I’ve always told anyone who’d listen that given the choice, I’ll always take–at a minimum–the option of working from home over shlepping to and from the office 5 days/week (or 4, per my last job). I’m not anti-office. Not even close. But I’m way, way more productive at home. And I never saw the point in your options being go to work because you feel like trash but can still work, or stay home despite the fact that your feeling like trash doesn’t automatically mean you shouldn’t be working.
No one’s enjoying the last two years or so, but for better or worse, I had the opportunity to test my theory. when the government decided those of us who could be were now remote employees, I could not have been more thrilled. You mean I’m not tied to one specific place because that’s where my money comes from? What pure bliss is this? I could work from my parents’ place, or my bed, or–when they were open—-the restaurant I decided I’d be having dinner at. If their schedules allowed it, I could go watch my nephews play hockey in the afternoon and still get back in time for work. I could have, you know, a life outside of my job.
That pretty much sealed the deal for me. If I went back to the office, it wasn’t going to be full time. Now, this put me at odds with my employer at the time, who was essentially looking to bring us back to the office at the earliest possibility. So, in a rather surprising–for me, anyway–turn of events, I changed that situation. And my employer. And now I am permanently working from home.
When I’m a little more sure I’ll still be there in a few months (you know, typical new job stuff), I’ll go into more detail on what working for this particular company remotely means. But they have no offices, so everyone’s remote from the newest employee up to the CEO–who is awesome, just for the record. Which means when I decide I’m ready to go back to the office (hint: not even close), it will be an office I’m paying to rent as part of a coworking arrangement and not, as I’m used to, owned by or rented to the people who pay me. And that, I think, will be the perfect compromise–from home when I want/need to, from the office otherwise.
It only took me 11 years, but I finally ended up largely where I think I wanted to be. Next on my list, a work from home apartment.