Blog — Tedd Hawks

It finally happened. After 4 years of work from home, the boss man finally told us to return to the office.

I'd like to defend the decision as strategic or part of our development as pawns--er, sorry: business resource units--but sadly we didn't get much guidance throughout the process. In an Ask Me Anything, someone asked a leader, "When all research points to a loss of productivity when return to office initiatives are launched, why do we think this will be beneficial?" They responded with, "That won't happen here!"

I hope there is as little reliance on data when the decreased productivity metrics do come in.

But this isn't a post to complain about my job. If that does interest you, please join me around the water cooler in the office.

But IT'S WEIRD TO BE BACK, Y'ALL.

After years of being home all day, every day, it's bizarre to shower, get dressed, and then sit in a room with 200 people typing on computers.

The uncanny valley only deepens when you realize that most people come in to take video calls with people 3 time zones over while sitting next to other people taking video calls with people 2 time zones over.

One day, I didn't even see any coworkers as I took video calls and trekked from conference room to conference room. I got back upstairs in time to wave good-bye to everyone and tell them, "See ya tomorrow!" I could have done that all...not in an office.

There's also the weirdness of constantly being around other humans again. It's like we've all been put back in a zoo after years on the savannah.

The most horrible incarnation of this is the bathroom which, for an office with 200 people (100 men), is VERY small. It's also somehow in a vacuum and completely void of sound, except when you happen to sit down on the toilet and make ANY sound, which then explodes with a compression ring of violent sonic waves that shakes the entire office building.

This odd office sound disturbance carries over to the chewing that happens at desks. Somehow, with headphones on and Taylor Swift blaring, I can still hear someone eating a bagel three desks over.

That's not even to mention the personal weirdness that I never realized staying at home all the time.

See, the last time I was in an office, I was a sprightly youth in my mid-30s. I still had collagen in my skin and balanced pH levels.

Now, a mere week after returning to the office, I looked in the mirror after making a cacophony in the bathroom and noticed that my skin was covered in dry flakes. I literally looked like I was the man at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Was the water cup in the shared kitchen a false grail? Because it appeared that I was rotting.

And then, to just make it brief, I also am way more stinky than in my youth. I now have to buy Gold Bond and spray down with cologne before leaving the house.

Like what happened? I knew wrinkles happened as you aged, but I didn't realize that your body just kind of became a husk of sadness.

But here we are!

But honestly, my body decaying and office sound paradoxes aside, going back to the office hasn't been that bad. I missed the free cheese sticks, and I am way less of a slug than at home. Instead of taking a meeting and rewarding myself with 35 minutes of doom scrolling, I now grab a coffee or chat with humans. Which is probably actually great for a stinky corpse who makes a lot of noise in the toilet.

And everyone seems to have a much better relationship with work. When I was more supple and less stanky, I would grind for nine hours a day, five days a week all while my boss was still like, "But why aren't you working, though?"

So here we are! And it could be worse! Which, really is the rallying cry of the Millennial. Everything's fine, at least until the next recession or pandemic or unprecedented time or election. In which case I hope that the world will continue to still produce Gold Bond and cheese sticks, because, if not, it could start to get really ugly.

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