Joe Cianciotto and Working from Home

Posted by Joe Cianciotto

Having worked in the advertising business for the last twenty years, so much of that time has required me to be on the road. The last couple of years in particular I’ve been out of town on a near weekly basis. So to try to create a sense of routine for my little girls I never work into the weekend and I try to always make it back Thursday nights, working remotely from home on Fridays.

The ironic thing is I get a ton of work done on these Fridays, mostly because I’m free of distractions and I can focus on writing or building out whatever crazy campaign we’re trying to get off the ground. Well I should say I am free of distractions until around 3 PM. It’s usually around this time that Hannah comes home from school joins up with her little sister Sophie…and then it starts.

Whether my office door is closed or not I can usually count on the nuggets making their presence known. And they do it in so many creative ways.

When I’m sitting at my desk plugging away, Sophie likes to hop on my lap and beg me to play YouTube videos of some crazy older woman with a British accent unboxing Shopkins, LOL Dolls and whatever toys Disney is peddling. Because why else would I be sitting at a computer? I can usually pawn my iPad off on her, except then she’ll watch it sitting under my desk. Hannah’s a little better but she usually finds a good reason to make her way into the room. The problem is if you are in a procrastination rut, nothing says putting off work like an episode or two of Peppa Pig. For the most part I can eventually tune them out and power through whatever work that needs to be done.

Where the girls just crush any semblance of legitimacy is when I am taking a call or presenting over the phone or trying to interact with any other member of society outside of my home. Just two weeks ago I had what I thought was a pretty good presentation until Sophie walked in the room and asked me, while on speakerphone, why I was still wearing jammies. And being 1 PM, she got a good laugh from the other end of the phone and so she just kept asking me again and again.

Hannah has been known to just scream poop when my door is closed so that is always a treat as well as sounding off about farts and big butts and unicorn doody.

My favorite had to be one time, while on a call with my ear buds, I somehow managed to take Sophie to the potty only to have her say “Daddy, you still need to wipe me” to my complete and utter horror. I kind of just ignored that and even though I know the person on the other end of the line heard her, they valiantly ignored it and we have both never discussed it since.

But all in, you kind of have to just laugh it off. One of the greatest things about having kids is their humbling ability to pop a balloon in any sense of self aggrandizement or pompous conceit you might have picked up in twenty years of working in a pretty ridiculous, overtly self-absorbed industry.

And for that I thank those two little girls with all my heart…because you could give me any stupid creative title or make me Chief Whatever Officer and absolutely nothing will ever come close to just being called ‘Daddy’…which is pretty much the best thing in the world.

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