i have never read love in the time of cholera

So I live right by a highway.

This was a feature of this complex, other than proximity to work and a convenience store. I lived in the country and constant rural quiet broken by the sound of the train, coyotes, wild dogs, or What The Hell Pretend It's Dogs got old fast. I used to use TV, and still do, but the highway helped. I tuned it out fairly quickly but opening the porch door would bring it back, so generally, anything I heard was something I should pay attention to--people outside my porch, sirens, things actually close enough to worry about.

The highway is almost silent and boy that is getting to me.

I work from home, but that's been the biggest change so far; I am not social and do delivery groceries anyway, so not a lot changed. But a.) work from home and b.) that highway: it wasn't super active at night, but it was a highway and now it's silent.

Also, I hate work from home; I didn't realize my base level of social interaction at work was so important, just to listen to people and talk a little, share annoyances and successes and nothings. I think people really underestimate the part coworkers play in your life, categorizing them as 'work friends' as opposed to 'real friends'; I have no idea what that even means. I'm not sure 'friend' even encompasses what these people are to me.

I spend more time with coworkers, prefix 'friend-' or not, then pretty much anyone. They probably know me better than my own mother; they know my work ethic, if I get shit done, if I slide on some things (and what those things are), if I'm timid or confrontational, they know me in the morning before coffee and can judge my mood and if I did laundry on my choice of clothing and if my hair is clipped up or not. they've proved that. I know Y is up for something or do not approach by her slump at her computer; I know J's approachibility by how he wears headphones; I know who to call, in order, when I need shit done. I know who knows the most, who's the most competent, who's the best, and who gets shit done, and how those four things are not ever embodied in the same person at the same time, ever, but everyone is always one of them whether they know it or not. I know who needs me to push them, who needs me to flatter them (not hard, they're all worthy of a lot of it), who needs to be nudged, and who will slam forward without thought so I only call when I need a bull in a china shop.

We work individually, but the truth is, we're a unit, we just don't notice; there are pieces of them I need that I don't notice except now they're absent. I need them desperately; I am less me in absence of them.

This would be my angst, work from home. Everyone else mourns normal shit like movies and parties and hanging out with friends; I am yearning desperately for my desk and coworkers and a second monitor; how do people get anything done with only one?????

Comments

[ngaio]

I absolutely know what you mean about the base level of social interaction. I'm an introvert, I'm an autistic introvert who finds the noise/movement/social demands of an office environment challenging at times. But oh boy! I'm learning that challenging at times does not mean not absolutely essential to my wellbeing the rest of the time! I'm used to chatting, or hearing people chat. I'm used to knowing what's going on in my department that doesn't directly affect me just by hearing other people's conversations and feeling connected to their work and their pressures that way.

(Also yes on the monitor, my work laptop is *tiny*, how does anyone work on this screen?!)

[malkingrey]

I absolutely know what you mean about the base level of social interaction. I'm an introvert, I'm an autistic introvert who finds the noise/movement/social demands of an office environment challenging at times. But oh boy! I'm learning that challenging at times does not mean not absolutely essential to my wellbeing the rest of the time!

I discovered something much like that my junior year in college, when I moved from a noisy, social dorm, where everybody's door was always open and people felt free to stick their heads in and chat, to a more studious dorm that I thought would be more in line with my own introverted nature.

Hoo boy, was I wrong. After six months in a dorm where everybody kept their doors shut all the time and nobody dropped in on anybody, I was ready to flee screaming. Which I did, back to a dorm where I would have a minimum of social interaction dropped in my lap whether I asked for it or not.

[jjhunter]

I really miss my great dual-monitors-on-a-standing-desk setup at work. Also that my work cubicle does not have ALL THE SUNSHINE streaming in ~2pm ET to give me a ginormous headache - I actually relocated my work stuff to the kitchen yesterday for the last two hours of my workday to get some relief.

I usually say hi to my immediate supervisor as one of the first things I do after booting up my computer and letting my email filters run through initial triage. With WFH, I've been sending her a photo and a 'good morning!' message every day right around 8am; it helps. Also just got the core four of us in our informal work bookclub to do weekly virtual lunches on Fridays - it was such a delight, I'd really really missed them.

[green_grrl]

I am a complete homebody introvert but back when, getting a job with people pulled me out of a depression that being a wfh freelancer was not good for.

What has been super helpful for me (and my whole team of six ) is that we have a standing 30 min Zoom meeting first thing every morning where we turn our video on. Really, really makes a difference. There’s another, much larger Zoom meeting after that that I always tune into, 50% for the content and 50% just to hear everyone being positive and helpful to each other. Then everyone’s on Slack the rest of the day.

[j00j]

I miss my big dual monitors and proper standing desk and full sized keyboard (I am currently working exclusively on a Microsoft Surface), but I'm making it work by connecting my iPad as a second monitor via Duet. Might work for you in a pinch if you're allowed to connect a personal tablet to a work device; I realize you're in a field where you may be extremely forbidden from doing that.

[archaeologist_d]

When I retired, I missed my coworkers sooooo much. I still do but social media has helped a bit. My husband noticed the other day that there were hardly any planes overhead (we are in a flight path although it's high enough that we don' hear the noise just see the planes) and that it was eerie. Our neighborhood is relatively quiet but it's a suburb so we do get noise.

Hopefully it will be over soon.

[malkingrey]

I think people really underestimate the part coworkers play in your life, categorizing them as 'work friends' as opposed to 'real friends'; I have no idea what that even means. I'm not sure 'friend' even encompasses what these people are to me.

I think they may be more like extended family, at least in the "you don't get to pick them, you don't even have to like them, but you all support each other when times get hard" sense of the word.

[musesfool]

I didn't realize how much I needed a second monitor until it was gone! I was just commiserating with a coworker about it yesterday. And yeah, I do miss being in the office and being able to just...hear people working around me.

[mrshamill]

I hear you. Our mayor got diagnosed and now the region is a ghost town, people aren't even going out for groceries. It's scary.

[krait]

Well, I am definitely feeling the one-monitor lament. :D As for work and socialisation, I do miss *going* to work, but I think that's as much because it gets me out of the house as it is about the people; I'm introverted enough that being in an office with people 40 hours a week pushes my limit for social interaction. I usually can't do anything social after work or on Saturdays at all, because I'm out of Interaction Resources.

This week we've been holding daily Zoom meetings, which is better than all-day contact, but I still feel that biweekly or triweekly Zoom meetings would be sufficient to meet my social needs. On the other hand, I think part of that is the people involved; my current crop of coworkers take a lot more of my resources than other groups have. (I have no idea how to describe it, but basically they are not My People? For the most part they have very different backgrounds compared to me - but similar to one another - and I often feel very outsiderish when they're talking. Being social with them involves a great deal of effort, because we're talking across a gap that they don't seem to see.)

Given that 40 hours a week is too much socialising for me, though, I'm even more frustrated by confinement - finally, I don't have to waste all my 'social' on work, but now I can't use it anywhere else, either!

When I do get back to the office I'm totally going to
1. hug my second monitor and tell it how much I missed it, and
2. propose that we set up a TV and play movies for background noise, because data entry goes so much quicker when Labyrinth is happening somewhere to the left of the screen. :D

[timespirt]

My neighbor is 91, I'm used to bringing her the mail 6 days a week and sitting at her house for hours or taking her to stores. Now, I sit 6 or more feet away from her when I bring the mail outside in the driveway. She brings a chair and I sit on her bench. We talk for an hour and I go home. This is like 1 or 2 times a week. Most times I drop at her door and go home. This is a sad state of affairs these days.

Quiet highway must be very eerie...