So 5 years ago today was the day I told my boss I wasn’t going to come into the office for a while, and would work from home. Because I didn’t feel comfortable.
The company had made a plan; they were going to split the office into two groups who would come in alternate weeks. The idea was to reduce occupancy. However I’d been seeing more and more in the news how bad COVID could be and I didn’t want to risk being on the train for an hour each way as well as being in the office. After all I’d caught colds before and I knew Americans would come into the office sick (that’s a rant for another day).
All of my direct team was in different locations to me (Texas, California, North Caroline, Colorado, Georgia); it was really only a few secondary teams that I met in person (in particular the AppSec team; their manager tried to get onto the same weekly schedule as me ‘cos it gave us the opportunity for informal chats and collaboration). My access was via VDI and I had sufficient equipment at home, so my boss just said “OK”.
Now I didn’t expect this to be a long term thing; a few weeks, or a month or two. Then we’d all be back in the office. So I didn’t take anything home with me; personal stuff was still in the office.
Shortly afterwards I was told that I’d just been in close contact with a person who had COVID so I was meant to quarantine to avoid passing it on. So I felt my decision to avoid the office was the right one.
A few weeks later the company made most people work from home (there were some jobs that were considered essential and had to be done from the office, such as the print facilities and warehouse and datacenters, but most of us were meant to work from home. More justification for my decision.
I wondered if I should get a dog to keep me company, but still thought that this was just a temporary situation; it wouldn’t be fair on the dog to get used to me being at home and then be left alone all day when I finally returned to the office.
And then the company decided to close that location down. They were going to consolidate their New York/New Jersey locations into a new state of the art campus. On a town hall meeting about this they said they didn’t have any location in mind at present, but would make sure it was reachable by public transit because they knew people in this area generally commuted that way (especially those who worked in Manhattan and Jersey City).
Get a dog? Nah… I still thought I’d be back in office; maybe not immediately but within a year.
I rearranged my house so that the PC I was working on was no longer in my basement but moved up to the spare bedroom I was using as a library (bookshelves on 3 walls; table with PC on the fourth).
Then the new location was announced; and it was most definitely not public transit friendly. From my house it would need two trains and a bus and a lot of walking; maybe 2.5 hours each way. Hmm. No way was I going to commute there each day!
It took a while (longer than planned) for the new office to be ready, and eventually the “return of office” calls went out. I explained the problem to my boss (well, I’d already done this previously, so he was already on the case), who was accommodating and his boss (the CISO) was OK with it, so I became a permanent work from home.
I switched from VDI (which had been really glitching; it’s hard to be on a video meeting when your audio doesn’t work!) to a work laptop. And, honestly, it was so so much better. I knew our VDI was under-powered and over provisioned, but this was like night and day.
As you can see, this was a little cramped, but it worked.
Oh, and COVID! Yes! I got vaccinated! Because I’m considered obese, and thus at higher risk, I was able to get the vaccine. Spent a fair amount of time reloading reloading reloading websites to find somewhere with an open slot (“7 slots open! Sorry, all gone”).
I bought a bigger desk and two new monitors and a monitor arm, a better light and I got a lot more space. This was quite a comfortable work space.
And that’s kinda how I worked for the next 3 years. I got sent a second laptop (with Windows 11) for testing the build; I got sent a Macbook for testing (I’m not a security tester; I just got a reputation for breaking things so I would get sent this stuff) which made things complicated, but this worked.
I’m not much of a people person (very introverted) but I did miss the occasional chat with people in person, or going down the pub. But there was no way I could get to the new office.
I was fortunate; I had the space and I lived alone so I could set aside a room for work, and close the door at the end of work day; this meant I could keep work/life separation, which is vital for mental health.
And, eventually, after 3 more years of this (so 4 years of WFH) I retired.
And now it’s 5 years in. We’re no longer in a pandemic; COVID is endemic. This means it’s likely to be with us forever. It’s hard to know how many people are still dying of it, but wikipedia seems to think that 41,000 people died of it last year. That’s a lot; probably more than those who died in car crashes.
So I still get vaccinated every year. I don’t wear masks as often as I used to because most places have good ventilation, but I do wear them on trains or subways, or at the airport.
I haven’t had COVID yet, but a lot of that is likely because I am mostly at home, and don’t go to crowded places very often. I’m almost (but not quite) a hermit!
I never did get that dog; maybe I should have!