Its been a tough competition for close to ten years to be smarter than the intelligent machine I work on every day. I can’t be dumb; it is a question of myself. I have turned off auto-suggestions; I do not want it to prove me wrong at any point. Yes, I’m a geek — I write code with bugs. And I’m slowly learning spreadsheets.
The keyboard and the mouse have become way too friendly. The screen light is the brightest I can face; I get a mild headache squinting too long under the sun. I haven’t built a new hobby in the 20 months of work from home, neither turned into a home chef. My home desk has become a multipurpose and extensible platform. I work, eat, get entertained, and exercise (watching a workout video for motivation is half exercise done, isn’t it?) on the desk but read on the bed to sleep away if I cannot turn the pages anymore. I, now, do not complain about the ergonomics of my workstation anymore.
My employer has politely asked me to start working from the office, once a week, after roughly two years of work from home. I can still request to continue working from home in case of a valid reason which demands me to continue working from home. I will feel embarrassed if I email that I have become extremely comfortable working with my quick-dry t-shirt and shorts. I have neither done any destination-working nor been a digital nomad yet. My camera does not work during the early morning meetings. I wish my appearance would remain elusive; I do not want others to spot me in person at the office. I’m afraid I cannot send — “Sorry, dropping for the next call” texts anymore.
I have forgotten my road rage, which I had practiced in the traffic; I may need some more time to practice it. When working from home — I can blame the internet, electricity, laptop getting restarted, or the annoying pigeon that sits on the window pane. I will have to enhance my blame list to include the office itchings. I guess I will be lost when I find myself at the office desk, but I want to clock in an average of 8 hours at work and get myself out.
I miss the cafeteria where I could sit and gaze endlessly at the void or act as if I’m expecting an important personal call. Of course, I also miss the coffee vending machine. I can’t wait to disappear from the Friday-Fun-Activities. TGIF days are near.
