Am I back for good …

…… no … evil

That’s a little Joke my boss likes to tell when he hears someone ask me if I’m “back for good” at the office. He’ll look at whomever asked that and say “no she’s back for evil!” and he thinks he is funny, I think he’s funny and they think he’s crazy. He’s not wrong btw. I guess I am officially back in the office after working from home for over a year. I’m not overly excited about it but it is what it is. I knew this day was coming, I've been mentally trying to prepare myself .... I'm still working on that. As I’ve mentioned on here a few times I was slowly becoming one of those people that would be perfectly happy to never rejoin the world again. The world is scary yo and I’m not just talking about a virus, or mass shootings or crazy drivers (I swear you'd think I was driving an invisible car sometimes), and the various assortment of people in this world. However put that aside the truth is I get so much more done at home than I do at the office with all the distractions and interruptions, and "Do you have time for a 15 minute meeting?" which always always turns into an hour and a half. EVERY.DAMN.TIME. 

I feel that soon it won’t be my choice and frankly I’d rather go back on my terms than having been told I had to be back on this date. I also needed a change in my routine. I was not in a good place for a long while, and still kind of not but am pulling out of it I guess. Plus it’s kind of an out of sight out of mind thing. My desk has been host to a number of people during my “time away” with squatters from other offices or people needing the room to social distance, to have conference calls etc., but those squatters were always temporary and I’d like to keep it that way. I did spend the first full hour back in the office cleaning it just to be safe. 

One of my staff (that’s right I’m a manager now and I have a STAFF) lost her desk during all this mess. She walked in one day to print/bind a submittal went to her desk and someone else was in her office. They were like yeah this is where I sit now. My coworker looked around and all her stuff was in boxes along the wall. I was like wait what happened as she told me this story?! Apparently, they just assumed she wasn’t coming back and gave her space away, but I’m not buying that. They knew for sure she was coming back cause we’ve talked about it several times. So I had to get to the bottom of that…. Fun times. Turns out this squatter is there cause her area is getting some work done. I'm not sure she realized it is a temporary move. So I’m hoping this is a temporary shift in the matrix but it was still quite unnerving for my coworker, who frankly already has a chip on her shoulder about her longevity with the company, it’s her chip she put it there, we can't knock it off so we have learned to navigate around it. I have another in my staff who lost her space when we moved out for the pandemic and as near as I can tell no one is interested in finding her a new place. Both are cool with this cause they aren't ready to return and not having a place to sit is a good reason to not, so I’m sitting on it for now. However, it kind of pisses me off that they have just been cast aside with no space and we are just supposed to be cool with it. You’d think as part of this remodel that could be corrected at least I think it could be and hopefully by being back I can enter some of those conversations.  

See when we moved to our new office some 3 years ago there wasn’t a space big enough for all of us on one floor. So half of us ended up on the 5^th floor and the rest of us (myself included) ended up on the 10^th floor. There became a big divide of 10^th floor vs 5^th floor people. It wasn’t pretty. A very close tightknit group at our old office was suddenly 2 groups divided who never really talked or saw one another. Keep in mind that the 5^th floor is actually divided into 4 “pods” that aren’t connected so even on 5^th they aren’t intermingling. During the pandemic we went home (for a while) and another organization on the 10^th floor also went home. The other organization has decided to not come back. So my “main” boss swooped in and bought that side of 10^th so that 5^th can move up and we can all be one large happy dysfunctional family again. They move up to 10^th the first of May …. Which should be … interesting to see how that changes the dynamic. It’s definitely going to make the bathrooms more busy.

All that aside my first week back in the office was … interesting. As before the “Safe at work” protocols that were put in place early in the pandemic are not being adhered to at all ….. what really kills me tho is the people who apologize for not wearing a mask when they see me in mine. Which leads me to believe they know they should but they just aren’t going to. That’s fine whatever. I'm beyond giving a shit what others do or don't do. I'll do me ... you do you.  One of my coworkers said “the Gov said we didn’t have to wear them anymore.” I said that’s right but the company hasn’t said that yet. I also had another coworker ask me if I “enjoyed my vacation” and another asked if I “finally decided to come back from my break” I almost went to HR (that’s when my boss came up with his cute joke). The last year or so has been a lot of things, a vacation or a break aren’t even near that list. I was there half a day Monday (I was waiting for the go ahead to print/bind a submittal) then was in the office for a full day Tuesday and Wednesday. I worked from home Thursday (nephew’s b’day and I was leaving early), and was back in the office on Friday. Next week will be my first full week officially back in the office. 

I will state it again for those in the back, if we have in fact returned to normalcy too soon and come the fall are back where we started and I miss a 2nd Dragon Con there will be virtual hell to pay. 

For now ... all that's keeping me moving forward is knowing that in a month I'll be celebrating Golden's birthday, with Golden in a shared space (both of us fully vaccinated) and I can't wait. From what I know she's spent a good deal of time during the pandemic making changes to her house and I can't wait too see all her hard work! 

Marcy