My coworker has fur, and he’s currently snoring away in the corner of my office. This might not be the time to mention this, but he also recently ate his lunch by directly sticking his face in his bowl of food; and afterwards he licked himself all over before starting his nap. (He also jumps up on my desk while I’m teleconferencing with my boss, which disrupts the flow of the conversation something awful.)

This month marks the one-year mark of working at my new job at a university, and the one-year mark of sharing my workspace with my cat Starbucks. And it seems an appropriate time to look back and do a little reflecting on this most crazy of all years.

Back in the late winter of 2020, just before things got serious, pandemic wise, I accepted a position at my alma mater in the academic advising department, and was really looking forward to working in a one of those fancy, open-office, Google-like spaces that comes with a coffee bar and the kind of towering windows that look over the city and river flowing by. But as the news began to get ominous, it became apparent that my start date was in doubt.

Then, one morning a few days before my first day of work, a series of large packages appeared on my porch. My lovely wife’s first statement was “what did you order?” But there, stamped all over the tower of boxes was my school’s logo, and inside was a complete workstation, the likes of which I had never seen before; monitors galore and electronic doodads and gadgets aplenty. There were rudimentary instructions for setting everything up, and it took a complete weekend to get everything in place in my home office.

And since that first few weeks of virtual orientation, I’ve been dutifully interacting with my students and coworkers from my office up the stairs and two doors to the left. Let me say that I feel more than blessed to have a job that I can do remotely in a time when the current pandemic has taken away the livelihood of so many in this world. In no way do I want to ever seem like I’m complaining. I’m just working through the unique situation that I find myself in over the last year. I’m wired as a writer and storyteller, and it’s in my very bones to mull over any sort of changes in my life.

And changes have been, like anything else, full of their pros and their cons.

PRO #1, The Commute: On a good traffic day, my job is a thirty-five-minute drive. On a bad-weather day, it can hit potentially fifty minutes. (Even though I’ve not officially made the drive on a workday, I have made the drive on my own just to see what it will feel like.) For the last year I’ve simply walked up my stairs and entered my office to “get to work”. I have yet to be late to work, and the extra hour of sleep is a true blessing.

CON #1, Work Life “Comes Home”: Like any other job, mine is occasionally stressful (especially early on), and it was strange to be stressed out at home, a place where I feel most at peace in this world. I’ve had a few tough days, and to have my family right there is sometimes an invitation to be grumpy with them for something they have nothing to do with. Thankfully my workspace (my wonderful office that overlooks the scenic Winnipesauke River) is one that I can leave and close the door. This helps to separate my work life and home life a bit. I feel blessed to have a space that “represents” work and houses my music collection. Which leads to pro number 2…

PRO #2, The Never-Ending Concert: In my workspace, I can blast music loudly almost all day (except for those team meetings on Zoom, or in an important conversation with a student). But when there is mundane work to be done, out comes U2 or Bob Marley or Tobymac or any other artist or band that I’m in the mood for that day. I’ve taken to having an “artist of the week”, (next week, the great jazz saxophone player John Coltrane) and the music fills up my office and makes the work easier. I would not be able to play music at this volume in my workspace at the university.

CON #2, Missing In Person Interaction With My Wonderful Teammates: I have gotten to know my teammates pretty well, virtually speaking. But I know that as a rabid extrovert, I would love the energy of an office space with these folks in it. The throb of movement and conversation, the short, funny interactions of the everyday, I know that I would derive energy from this, as classic extroverts do.

PRO #3, Family Time: Early on in the great quarantine, all four of the members of my household were home and working. My two wonderful teenage daughters were doing school from home, and my lovely teacher wife was here too. I will never have “family time” like this again. My family served as my coworkers. My wise wife talked through struggles with me (she’s a veteran of the educational world, and just a plain old brilliant person to boot), and my girls and I developed inside jokes that will linger long after the world “returns to normal”. Someday my daughters will go to college, and then move into their own spheres of life, and my wife Julie and I will look back on these times and marvel at how much good family time we had. In the sadness of these times, a flower grew out of the pavement, and that was a family closeness that I will always treasure.

CON #3, The Loneliness: My girls and wife have gone back to school, physically speaking, and when they are gone, the day can get long. I feel the emptiness of the house and miss them.  

PRO #4, The Basketball Hoop: When it’s nice weather, and I have a break, I go play basketball in my driveway. It’s exercise and relaxation all at once. There is nothing like it. I have told my boss that I will need a basketball hoop installed at the office when we all go back.

PRO #5, My Furry And Slimy Coworkers: My cat Starbucks is as an affectionate and social an animal as you are likely to find. Having us all home for a year has been the dream of Starbuck’s life, though we occasionally interrupt his massive sleep schedule. (Seriously, how can one animal nap this much and still sleep all night!) Also, this past Christmas we added a tank of fish to our home menagerie, and watching those crazy animals navigate their fun, aquatic home (complete with a pineapple and castle under the sea) has been a relaxing feature of the day. Animals are a true treasure and can fill up a room with their presence. Yes, there are copious moments of clean up and maintenance, but the tradeoff is worth it.

And so, it would seem that the pros here outweigh the cons. I wasn’t expecting that when I began this little venture in taking stock of the past year.

It’s really nice when that happens.

Have a great rest of your day, good friends.

May your fire burn brightly.

 – Tin Can