Category: Work life, WFH & Misc

WFH for the summer!

So I took the highway again last week, after a break of 2.5 months. Of course that’s nothing compared to my initial break of 27 years before I started driving 😀 But getting reacquainted was far less daunting than I expected it would be.

My ankle is slowly healing and getting its flexibility (and hopefully strength) back. I’ve been working from home for these 2 1/2 months, and likely will be for another month or so. I’ve been to office twice in this time and can I say just how much I prefer my home-office, that’s inches away from my bed?

This is a new development cos a couple months ago I would drive to work twice or thrice a week with no complaints, and was in fact happy to do so. I remember a colleague mentioning, When you’ve worked here long enough you wouldn’t be so excited to spend a whole day in office. I see what he meant now.

I always have to wear a sweater or a cardigan while I’m in my cube at work. Back home even if we set the AC low at 72 (that’s super low for me), I have a space heater that I use for my room.

And snacks? What about snacks! At home I can munch on any thing I want. It also helps that my bath room is closeby at home, especially now when I think twice before taking a trip to the loo or the water filter at work to not work my ankle too much.

I also like keeping my ankle up at a comfortable angle while I’m working, and everything is set up well here since I’ve had months to adjust and rearrange things.

What about attending calls from home? Can’t do that if I’m in office either due to bad reception and having to walk away from my desk.

I thought I’d miss my colleagues more, but before I sprained my ankle, on two consecutive days I went in to work and returned home by afternoon cos nobody else from my team showed up. I don’t miss doing that.

And I definitely don’t miss the traffic, and I love not having to drive back in the scorching Texas summer with the sun blasting its way into my eyes through sunglasses. Phew.

A debacle in the Land of some Dreams

Note : They/their is singular in the writeup and to preserve identity

“Good morning! How ARE you?” That came out more cheery than I expected, staring at our names pasted on two adjacent rectangles on the screen.

“Not too good. Things aren’t so well in the family.” What? They’re American. Aren’t they supposed to know the Good morning-I’m good-How about you dance?

“Oh I’m sorry. I hope everything is fine.” Never intrusive. Always optimistic. Clearly ignoring the ill detail that was just shared aka would they like to modify their response? I’d nailed it by the book.
Don’t judge me, it wasn’t my book.

“Hmm I don’t think so.” – never thought I’d see a day of such candor and yet here we were. Why wasn’t B joining the call and why was I held hostage to this slight overshare, a definite inconvenience in the first world?

“It’s been a while, I don’t think it’ll be fine soon”. Don’t get me wrong, I did feel sorry for this person. But that was overpowered by the time they said my faulty audio sounded like I was in a tin can, and such other misplaced passive-aggressiveness.
It’s always them behind the bad attitude and never your internet. That shit hasn’t changed since high school.

I was reminded then of that introvert who took a job in Netherlands and moved there to avoid small talk. While here the small talk was elevated to medium talk, it felt good and uncomfortable at the same time, and I hoped I’d never subjected anyone to such discomfort.

Who was I kidding?

And whose book is it anyway?

Afternoon showers and WFH

Taking a shower during a lunch break when working from home has been an unexpectedly cathartic joy during WFH.

Taking a lunch-hour shower when working from home has been an unexpectedly cathartic joy during WFH.

Of course these days are rare. But when the opportunity presents itself – a full afternoon hour with no meetings, when you aren’t drained by the forenoon’s work, and where you manage to have time for lunch too – a bit of Moroccan Rose in the middle of a day’s work is quite nice.
Amidst IDEs and slide decks and to-do post-its pasted on to my desk because they won’t stick to the wall, and a lot more stationery than I would ever use on a work day.

The bath scrub feels like rubbing fragrant sand on my back, yet there is nothing quite like scrubbing fragrant sand on your back as hot water flows seamlessly over it. It bothers me that the running shower doesn’t bother me as much as when water runs in the wash basin or even in a sink.

Lunch-break showers can last utmost 10 minutes. And I’m not just writing that because I’m wary of a colleague or my manager (or a future one) that might be reading this and questioning my work ethic otherwise. But because it’s a Neverland, a newly found one. Nothing quite like knowing you can waltz into your shower any moment and turn the knob to usher a trail of soothing warm water ready to caress you wholly, sending steam all up your bathroom mirror and curtain, washing down your hair and face and body.

I don’t know if one day I’d take an afternoon shower because I’m frustrated or foggy at work, but let’s hope not.

Snapshot from Finding Neverland, 2004.