I’ve officially been working from home for 3 full months now – yay, I passed probation! While being back to work mostly sucks, there are perks of being a fully remote employee.
Clothing – Whenever I’ve started new jobs in the past, I’ve gone out and purchased new clothes – nothing excessive, I’m not one for fashion, but usually a few items to help me feel more confident. If I didn’t have new clothes I’d feel mildly self conscious, at least in the beginning. Much like a relationship, after a few months into it, you can start to let yourself go.
As time goes on you start to wonder if those around you are noticing your repeat outfits, so you feel like you need to go buy more clothes. I actually had a coworker who was very into fashion and noticed any time one of our colleagues wore something new – which also meant she was noticing when we were all repeating outfits. I found this a bit psychotic.
So how has it been working remotely? I haven’t bought a single item of work clothing. Not only that, I wear comfy leggings or sweatpants every single day. While I have lots of Zoom calls, I never stand up on camera so no one needs to know. 🙂
Commute – Of course, there is no commute. It is really amazing to finish work at 5pm, and be “home” from work at 5:01pm. I’ve also noticed that because of a lack of commute, I don’t mind working slightly longer hours. A 10 hour day doesn’t feel like a 10 hour day in an office because you don’t have to stress about getting stuck in rush hour, or have that wretched feeling of knowing you won’t be home for another 30-45 minutes. Also, our fuel spend has never been so low. That said, I do miss listening to podcasts.
Walks – I’ve been trying to go for a 25-30 minute walk at “lunch” every single day. If I don’t, I may not even leave my house during the week (covid). I almost never did this when I worked in an office, unless on the odd occasion I was going out for lunch with someone. Sorry if this is TMI, but I HATED going for walks at lunch because I can’t stand getting even the littlest bit sweaty and then returning to my desk. And unfortunately I can get sweaty during a 5 minute walk if the sun is hitting me at just the right angle… and by that I mean if the sun is up… as in it’s not dark out…
Also, you’re not often dressed appropriately for a walk and end up getting too hot compared to the cold office you spend the other 8 hours of the day in. However working from home, I can actually change into appropriate clothing (out of my sitting leggings and into my walking leggings), get a little sweaty, and sit back at my desk and no one even knows.
Lunches – I was always one of those nerdy employees who brought their lunch almost daily, that’s probably not surprising. Buying lunches is crazy expensive to me and I’ve never understood people who do it almost daily.
I thought working from home would be great in terms of being able to make whatever you want from your fridge for lunch each day. However I’ve noticed that even when working from home, you can still benefit from meal prepping. When I’m at the office, it might take me 5 minutes to heat up my lunch before I start eating it, or even less if I don’t need to heat it at all. Making lunch from scratch at home takes time! I don’t like to take very long lunch breaks because I’d rather keep working and quit earlier than take a long break. But whipping up what I think is going to be a quick quesadilla always takes longer than I think and then I get stressy thinking I should get back to work.
Expensive – Getting set up was actually a bit expensive. The husband and I spent approximately $1,000 getting set up with desks and chairs. Truthfully I splurged on a $450 chair because my back was killing me the first few weeks of work. Of course this is a one-time cost that will last a long time but it still hurt to make the initial purchases.
Those are my main thoughts on being a fully remote employee. I admit it has also been psychologically different from being in an office. However instead of trying to explain what I mean, this article from the New York Times actually explains how I feel fairly accurately. The paranoia is real.