Office Fatigue

 

So for the first time in 58 months – something like 1,700 days – for the first time in nearly five years I worked “in office” for three days in a row.

I believe it was around the third week of March of 2020, during the Wu Flu thing, we received orders to work from home. As a payroll manager, this was something I could do after my company provided me with a laptop and a scanner.

After a couple of weeks we were allowed to come in on a two-day-a-week schedule. I can’t remember when this exactly happened but I believe it was around the end of April. We had to mask up unless we were in our offices / cubicles by ourselves. This charade played out for the remainder of my time in New Jersey.

When I arrived in Texas in July of 2021 I obtained a corporate job which was completely remote. I did all my interviewing via Teams and they shipped out a laptop to me a day before my start. In late January of 2022 we went to a two-day-a-week schedule, and they were generous in giving us remote time (for example, if a holiday fell on that Monday, we could spend the rest of the week working from home). Our department’s schedule was staggered, and my normal days in were Tuesday and Wednesday.

This continued for two years.

Now, at the start of 2025, we received the command to come in three days a week. This week was the first week for this (last week was shortened due to the Snowmaggedon), and man did it take a lot out of me. I wake up earlier than most farmers – it’s pitch black out and freezing (for Texas, but still, it’s been around 32 degrees every morning down here). The entire house is slumbering as I’m showering. I have to warm up the car for 10 minutes. And since I’m a night owl, the constant early waking has taken its toll, and I’ve been dragging buttock all week long.

Now, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, and I don’t mean to sound like a wimp. For 32 years I worked Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturdays, sometimes Sundays (with H&R Block) and sometimes late into the evening (again with H&R Block and regularly with the dealerships). I did it, and I reserve scorn for those techie company employees who fight their overlords against coming in a full week. 

But … man … did this remote job spoil me. I can do this job from Antarctica if I had to, as long as I had an internet connection. For me it boils down to another day of fighting traffic (north Dallas seems to have as many cars – and traffic lights – as Manhattan) – drivers riding my bumper, drivers zipping in and out of lanes, the cost of additional gas and tolls, and, most importantly, additional time I’m not paid for. All because I’m needed to sit at a cubicle in an office because “we work best when we collaborate face to face.”

Yesterday before heading out for the day one of my pals at work came up to me and said, in mock seriousness, “We did it. We did it.” And I had to laugh, knowing these same thoughts had been going through his head as well …