You Go, I Stay

I'm a fan of working in the office. I'm not against the remote work concept. Rather, I'm against working from home.

I love my home. It's my shelter, my resting place, my destination to escape the stressful parts of my life. Working from home is not on this list. Doing things related to my hobbies is not work. For me, work means the job I'm paid for and my PhD studies. I cannot work from home. That's it. I get distracted all the time. I cannot resist the idea of lying on the couch and watching TV with some snacks.

Recently, I've started working in a new office. It's in the same building where my previous office is but on the ninth floor whereas the previous one was on the third. So, in hindsight, it seems that nothing changed for me except that I needed to go six more stairs up. But as a matter of fact, so many things did.

I prefer the work office over my home. And with the new office I use, I have a room with a door. Before that, I worked in an open space on the third floor. It's ridiculously hard to work in an open office if other people don't respect others and always bother them by talking to each other or on the phone without even lowering their voices. I don't think it should be up to the person to wear a headset and listen to some music to block the unwanted noise. It should not be up to him or her to go to a room (if s/he can find one) to be alone and in silence. I don't want to get away from my desk, which I have a setup of, including a second monitor, a keyboard, a mouse, and my laptop. So, if you want to talk and make noise, you go to another place, not me.