Four Years In

Four years ago, today, I left the office after lunch to go home. I had a head cold coming on and I didn't want to spread my germs around, so I decided that I'd work from home for the rest of the day.

Because I usually worked from home on Wednesdays, nothing changed for me the next day. I was still battling that head cold but I was able to get my day's work in.

But the next day, on Thursday, my cold finally got the better of me and I took the day to rest and take care of myself. I had a one-on-one meeting with my director, which was a video call, but I turned off my camera because I looked like crap and was constantly blowing my nose.

Later that day, everyone in the company was notified to not return to the office, that the COVID-19 was forcing everything to shut down. And I never really returned to the office at full capacity again.

In four years, I've never spent more than a couple of hours in the office. I've gone in to replace my laptop or have a computer issue resolved. I've gone in to meet with developers, who have shown me processes that involve physical devices, that can't be shared on a screen. And I met, once, some developers who were reviewing my work, just because I wanted to show them that I wasn't just some disembodied voice that they hear over a conference call (I never turn on my camera during meetings).

I have no personal belongings in the office. If I were to leave my company today, I'd only have to return my laptop.

At home, I've moved my office four times. When I used to work from home on Wednesdays, before the pandemic, I'd simply plug my work computer into the area where I keep my home computer, using my own external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. But when I had to work from home because I wasn't allowed at the office, I set up shop in our basement, at a small desk next to the furnace. It was noisy and it was dark, but I had privacy and I was content.

DW called me "mole man."

But as the realization came in that working from home was going to be a permanent arrangement (apart from occasional visits to the office, I have no real need to be there), DW and I decided to transform Kid 1's old room into an office space for the both of us. Our kid had moved to the GTA for school and DW was tired of working at our dining-room table.

The room was bright and spacious, after we renovated it, and DW and I had matching desks that faced one another. With our big monitors, we couldn't really see one another, and the noise of tapping keyboards didn't distract us.

Our meetings, however, did.

DW gets quite loud when she talks to coworkers through her headset. She laughs, makes small talk, and is vocally engaged in her meetings, and that's great for her, but for me it was hard to focus. And when we had meetings at the same time, it was chaos.

When Kid 2 moved to Toronto, for university, I moved my desk into her room. Being north-facing, her small room was dark but that didn't bother me. I'm mole-man, after all, and I don't mind the dark.

Apart from replacing her desk with my own, which can rise and lower, getting me out of my chair, I left the rest of her room untouched. She needed a place to stay when she made trips home, just as we had a bed in Kid 1's room for when she was at home.

And Kid 1 came home a couple of years later, to stay.

DW had to move out of that room, and set up a space in a corner of our living room at the front of the house. We set her up with a privacy screen but she was in a space where there was no escape from anybody going up and down our stairs or coming and going from the house. And if someone was cooking in the kitchen or watching TV in the family room, there was no sound barrier.

It was only slightly better than when she was working at our dining-room table, only the privacy screen allowed her some visual blocking.

Last summer, we developed an issue where our WiFi started losing its ability to send a strong signal to where I was working, and I'd often find myself getting kicked out of meetings. But when this issue arose, DW was between jobs, so I simply moved my computer down to where she had been working and the issue was resolved.

We also changed Internet providers, which solved the problem of connectivity issues upstairs.

By the time DW had found a new job, I was firmly entrenched in her old space. I didn't mind being in a smaller space, where I could look out the front window and see who was at the door (especially when I was expecting a beer delivery). DW took my old desk in Kid 2's old room, which is a good thing because she's still loud during meetings and can close a door.

Four years after I came home from work because I was under the weather, I can't imagine going back to the office. Sure, there are no watercooler chats but I do chat online with coworkers. At home, the coffee's better, my lunches are better, and I don't have to deal with the daily commute. I get my projects finished just as easily at home than when I was in the office, and usually faster, as there are fewer interruptions.

I'm hoping to work this way for four more years and then retire. That's the plan. All I know is that my days of working in an office are already over.

Four years in, I'm never going back.