Working From Home…forever.

So, the place where I work (not my employer, I’m a contractor) has decided that a LOT of their workforce can work from home, and they are working toward making it so. Tomorrow morning I will go to the office building I haven’t set foot in since mid-March, 2020, to pack up all my shit and take it home.

I’d barely moved into that cube after taking the position in December, 2019, so packing up my shit will take about 15 minutes, but some of those people have been in their spaces for many years, and they are about to embark on a major purge.

The concept they are moving toward is an online reservation of “touchdown space” – meaning, if you really have to be in the office to meet up with people for a thing, or need to be in the physical building for whatever, you’d reserve a desk for the day or a few hours, bring your laptop and other stuff, then take all your stuff home with you, and somebody else could reserve that space. We will no longer have cubes, let alone offices.

My guess is that they’ll figure out that they need half as many spaces as they have now and sublet a floor or two in the next year, if they’re lucky. Either that or a lot of rented space will be let go, and those people will be rolled into the space reservations in the building they own.

On the one hand, I appreciate that this company is taking the lead in transitioning to a non-office-based workforce, because I think this is how white collar work is trending.

I have had absolutely no problem doing the job I HAAATE from home, it sucks exactly as it would if I’d been in the office, but I can also care for my elderly sick dog and no commute, so WIN!

On the other hand, I live in a two bedroom condo and my second bedroom is now going to be my office, so I have to figure out how to do the tax deduction stuff (for last year too- I abruptly realized that) and also get real about making it a more comfortable office space.

Step One will be getting rid of the ancient but still in excellent condition futon. It’ll be free to a good home, I just have to rope some suckers into helping me dismantle it and haul it down to the garage. Because while I will I put it out as free, I sure as hell ain’t going to let strangers in to my home to pick it up.

Ellie will be devastated as she’s the only one who uses it, but she’ll just have to suck it up. She can take her fluffy ass to any of the other soft, comfy things she sheds all over the rest of the day.

I want a better cheap desk and chair. I can get by with what I have for a while, I’ve been using it for a year, but after I get Ye Olde Futon the hell out, I’ll have room for a corner desk and a ton more space. I’ll play around with rearranging the room after the world’s largest cat bed is out.

So, we are about to embark on year TWO of this, and it’s no longer a temporary COVID thing. It’s the future. I think I’m okay with this, overall.

Sophie’s liquid diarrhea has returned. Again. And my work day was so absolutely batshit crazy I had no time to make an appointment for Gidget’s annual checkup. She needs the heartworm blood test and a fresh prescription for heartworm meds. After I get back from “cleaning out” my nearly empty cube I’ll definitely schedule that.

I need to schedule some fun. I’m seriously lacking fun.