10,137 Days Until Retirement

Sitting at home, on the computer, awaiting a work call. So: I'm on the clock. Work sucks (I know), but hey, at least I'm working from home.

I'm not at home every day. Until recently, I was WFH six days a month. Then they changed it to three days a week. Though my social schedule took a bit of a hit now that I only have two days per week to stretch a half-hour lunch into an hour with Center City friends, I still appreciate the home/work balance. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this. Taking the train every day fucking sucks. Getting home 90 minutes after my shift is over fucking sucks. But logging out and walking upstairs and hanging with my girls 30 seconds after I shut down the work computer for the night? That feels great. All of what I'm saying is pretty cliché at this point, but it's worth sitting back and appreciating it every once in a while. Life is easier when you're working from home, and I'm grateful that I get to do it 60% of the time.

There is a vicious rumor going around my workplace, and around other workplaces connected to mine. The rumor goes like this: my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's future boss has plans to get rid of the hybrid working system, and go back to in-office full-time. The reasoning is something like "well she feels like if everyone was back at the office, the businesses around the office would make more money, thus creating a healthier city" and so on and so on. Capitalism, basically. The worker's lifestyle is impacted in negative ways in order to praise the almighty dollar.

The general consensus is that there is "nothing we can do about it." Unfortunately, I tend to agree with that. Note how many "boss's" I had to include in the previous paragraph; I'm a tiny insignificant speck on the boil on the mayor's ass, and there is nothing I could do. There's nothing I should do, either. The thing I've learned about working in government is that speaking up just makes things worse. It's a hierarchy, you see. There are bosses above me, and bosses above them. Picture us like a ladder of pigeons. And every time I open my mouth, the only thing that happens is I get pigeon shit in my mouth.

That's okay. I think that, generally, the work I do is worthy, and I take the shit because I believe that it has positive effects on my city (in non-capitalistic ways), and also on my family (in a necessarily capitalistic way—I'm talking about my paycheck). I plan on keeping my mouth shut and letting the union-backed momentum take me to higher perches on the ladder, where I will be paid more and hopefully limit the amount of pigeon shit I'm dropping in other people's mouths.

I have visions, though. Dreams of defending my hybrid WFH lifestyle. Opening my mouth and sticking it to the man, somehow. One idea that keeps getting stuck in my craw is, like, a petition. No, a boycott. Say that all of my peers in this government system got together, all kinds of workers from every department, and we signed something in ink, making a commitment that if WFH was taken away from us and we were forced to return to the cubicles full time, that none of us would ever, and I mean never, spend money at any business in the general vicinity ever again. The message being that bringing us back full time would actually be detrimental, financially speaking, to the business that she is allegedly so hell-bent on "saving." And, of course, if we were able to remain WFH two days a week, those two days would be a spending spree at lunchtime, caviar and champagne from any business willing to hawk it, even at exorbitant prices. So you have a choice, Mrs. Mayor. Let us see our families at reasonable hours or watch as your city crumbles under the fist of the workers' collective resolve and might.

Just a pipe dream, though. I know that putting myself out there, getting marked as a "nuisance," will come back and bite me in exponentially harsh ways over the next 28 years of my working life. WFH is also not worth it if those seven and a half hours at home are a living nightmare, and there are plenty of ways in which those nightmares could be sent all the way down the chain onto my desk. Plus, let's not overestimate the "resolve and might" of a bunch of office drones who wouldn't be able to give up their precious Bubby's bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches for anything, even a chance at a better life.

Let's just hope for the best: that I can continue to blog from the comforts of my cold basement, instead of the stuffy office cubicle. Let's hope for the best, but expect the worst.