Wednesday, July 13, 2011

There's No Place Like Home

I hate mornings. Let me clarify. I hate weekday mornings. Mornings suck from Monday through Friday. Why? Because weekday mornings mean going to work. Going to work requires taking a shower, wearing pants (or an appropriate length skirt or dress), and making my hair presentable. Going to work requires enduring 40-60 minutes of traffic just to be there. Being there requires staying awake for at least 8 hours, reflexively looking over my shoulder to see if a senior manager is about to catch me on facebook or GMAT Club, and refraining from inappropriate scratching. I have absolutely no desire to be at work.
I have a pretty cool job. I represent great brands, work with (mostly) cool people, and manage to get a free lunch a couple of times a week. The job isn't the problem; going to work is. For five years I had a job that rarely required me to go to work. Nearly everyday I rolled out of bed between 8:30 and 9 a.m., bypassed the shower, staggered downstairs, plopped myself in front of the TV with my laptop perched on my knees, and got to working. I would go for a mid-morning run, take an afternoon nap, and polish off my project list in enough time to take a shower and head to the gym or tae kwon do class. It's been two years since I left that position and I have yet to acclimate.
When animals are left in the wild too long it is impossible to domesticate them. I think the same principle applies to people who have worked from home for longer than three years. At three years people reach a point of no return. Just like that wild animal can't be domesticated, the home based employee can't be office broken. We've been free to roam for too long to be caged by the rules of office etiquette. Why is it necessary to wear shoes? Do my feet really need to stay under my desk? What's wrong with putting my head down for an hour long nap? Why can't I release into the atmosphere the gas that bubbles in my stomach? Is it really a big deal to eat the food in the refrigerator that doesn't have my name on it? For some reason that I can't quite grasp all of the behaviors that were perfectly acceptable at my house are not only frowned upon, but prohibited in the office.
What puts the cherry on top of this shit drenched sundae is having to willingly take myself to this place each morning. Regardless of whether or not I have meetings to attend or assignments to complete I have to be here every MORNING. For some reason it's necessary for me to be in the office by 8:30 a.m. No one talks to me. Hardly anyone calls. Still, it's imperative for me to be sitting here. I force myself to wake up by 7 a.m. (even in the dead of winter when mother nature hasn't bothered to awaken the sun), rack my brain to remember if I've worn that particular sweater vest in the last 7 days, refrain from throwing objects at the car in front of me that insists on going 20 in a 45 along a ten mile single lane road, and spend a small fortune on Wawa coffee just to sit here. Ironically, sitting here is NOT necessary for me to do my job. Because of the wunderkinds in the IT department I could stay in bed and still do my job. What's the sense of having remote capabilities if they're not going to let me work remotely?
Like I said, I have no problem actually doing my job. I just don't want to do it in an office. I can do this job just as well in a t-shirt and underoos from the comfort of my queen size bed while watching One Life to Live. Somebody, anybody please...JUST GIVE ME FREE!!

1 comment:

TS said...

Awesome, resonated with me so well, and I fear the same thing may happen to me few years down the road... :P