Three Months of Remote Work
I’ve been working on my living room table for three months now. Mostly there. My back started to cave in on itself after a month or so, so I got a standing desk to put on the kitchen counter. The employer picked up half the cost so I got a nice wooden one. I’ve been cycling through those locations, moving when my watch vibrates because I haven’t moved for two hours, or when I sit at slightly the wrong angle and get shooting pains. That second one might be ageing. Standing is better for my posture, but being in the kitchen puts me very close to multiple bread products, so it’s not perfect.
In hindsight, it took me a while to adjust to having a toddler present in the workplace. The first couple of weeks were bad, I would be almost physically shaking through stress by about midday. I did bad work, I had to redo something I’d spent a week on. At that time I thought I was just freaking out because the world was collapsing, but it turns out it was a result of relentless distraction, non-stop questioning. And when I say I adjusted, I mean I kind of give up on the idea of getting any work done while she’s in the room. A not-so-secret bonus of having a separate space in the kitchen is that I can actually leave and go there. All I have to deal with is the floating guilt of falling into traditional gender roles quite so easily.
After a month, we got into something like a routine. I was up first, fed the cats, get the Child dressed, do my “commute” and arrive in the “office” to start at 8. Had to be then, because by 5, all bets are off. Try to ignore the breakfast happening a foot and a half to my right. Then my wife would take the Child for a walk somewhere and I’d get about ninety minutes of concentration. After that I was on nap-prep, reading a story, and the Child would then stay in her room and purposefully not nap until half two or three. The afternoon was hit and miss after that. It wasn’t great. I would like to note for anyone reading this who doesn’t have children, that kids of about 1 and 2 years old will generally have a nap in the afternoon, and at some point after that will grow out of it, or “drop the nap”. My one dropped the nap, genuinely, on day one of lockdown.
Nurseries went back a fortnight ago and immediately this vast canyon of time appeared before me and I got an incredible amount done.
The employer sent an email this morning saying that the earliest they’d even consider thinking about sending people back into the office is August 3. So I’ll probably be here until Baby 2 drops in October. He’s a boy by the way. The full set.