There's No Place Like Work

I miss the office.

I miss having somewhere to go.

I miss being among a community.

I miss looking out into a sea of faces.

I miss meeting people I wouldn't otherwise have met.

I miss the hum of productivity.

I miss the exchange of ideas.

I miss the small talk.

I miss the wholesome delight of being asked, "What's your favourite holiday?" like it is the first time.

I miss desk decorations that reveal quirky bits of personality.

I miss birthday celebrations that interrupt the daily routine.

I miss identifying coworkers by their footsteps as they walk between offices.

I miss drinking bad coffee.

I miss complaining about Mondays.

I miss Fridays.

I miss Saturdays and Sundays.

I miss Saturdays and Sundays that actually feel like the weekend.

I miss trying not to zone out in meetings.

I miss pretending I'm in a good mood when I'm not.

I miss being emailed by someone sitting four feet away from me.

I miss being told I did something wrong in a passive aggressive tone.

I miss revising it and sending with an exclamation point to soften my frustration, then deleting it, then putting it in again.

I miss quickly clicking out of my Twitter tab when my boss walks by.

I miss re-opening the Twitter tab when my boss is gone.

I miss feeling like Twitter is an escape and not just, the whole deal.

I miss looking up at the fluorescent lights and wondering if they're the same bulbs they use in prisons.

I miss the sudden panic of confinement.

I miss getting up to use the bathroom to prove that, yes, I have agency and freedom.

I miss having to smile when I walk past someone's desk even though we really don't need to acknowledge each other every single time.

I miss knowing way too much about Sheila's daughter Bronwyn, more than Bronwyn would want me to know about her.

I miss eating at my desk so I don't have to talk to anyone.

I miss thinking I should eat in the kitchen once as a show of good faith.

I miss quickly abandoning this idea.

I miss guessing who are actual friends and who are fake friends.

I miss knowing we are all fake friends.

I miss listening to someone's garbage playlist that is a bunch of songs they used to jam out to in high school.

I miss pitying them because they obviously think they missed their calling.

I miss thinking about how different their life could have been if they followed their passion instead of a safer route.

I miss wondering if that's what I'm doing.

I miss convincing myself that, no, I'm different.

I miss thinking about my future self visiting me in a fever dream and warning me to ditch and run.

I miss falling down the rabbit hole of where I might be if I leave.

I miss realizing I just spent 20 minutes envisioning an alternate reality, only to come back to all of the tasks I haven't completed.

I miss shrugging this off because I refuse to be a cog in the capitalist machine.

I miss laughing at that because there's no escape.

I miss not being able to hear my own thoughts because Tyler is telling Sheila why his way of doing things is the best way.

I miss forgiving Sheila's oversharing as an outlet for what she can't control.

I miss making sense of things that aren't myself.

I miss thinking about how great being alone at home would be.

I miss what I thought I was missing.