Missing the office? You're not alone.

Sometime in early March, you heard the rumor, “we might be moving to work from home” – yes, everybody. You hoped it would come to fruition. What would this mean for you? Easy: an extra hour of sleep, wearing sweatpants all day, lighting a fire and working in the comfort of your favorite place on earth: your castle, your home. 

Not long after those visions danced in your head, the official memo circulated. “Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has made the decision..”. You packed up your desk, looked at your personal belongings and bid them a temporary goodbye. You’d be back, in a few weeks, probably.

The first week at home was fantastic. You woke up later, leisurely grabbed coffee, and opened your computer marveling at how efficient the work-from-home arrangement already was. There was no “getting ready”, nor picking out clothes, ironing, even hair combing was optional. There was no scraping off the car, no cold seats to warm, no traffic, tolls, and actually, no driving at all. No parking, walking in the rain, elevators (stairs when you were motivated), no fumbling around for security badges, no small talk with co-workers. You had passed GO and were about to collect your $200 – and it was barely 8:30am.

The following week schools closed. The kids were going to be all up in your job. Oh and you had to teach them. As in you were in charge of their learning; their grades would now be your grades. Your new found efficiency evaporated and left you managing your zoom calls, your kids zoom calls, lunch for everyone, math problems, and work problems. Week two sucked. Hard.

By the third week you wished for your old life back, but you found a new rhythm balancing work and all the home things. I use the term "balancing" loosely - it was more like a teeter totter, dipping from one side to the other, never fulling doing anything well. It was exhausting.

Week three blended into week four, and five. You’ve accepted your current reality. School has been cancelled for the rest of the year and your company has no set date for returning to the office. You miss your desk. You think about the personal belongings you left there and how you never thought you’d be away from them for this long. Is it silly to miss the pictures on your desk, when they are of the very people who you now spend every waking moment with? Perhaps.

You liked your old relationship with your family better. You remember when you looked at their pictures on your desk and missed them.

Companies are now talking about never returning back to the office. Leading edge companies like Google and Twitter have made the office optional. Everyone around you seems to be applauding this innovation, but you aren’t. You secretly want to go back to the office.

You realize now that the office was a big part of your life. You miss the commute, stopping for coffee, parking, the option of doing the stairs, seeing co-workers, the smell of your office, the cleanliness of the bathrooms. These things made you feel like an active participant in life. And you're not wrong. By the time you arrived at work each day you had already experienced many highs and lows (scraping ice: adrenaline, traffic: frustration, delicious coffee: happiness, great NPR story: thought provoking, joking with coworker: laughter, stairs at work: accomplishment). All those feelings and emotions are gone as you now take 20 steps from bed to computer. You feel silly admitting it because everyone else seems to thriving, but you hate zoom and you wish you could just have your old life back.

You are not alone.