Home workers complain about being interrupted. Have they forgotten the vile nature of office life? asks Robert Wringham

Nine months into the pandemic and the newspapers are still running features on the pros and cons of working from home. You’d think they’d have come to terms with it by now.

A common complaint about working from home is being interrupted in your work by “delivery men” ringing the doorbell (and it’s “couriers” in this century, surely) and children demanding help or attention. The editorials either bemoan these new distractions without offering a solution or else use them as jumping-off points to discuss the nauseating “upgrading” of kitchens or garden sheds (places formerly useful in their own rights) as places for professional-grade toil.

We home-loving idlers shouldn’t be without sympathy, but don’t kids and couriers pale in comparison with the distractions of the open-plan office?

I no longer work in an office, though I used to, and off the top of my head, I recall my concentration being shattered by the following:

– ringing telephones (mine and those of colleagues)
– hardware problems
– network problems
– fire drills and false alarms
– the bins overflowing
– someone’s microwaved lunch smelling like farts
– long-dreaded meetings
– surprise meetings
– colleague birthday lunches
– colleague leaving lunches
– a fluorescent light flickering
– a ceiling tile being on at a troubling angle
– “could I just have a quick word?”
– “did anyone see [dystopian claptrap on TV] last night?”
– coffee machine malfunction
– coffee machine success
– new baby discussion
– someone’s ring tone saying “message from the Dark Side there is”
– beverage spills
– fantasy football
– mild sexual harassment
– serious sexual harassment
– microaggressions
– passive aggression
– fear of someone looking at my screen and seeing my personal business
– “creative play”
– unasked-for, overly-long training session
– team bonding exercise
– too much stationery
– not enough stationery
– “does anyone know where the [object] is?”
– “does anyone know who Sheila is?”
– announcement of strict new estates and facilities rules
– problems with the strict new estates and facilities rules
– revocation of the strict new estates and facilities rules
– argument about the prayer room being used to express breast milk
– smoking-related logistical problems
– parking-related logistical problems
– traffic- or train-related logistical problems
– people showing up for meetings on the wrong day
– it’s too cold
– it’s too hot
– the window won’t open
– the window won’t close
– plants needing water
– humans needing water
– debate around the word “potable”
– forgotten ID card
– ID card reader won’t let me in
– do I really have to sign in? I’ve worked here for years!
– missing projector cable
– the lights go off because nobody’s moved for 20 minutes
– arm-waving to get the lights to come back on again
– card-signing and gift money for Karen
– some prick’s doing a sponsored walk
– confidential shredding service is overdue
– confidential shredding service guys are in the way
– planned or unplanned construction work
– “anybody mind if I [do something intolerable]?”
– putting up Christmas decorations
– taking down Christmas decorations
– endless chatter about Christmas party menu
– Christmas cards versus charity donation
– explaining about Hanukkah again
– health-and-safety inspection
– first aid box audit
– “who took my chair?”
– “agile”-oriented hot desk uncertainty
– colleague who mutters all day
– room- or equipment-booking system confusion
– “who used the milk with ‘Nigel’ written very clearly on it?”
– man on a step ladder
– specialist cleaning service
– ominous mechanical hum
– where to recycle cardboard?
– toilets out of order
– slippery area
– existential anxiety (what am I doing here???)
– separation anxiety (from loved ones, personal projects)
– someone finally snaps and goes berserk
– so-and-so’s PA was crying in the toilets
– oh! and couriers and off-work colleagues popping in with their kids.

While we’re at it, couriers and kids probably shouldn’t really be seen as burdensome disruptions, should they? Even if your concentration must be absolute because you’re designing vital-yet-complicated valves for submarine airlocks (which I sincerely doubt), those doorbell-ringing couriers are presumably delivering something you’ve summoned with the incredible magic of the internet. The kids tugging at your sleeve, meanwhile, are part of the lovely life you’re working so hard to sustain. Worth remembering, probably.

Face it. Working at home is the future. As well as doing your bit to curb a global pandemic, you can hide from those distractions, without even putting on your trousers.

Robert Wringham is the author of The Good Life For Wage Slaves: How To Live Beautifully As A White-Collar Drudge. Readers of the Idler can get £2 off when ordering from the publisher’s website here. Just use coupon code IDLER2 before 25 November 2020.