For over two years I have heard of so many people working from home. During the height of the pandemic my work didn't skip a beat. I work for a government office and much of our work could have been done from home, but my boss at the time laughed that notion off. My former boss who was an elected official lost her re-election and thus gave me a new boss. He is actually a fairly decent guy, who really stresses family first and after 8 months that has held true. The state of my work improved and things got a little better overall. However I was/am depressed about the working culture in this country (USA). Despite the fact that my working conditions improved slightly I still yearn for something different as the 40 hr grind is mind numbing and oppressive.
I recently just went on a 3 week leave to help take care of my newborn. 2 weeks of which were just using my vacation days, since parental leave is not a thing in this country, especially for fathers. The last week of my 3 weeks was working from home. I finally got a taste of it, the envy I felt from hearing about so many working from home was finally happening for me, and let me tell you, it is fucking great! But that all comes to an end today as I return to the office on Monday to go back to the hopeless, soul crushing grind.
I woke up today with a sense of dread and severe depression. I am going to miss my two little girls and my wife so much. I miss so much while I waste away an hour from home spending 10 hours a day away from them. And just like millions I am back to becoming a mindless drone. My job specifically could be split 50/50 where I could work from home for 2 weeks a month and spend 2 weeks a month in the office. There is a need to actually be at my office because I need to conduct inspections in the area I work, so working at the office is completely reasonable and I actually enjoy getting out and about for the township i work for. However having to slog away in an office doing mindless computer work is senseless. Every bit of what I do in the office at a computer can be done at home and this goes for much of the staff.
Work from home should be mandatory for all jobs if the job can be completed reasonably at home. I was just as productive at home, in all actuality I was more productive because I felt a sense of urgency because the quicker I worked the more time I had for family and other projects and hobbies. My whole outlook improved while working from home. But like I said it is all over and now I am just resentful and sour. I will be back to climbing into a husk of myself, turning on auto pilot and just thumbing my way through the days until I die.
I don't expect sympathy or answers to my post, I just needed to vent to my fellow Redditors who are tired and fed up with everything. I just wanted to share my experience. I do realize there are lurkers here who hate this sub and just want to shit on people struggling by calling us 'lazy' or saying 'too bad I suffered and never get to see my kids so why are you so special'? So let me just say we are not lazy we just want balance and happiness and that happiness is not found from grinding away to a nub and if you never get to see your family and grind away you don't deserve that either we all deserve happiness and a balance in our lives.
The sadness and hopelessness I feel is immeasurable and I know it is a shared feeling. Someday, some way we will get through this and burn this system to the ground. Nothing lasts forever and as things spiral out of control there has to be a breaking point and there will be an opportunity to change things.