man sitting at the second desk dressed in Buffalo Bills attire and a laptop. I know him. It’s my husband of 30 years. It is his first day ever working from a home-based location after 30 years in a corporate office. I jokingly tell him, “You have to wear pink if you are working in my Women TIES office where we promote women!” His expression doesn’t reflect my joke. Boy, I think to myself, this might be interesting.

Promising not to talk so he could work, he spontaneously starts talking about the need for their company to hire a business to disinfect their corporate offices. Not missing a beat I say, “I know a woman-owned business in Syracuse named Brophy Services who could do that for you! She’s excellent. Let me see if they offer that service.” Checking my computer, I find Eileen Brophy’s company with a notice on the homepage stating, “Effective 03/06/20 Brophy Services is offering our customers in the Central New York a broad spectrum of Disinfecting/Sanitizing services.” Before he could blink his eye, I emailed him the information as I heard his laptop ding with a new message.

“Did you open your email?” I said, “No, not yet.” I explained the message was from me sending him the perfect company to hire to help his company – a woman-owned business at that! Less than enthusiastic about my big grin than I was I explained, “Honey, this is what I do. I find solutions for people looking to hire people by giving them the name of a woman-owned business. You are seeing me in action! Your company should call and hire them.” “Tracy, that’s not how it works in our world,” he said to which I replied, “Well you are doing business the wrong way, get with it!” As an evil eye glanced my way, I realized this could be a long, temporary experience.

The message in today’s blog post is to remind you to keep promoting women-owned businesses during this time of economic crisis and change. Women must support women, promote their companies, and do all they can to keep them afloat until we all return to normal. If my husband likes it or not, he can’t change what this office space has done for 20 years because he’s working in it now. I will respectively adhere to not talking out loud as I silently and effectively promote women from my own desk. And if he doesn’t start wearing pink by tomorrow to represent women in this all-female workspace, I might charge him for desk rental space.