When the COVID 19 pandemic happened, my employer had a trial “work from home” day. Leadership wanted to find out if it was feasible, possible even, for the University to function with a large portion of its IT workforce working remotely.
That was March 12, 2020. I haven’t worked in the office since then.
Working as a Linux system administrator, primarily on AWS hosted servers, one could argue that I work remotely even in an office setting. Remote work, worked. The team I am on was arguably as productive, if not more productive, as a distributed team. We weathered a ransomeware attack—three weeks of 18 hours days—while remote.
The advantages to the worker are numerous. No commute saves time and gas money. Some of my teammates gained two or more hours per day not having to commute. Interruptions are no longer a problem. That person who insists on coming to your desk to ask if you saw the email they sent two minutes earlier can’t do that anymore.
I am privileged in that I have space for a home office. A spare bedroom with a wonderful view through the window, a very good chair, and a wooden teacher’s desk I made in 1993. Having a dedicated place to “go to work” in my home greatly helped to set some boundaries.
My wife owns a private piano studio and has her studio in the walkout lower level of our home. Her work day is skewed toward the after school hours, but she spends time during the day preparing lessons and doing studio-related work. She works at her desk in the studio or from a small desk in our living room.
We both cherish the ability to interact with each other during the day. For us, my working from home had nothing but upsides.
All of that is coming to an end, unfortunately. The upper leadership at the University has changed in the past six and a half years. Support for fulltime remote work hasn’t only waned, it has evaporated. The building we were housed in is no longer available. Space on campus is tight; even with a mandate to return to the office, there wasn’t a place for us to return to.
Yesterday we learned that there is now enough space in one building on campus for the team I am on to return to the office. The expectation is that we will all have transitioned back to campus within the next 3-4 weeks. All the arguements about the downsides of working on campus fell on deaf ears.
Rank and file employees have to pay to park on campus ($250-ish per year). Working on campus will mean an “L” shaped desk in a coner of a room that has two or three other occupied desks. I’ll have to redevelop the social calluses that make it possible to accept or endure the sounds, smells, and other intrusions that come from working in close contact with other people. I’m an introvert, I’m not shy, but I do tire from constant exposure to other people. Six plus years with near total control over my environment will have atrophied my social skills and my tolernace for little or no control over my workspace.
Prior to learning about losing my remote work status, I was planning on retiring in May 2028, when I am 67 years old. My retirement plans may be accelerated, should I find the return to office work requires personal sacrifices and lifestyle changes I am not willing to prolong. The earliest I can retire is the end of September 2027, one year from now.
Losing privilege is never enjoyable. I am grateful that I was allowed to work from home for so long. I am unhappy about that time not lasting until I retired.
I am a white, college-educated male, in the technology field, living in America. My life difficulty setting is as low as it could be without adding the “inherit obscene wealth” power up.
The next 12-20 months will pass and I’ll continue to be privileged. Less so than before, but still way ahead of the curve.