Many, many companies who went virtual during the worst parts of the pandemic have started sending their employees back to the office, despite the fact that productivity wasn’t affected and in some cases people actually got more done from home. It’s a combination of “old white men who are in charge and want things to be done the way they’ve always been done, which means if they don’t see you you don’t exist and your work doesn’t get completed” and “we spent millions of dollars on these buildings, and we’re going to get our money’s worth, damn it!”

My day job is the latter type. We have a beautiful campus with five huge buildings and our CEO wants people in them.

I knew this was coming. I knew from the moment in an all-company presentation when he said something to the effect of “I love coming in here every day.” I’m sure he does, given that he can afford to live close to the office. Most people can’t. I certainly can’t — not if I want to have more than a one-bedroom apartment, anyway.

So today we go back to the office three days a week. My boss fought for three — the original plan was all five — and I suppose it’s manageable. Of course, it’s going to be a drain on my budget — I now have to pay for gas, and also for doggy daycare on the days no one’s available to come over around lunchtime and take my dog for a walk. But worse than that is the drain on my time. It’s about two hours per day that I’m losing — making lunch, dropping the dog off, driving to work, walking in from the parking garage (it’s a good quarter-mile or more from my parking spot to my desk), getting set up, breaking things down, driving home, picking up the dog, exercising (since I won’t be walking the dog on those days), and then doing all the things I used to do during my downtime at work.

Like writing.

I’m most productive in the morning, but there’s no way I’m waking up at five every day (on purpose, anyway) to write. I’ll just stare at my computer like a zombie. I know; I’ve tried it before. So I’m going to have to force myself to write in the afternoons, after I get home, after I exercise, after I job-search (I’m looking for a new job because I’m feeling stagnant at my current one and there’s no chance of being promoted in the next year or so), after I check all of my NSFW pages (stats, blogs, Fetlife), after I make dinner, after I eat dinner, after I digest, after I sit on the couch for two hours because I don’t feel like getting up and doing anything and the classic Doctor Who channel on Roku is right there waiting for me…

You see my point, right?

Going in one day a week? I wouldn’t have complained. Going in two days a week? I might have only complained a little. But this is more than half of the work week!

I really hope this doesn’t kill my plan to finish all the holiday stories by the end of October (or November). I’ve already put in so much work, and I’m more than halfway there.

Oh, and one more annoying thing — I’m a manager, but I no longer will have an office. Apparently managers don’t get those anymore. I’m hopeful that the cube I requested is the one they assign me — it’s the most private cube in our area, and no one can walk up behind you without you knowing about it — but my luck isn’t that good.

I shall persevere. It’s just going to be difficult.