Working from Home
Saying "I gotta go to work" before walking up one flight of stairs has not gotten old yet.
Through no fault of my own, I’m well behind the curve on working from home. While many people were experiencing a sudden, shocking move to remote work in early 2020 due to COVID, I was furloughed and then quickly brought back to in-person work. When I changed jobs, my office was resolutely in-person for years, before slowly dragging their feet towards a tentative hybrid work format. Only this year have I started working from home on a regular basis.
When I started working from home I told myself I would still dress for work. What you wear sends signals to your body and your mind about what you intend to do or how you want to be perceived. A trick for when you are having trouble getting off the couch and out the door is to put on your shoes, because that tells your subconscious “oh right, I was going to go somewhere”. So I still intended to spend every WFH day in a collared shirt and long pants, to remind myself that I was on the clock and needed to pay attention.
Nevertheless, four months in I have found myself shuffling upstairs in a sweatshirt and shorts or pulling on a flannel shirt over a graphic tee when I sign into work. And I’ve decided that that’s okay, that I can dress casually when nobody is going to see me. An advantage of working from home is that if someone IS going to see me, my clothes are right there. I have had an important meeting on the schedule, and an hour before I’ve just gone to my closet and put on a blazer, tie, and grey flannels. I’ve even slipped on a pair of loafers just before the call, to put myself in the work mindset.
Have I done the “working in my underwear” thing? Not yet, I’m too paranoid about someone seeing me through my webcam if I have to stand up for any reason, but on hot days I have worn a button-down shirt with drawstring shorts which is practically a pajama set. I don’t think it’s made my behavior any less professional, and in a world where my coworkers are wearing sweatshorts into the office, I don’t see a problem with it.
When I first started working from home, only on snow days or when my car was in the shop, I just worked from the sofa. I didn’t need to be on video calls that much and even if I was, my boss didn’t care that much about my background. But once I moved to WFH on a more professional basis, I quickly realized the need for a nicer work environment if I was going to spend sixteen hours a week working there.
Conveniently, I already had a room which my partner and I call “The Study” which has been in large part an extended closet for me. A cozy attic space, The Study’s walk-in closet was designated as my clothing storage when we moved in, but because of my clothes-horse ways I ended up needing more of the room to store my clothes. In the last couple years I’ve been painting and outfitting the room to make it less of a cluttered auxiliary closet and more of a work and contemplation space.
A nice chair is key. Obviously it needs to be comfortable, since you’re going to be sitting in it for 8 hours a day, unless you have a standing desk or a small treadmill like my friend has. This is one reason that I moved from the sofa to The Study, and also why I work at my desk and not on the futon up here: leaning forward from a low sofa or sitting with my spine in a shrimp shape with a laptop on my lap was not suitable for long periods of time.
Now a good chair doesn’t have to be expensive, nor does it have to be new. My partner spotted a vintage mahogany desk chair on facebook marketplace for 15 dollars, and I went after work the same day and threw it in the trunk of my car. I didn’t expect it to be all that comfortable but it was cheap and looked great. However, people have been using desk chairs like this one since before Herman Miller Aeron technology was a glimmer in anyone’s eye, and it turns out there was a good reason for that. This chair, with the little cushion the previous owner had tied to it, is just as comfortable as the plastic/nylon adjustable chair they issued me at the office.
I didn’t anticipate taking to work from home as easily as I did. I’ve always appreciated having the separation between my work and home environments, and I worried about “tainting” The Study with the connotations of my day job. I feared this might keep me from using it in my off hours, but actually the opposite has been true. Because I’ve been spending my time up there on workdays, I’ve become more comfortable with using the space for personal time as well, and I’ve had some ideas for dressing the space to make it more comfortable for relaxation, writing, and reading. I’m also enjoying my five second commute, as well as the option to spend lunchtimes with my partner, hang out with my cat, and listen to my LP’s during the workday. I can hear the ice cream truck roll past through the open window, and catch up on my reading when work is slow.
What I’m reading: Finding Maubee by A.H.Z. Carr
Set on the fictional, American-controlled Caribbean island of St. Caro, Finding Maubee follows the local police chief as he works the murder of a visiting businessman, with evidence pointing towards a local Robin Hood figure. It’s a competent crime procedural with the added interest of its setting, which drew me to it in the first place. Carr elaborates on the relations between locals and the visiting Americans, and matter-of-factly describes the cultural tail of slavery on the island.
Finding Maubee won an Edgar Award, and was adapted in 1989 into the Denzel Washington movie The Mighty Quinn, filmed largely in Port Antonio, Jamaica.