I was the office weirdo for not wanting to share my entire life, but now I have the freedom of privacy.
If I have discovered one thing about working from home over the last four years, it is that it is definitely easier to keep your private life private. When I was working in an office I had to use survival techniques such as loitering in a meeting room, toilet or corridor to take any personal calls. Sometimes I even went as far as the duck-under-desk-with-mobile-in-hand routine - because, as we all know, no one can hear you down there.
Personal calls in the office create disproportionate stress. Usually the caller is asking a simple question, such as "What do you want for tea?" or "Where shall we meet tonight?" but somehow we believe that the answers "steak and kidney pie" and "The Dog and Duck" will give the game away and that all our colleagues will jump to the conclusion that we have done no work for the entire day.
So, instead of swiftly answering said question, finishing the call and turning back to our PCs, we concoct ridiculous codes to convey messages to our loved ones, codes that the sharpest of minds could never crack. So, the dinnertime response becomes "That favoured product that is frequently purchased on a Thursday", while The Dog and Duck is replaced by "Our meeting shall be held at the venue which allows easiest access to all the vendors who will be in attendance". Ridiculous, I know, but true.
Reading any sort of non-work-related literature between 9am and 5pm is also definitely overstepping the mark, and don't even think about looking at your holiday snaps in your lunchbreak. A former colleague of mine used to sell cosmetics in her spare time and the women of the office used to gather in the toilet after work to study her catalogue. Quite why they had to convene in the toilet is beyond me but somehow it seemed necessary.
Other annoying office-personal life crossovers relate to extra curricular activities; have you ever tried to get changed at work before going on a night out? The natural assumption of anyone witnessing someone changing their attire at 5pm will be that they are off on a "hot date", and said individual will be subjected to 20 minutes of "friendly banter" and "harmless ribbing". If you are actually heading off on a hot date then it's safe to assume that your confidence will be shot to bits after this hungry pack have finished with you. When I was young, free and single, I distinctly remember my love life being of great amusement to everyone and it was definitely a sporting event to ply me with copious amounts of alcohol before sending me out to meet some poor unsuspecting male on a Friday night.
If you go shopping at lunchtime then you will need to show off your purchases to the entire team. Haircuts will be judged - as will your weight. Marriages, divorces, deaths and births are fair game. If you are a private person by nature then it's best to assume that you will be the office weirdo for not wanting to share the details of your entire life with what pretty much amounts to a bunch of strangers.
Nowadays, of course, I refrain from convening in toilets and getting drunk before dinner, but I also enjoy the freedom of working from home. It is much easier to phone the bank or book a doctor's appointment these days and doesn't affect my work at all. Somehow the autonomy of home working makes me believe that I really can (and do) manage my own time, and not having that office feeling of being watched over like a child also makes me a lot more confident.
In fact, I like my current circumstances so much that I rather minxingly enjoy calling my husband at work and trying to get him to tell me that he loves me. Rest assured, he "concurs with my understanding of the current arrangement".
Article by Lynsey Thomas The Guardian
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