“Remoted” – Day 366 (Wednesday)

Tuesday may have been the anniversary of being remoted from the office, but today is the one year  anniversary of the first day of working from home, and the second St. Patrick’s Day in seclusion.

The first home office setup.

The home office started out in the dining room a year ago. The dining table had been cleared the night before, which wasn’t as easy as folding a tablecloth and relocating a vase. The table had been serving as a workstation for the creation of a Steampunk top hat for an upcoming costumed event. The project was moved upstairs to the spare room and has sat there untouched ever since. The event was postponed, indefinitely it seems. It wasn’t long before the discomfort of the dining room was apparent and the desk and chair were bought, delivered, and set up in the nook off the kitchen. It has worked out brilliantly. 

Better office setup.

In my entire working career, the work delivering the primary income was almost always done outside the house. There were a few years of freelance writing and photography gigs for newspapers and a museum newsletter that involved working from home. Working from home for the main income earning activity had been avoided like the plague, thinking it would be too lonely. It turns out, the modern plague that resulted in working from home revealed it to be quite pleasant. 

Working from home has saved money on multiple casual spending fronts. The afternoon walks downtown with stops into CVS and Rainbow Fashion often involved spending money. Forgetting lunch at home would mean buying lunch downtown. The pandemic inspired absence of a social life has meant no spontaneous cocktail and dinner outings that each cost as much as a week’s groceries. It’s been a weird year with benefits.

Sure, working alone from home lacks birthday cakes and the frequent food-based celebrations common in the office downtown, and loud conversations and ringing phones are replaced by the sounds of street basketball, motorcycles, and rap music, but it feels good to be the queen of my own home-office castle. It’s been liberating. There is no worry of saying something stupid or accidentally and unprofessionally blurting out swears because there is nobody to hear it. Stinky food for lunch carries no risk of grossing out a colleague. If inclined, I could floss my teeth at my desk, which hasn’t been the case, but it’s nice to feel it’s an option. There could be a booming business opportunity in re-grooming now-feral remoted office workers for their return to professional settings.