Not Really A Fan 

of remote work (but I'm not going back)

Remote work solved problems I didn't know I had and created problems I didn't know were possible.

I don't miss the commute. I don't miss the fluorescent lights or the performance of looking busy. I don't miss lunch politics or the anxiety of needing to pee during a meeting three rooms away from the bathroom.

But I also don't love this.

The boundary between work and life didn't dissolve—it evaporated. My kitchen table is a conference room. My bedroom is on camera. The laptop follows me to the couch, to the coffee shop, to vacation. There's no commute to decompress. No office door to close. Just a Slack status that lies about my availability.

I thought flexibility meant freedom. Instead it means I'm available by default and unavailable by declaration. "Signing off for the day" is now something I have to announce, like I'm asking permission to stop existing professionally.

The loneliness is real but hard to articulate. I'm not isolated—I talk to people all day. But it's performative connection. Screens and schedules. Strategic small talk before the agenda. No one drops by my desk anymore because I don't have a desk anyone can drop by.

And yet.

I'm not going back. Not to daily commutes and assigned seating and the theater of presence. Not to pretending that sitting near my coworkers makes me more productive. Not to dress codes and open floor plans and someone microwaving fish at noon.

Remote work is worse than I expected and better than the alternative. It's not the future I wanted, but it's the present I'll keep choosing. Not because I love it, but because the old way was never as good as we convinced ourselves it was.

So I'll stay here, in my too-small apartment with my too-long screen time, negotiating with silence and wondering if this counts as progress.

It probably does. I'm just not really a fan.