Originally published in January 2019.
I feel the need to be clear and honest about WFH life. It’s not all stretchy pants and scented candles, there are some downsides, too.
#1 Neighbors. While there are no people on this side of my front door, working from home has exposed me to all the comings and goings of humans within proximity, both those with whom I share walls, and those across the air shaft. Most behavior is typical. I hear them leave for work in the morning, I smell their questionable preparations of Blue Apron boxes in the evening.
But the during-the-day behaviors that most humans never have to notice all come to light when you work from home. Most notably: children. Children keep different hours than adults. They (for some reason unbeknownst to me, I was at school from 7:30am until 4:30pm, thank you) arrive home around 3pm, and take immediately to the loudest activity they can locate. In my case, it’s a recorder flute. A fucking recorder flute that an asshole child across my airshaft whips out and “practices” for an hour each afternoon. You could practice that demonic lute longer than it takes for coal to become diamond and it would still sound like shit.
As for my neighbor on the other side of my living room wall, were you gonna sing “In My Life” by The Beatles all day or…
#2 Dishes. Working from home generates an obscene amount of dishes. All meals are consumed in one’s own kitchen, on one’s own plates, and are also cooked and assembled on items that need to be washed as well. I have no dishwasher, and therefore the very beginning or very end of my day is spent with rolled-up sleeves, wrist deep in hot soapy water and wondering how in the hell a grain bowl could require so many vessels.
#3 Toilet Paper. Are you aware of how much toilet paper you use? No, you’re not, because your office is providing most of it. You have no idea how much toilet paper you actually require until you’re purchasing 100% of it for yourself. Right now, your office is purchasing 5/7ths of the toilet paper you use, and you’re taking care of Saturday and Sunday’s allotment, that’s it. Just another interesting discovery I can impart upon you, dear reader.
#4 Making My Bed. I am not one to get distracted by my television. I have full command of myself during the workday and have no trouble staying focused. (If you do, work in a room that does not contain the thing that distracts you, if possible.) However, I can only maintain this focus provided I feel that my home is “in order.” I can’t be on my professional hustle with socks on the floor, I just can’t.
I now have to make my bed every single day. I did not always have to do this. I usually left my bed in whatever starfished state it was in when I Shrek’ed myself out of it in the morning. I left my apartment for an office building, and was never the wiser about the disheveled state of my home. Now, I have to see it. I have to know it’s there. And I cannot scratch out a single task until everything looks like Mary Poppins herself snapped it into place. I am a pain in my own ass sometimes, I really am.
#5 Hermitism. When you never have to go outside, it is very easy to never go outside. When you think about it, the thing that makes you leave home more often than any other thing is work. When you work from home, you no longer have this necessity requiring you to mobilize. Therefore you have to create reasons to leave your own home. An errand this day, coffee with a friend the next, it now takes conscious effort and reminders in order to see the world beyond your own residence. All the while with the understanding that the world is actually nicer, and certainly less prone to smelling of any sort of mammalian pee, inside your home as opposed to out. Maintaining motivation to put on shoes is a challenge.
#6 Compartmentalizing. Working from home requires the scheduling skills of whoever it is that keeps Big Ben on target. Without a daily commute, an average “get to work by” time, and the exact same things happening at the end of the day, working from home can easily bleed into working forever. I now have to take great pains to compartmentalize my day, including but not limited to a rule that I do not enter my bedroom during work hours, and I do not sit at my kitchen table during non-work hours. The living room is a free space because sometimes my back hurts and I like to sit on the couch.
#7 Designated Buzzer. When you work from home, your mailman knows. it. They’ll come to realize that if there’s one reliable source of buzzing-in within this fa’cacta building, it’s you. And because there’s no way to know for sure if it’s the actual mailman or the spawn of the devil who steals all your Amazon packages, guess who’s going down four flights of stairs every single time just to check.
Working from home can be a real joy, particularly if you’re not fond of subway aromas or living things beside yourself, but it’s best to go into this professional venture with full knowledge of its dark side, too. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to run my blender loud enough to drown out the caterwauling McCartney fan next door.