Home V Office: The big debate

Sinead Ryan has looked at life from both sides now – and it might be that working through a pandemic has brought it all home for many of us

Sinead Ryan weighs up the pros and cons of home-working versus office life

I’ve been working from home for donkey’s years. Before, I worked diligently, 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, in offices, also for donkey’s years. Home is better. No question. I would recoil in horror if I had to go back to a partitioned row of desks. There are, as many formerly office-based employees are now finding, myriad reasons why. No commute. Fewer toll charges and petrol bills. No getting on the bus on a wet Monday morning, rain lashing at your legs. No strapping on your cycle helmet and navigating terrifying traffic. No missing the last train home, facing a miserable walk or expensive taxi.

The clothes bill drops. A couple of serviceable jackets for ‘important’ Zoom meetings; underneath the table, slippers and ath-leisure wear is perfectly acceptable.

The office politics are still there, but somehow, not as pervasive. Nobody drops by my desk in a passively aggressive way to peer over my shoulder and comment on how I’m writing a report, or snidely offering ‘help’. I don’t have to put up with the boss’s moods, or the irritating colleague constantly banging on about her fascinating kids and fabulous holidays, or the manager who wants to decant his personal problems into the workplace. But, on the other hand… Gosh, I miss people. I know we’re all missing people at the moment. We will cherish the minute we’re allowed to meet up, laugh, eat, drink and have fun together again with loved ones, family and friends.

But in truth, I’ve been missing other people all these years too: work colleagues. Like family, we don’t get to choose them, but the ones we like can end up as lifetime friendships, flat-mates, drinking companions, shoulders to cry on, or even spouses.

The social contact in an office can be over-bearing, bitchy, annoying and tedious. I’ve worked beside people I never want to see again.

But there are moments of laughter, celebration, meaningful conversations, collegiality and collaboration.

Offices are mini-neighbourhoods; a microcosm of society itself. Although you all do the same job, it’s only in an office you’ll discover the girl in the next partition is a poet in her spare time, or that lad in accounts is an amazing singer.

But, in my office days, I‘d have

been fired for simply walking out of the office of a morning when my head’s done in. I can today.

I’ve dashed into the supermarket after leaving work, tired beyond belief, guiltily grabbing a frozen pizza for the kids’ dinner.

Today I can prep a casserole during lunch, and have it simmering in the oven all afternoon.

I’ve missed parent-teacher meetings, school concerts and handed over sick children to someone else because of office demands.

At home, I re-scheduled and watched, clapped, or cuddled.

If I have a choice, this is mine.

Nobody drops by my desk in a passively aggressive way offering ‘help’