Why you're glad I'm not working next to you any more

I work fully remotely now, which means I may go into the office 6 more times before I’m done working forever. It’s awesome. I love my coworkers, truly, but there are many things about being in the office that I won’t miss, and you won’t either.

Let’s start with the sound effects: at the point in my life when I should have, or at least be able to fake, some level of gravitas, my stomach now randomly but VERY frequently, growls like a lion on the Serengeti. It rumbles, gurgles, oi-oi-oi-ois, and squirgles, performing an amazing auditory portrayal of EXACTLY what is going on inside body, from stem to stern. I know this used to happen at work, but I don’t recall it being so frequent that my brain’s sensory gating begins blocking it out, like it does the sound of the central heat kicking on. Even the dog, who barks at sub-sonic vibrations caused by minute tectonic plate shifts, has learned to ignore it. Stacy hears it though, which is why I work in a different room than her. One of the reasons, anyway.

There’s no way my coworkers also wouldn’t hear it, which is why it’s so liberating not to have to be on guard at all times to make covering noises, like coughing, sneezing, throwing my laptop to the floor or suddenly cursing out a colleague for no apparent reasons.

Next on the list of why it’s great to work at home: food in the teeth (and, for that matter, flossing). I imagine this is a perk for everyone, but for me in particular, it’s huge. I’ve got a neuropathy on both sides of my face that make it feel like I’m coming off novocain at all times. It’s a little aggravating, but sensory gating generally keeps this below my awareness level. One of the downsides though is that I can’t tell when I have food stuck between my cheek and gums. I’ve had an entire peanut fall out of my mouth unexpectedly (and if you think I didn’t expect it, imagine how my coworkers in the meeting feel). But even at a subtler level, this is a problem. You don’t realize it, but your mouth is very sensitive to food being hung up around your gums and teeth, and you are always working those muscles to keep the spinach from loitering around the incisors or canines. Occasionally you might have a poppy seed that sneaks under the lip radar, but most people unconsciously keep their grills pretty clean.

Not me. If I have a sandwich, I end up with giant globs of gluten building up around my front teeth. Chicken or steak jams itself between my teeth like a meaty bouncer breaking up a bar fight. And my favorite lunch salad is spinach, so…

In the Before Times, lunch meetings were torture. During the entire meal / meeting, I had my hand over my mouth like a pre-teen who just learned a juicy piece of gossip about Dakota or Aspen. As soon as I had eaten enough to get me through the rest of the meeting, I’d rush for the bathroom as if I’d been suddenly hit by a norovirus, desperate to mitigate the horror before a coworker saw it. Then I’d brush my teeth with my index finger and hand soap because after 20 years of a neuropathy that results in giant chunks of food getting stuck in my teeth why would I think to have floss with me at all times?

Now? Just turn off the camera and floss. If my camera and mic are off, I’m flossing. Or I’m taking a selfy of my mouth and then enlarging it, eyeballing it closer than we examined grainy photos of Cuba in 1962. (See, there was this crisis in the early 60s involving Cuba and missiles… never mind.)

I’m sure I’ll come up with more reasons I’m glad not to be in the office anymore, and I might even post them. But I’ll end with this: I love my coworkers. I miss your in-person faces terribly. But trust me: I’m doing you a favor.