One of my most controversial opinions is that I believe we should return to in person work. I know I’m a class and generational traitor for saying this but I promise it’s not for corporate shill reasons, I haven’t been paid to cross the picket line. I am overall uninterested in the arguments of ‘trusting employees’ vs ‘productivity’. In fact, I know I get less work done at the office and I would love to work from home. I thrive inputting data while watching reruns of my favorite shows. I make healthier lunches when I have more tools than just a microwave from 2010. I’m in less danger in my home office than trekking across my snow laden drive way. I don’t have to deal with people who talk too loudly too close to my face, or hear about someone’s baby shower at lunch, or pretend to agree with my coworker’s conspiracy theories as to not make things awkward. I would much rather be completely comfortable, unchallenged, and alone.
Which is exactly why I go to work every day. It’s why I get up an hour and a half before I need to be clocked in, why I broom off my car in the dead of winter, why I put on impractical and uncomfortable shoes, why I deal with people I’d never want to associate with in my real life, and why I eat less than nutritious lunches (todays is queso in a mug and old tortilla chips I found on top of the fridge). I have this terrible belief that I need to connect, in person, with other humans.
There are very few places I go and willingly interact with people different than me. When I choose to spend time with people, they’re my friends and family, people I generally get along with because we have similar views, priorities, beliefs and sense of humor. When we have discussions, they may have ideas that are different than mine, but because of our mutual respect for each other, they’re offered more palatably and I listen more generously.
I cannot say I have the same comfortable exchange with my coworkers or the general public. This is not a new concept, as Marcus Arulius once wrote, “Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother (not in the physical sense, but as a fellow creature similarly endowed with reason and a share of the divine); therefore none of those things can injure me, for nobody can implicate me in what is degrading. Neither can I be angry with my brother or fall foul of him; for he and I were born to work together, like a man’s two hands, feet or eyelids, or the upper and lower rows of his teeth. To obstruct each other is against Nature’s law – and what is irritation or aversion but a form of obstruction.”
In other words, you will meet insufferable people but it is against our human nature to work against one another.
It’s necessary for our communities to be able to find common ground, work together, and find purpose in a shared goal because this is how bonds and friendships are formed. Some of the most important lessons we learn in school are working in groups, sharing, compromising, setting boundaries, resolving conflict, soft skills we take for granted as we get older. But we have to keep working that muscle or else we become rigid and uncompromising.
It’s not that the workplace is the only place to exercise these skills, but just the easiest. If you’re working in a shared office, on the line, in the field, or in customer service, you’re practicing these skills daily. You can join charity organizations or sports teams, from experience, there’s less of a requirement to show up. If someone is bothering you or you stop having fun, you can fade into obscurity in these organizations. The real work is done when you have to be there, like school, or work, or court mandated roadside cleanup.
Working from home also doesn’t limit the problems or stresses of the real world.
I think back to a story my parents told me about the beginning of their marriage when my dad started making enough money that my mom could stay home. This was before I was born and they were having issues conceiving (spoiler, they end up adopting), and they had decided that letting my mom stay home and focus on her health was the best idea. It was not. After a few weeks of isolation, dealing with the long, unpredictable hours of a car salesman, my mother had gone into battle with the kitchen faucet. It was dripping. An imperceptible drip to someone who had anything more pressing to do, but she did not.
After a long day of dealing with customers, and fellow staff, and whatever else the world had decided to throw at an in person worker that day, my dad returned home to find the kitchen plumbing dismantled. My mother started applying for jobs quite soon after that, now able to add unsuccessful plumber to her resume.
We create our own problems.
And lastly, I think we should do things that suck. I think it’s good for us to be uncomfortable, annoyed, and burdened. I think it’s important we have people who rely on us, ask favors of us, inconvenience us, and have to look them in the face as they do it. It’s very easy to ignore an email for help, much harder to ignore the guy yelling at you. There’s camaraderie in commiserating and the closest I’ve felt to some of my coworkers has been after dealing with a particularly difficult customer or solving a seemingly unsolvable problem.
Of course, work from home is a great option for some people. Mom’s finally able to juggle child care and an income or people with health issues come to mind. Finding intentionality in your own life is about finding what’s best for you, but that doesn’t always mean finding what’s easiest. If working from home really is your best option, might I suggest a weekly lunch with that cousin you’ve blocked on Facebook or inviting your Mother-in-Law to live with you. Ruin your day a little bit. Your humanity will thank you.
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