Time to put on my ranty panties!

My boss messaged me this afternoon, asking if I was working from home. I am, and I’ve gotten a lot done! It was an odd thing to ask – his official policy is “work from Rome if you want, just get the work done” – so I asked him what was up. Apparently, someone “noticed” that I hadn’t been in the office “all week” and “brought it to his attention”, so he just wanted to make sure I was still alive.

That really grinds my gears.

Yes, I’m working from home. I’ve got the blessing of both my boss and my boss boss to do so when needed, which I appreciate because I do need to often. I’m in the office each week for at least three days, but work from home the rest of the time for reasons both medical and productivity related (you try editing articles when surrounded by howler monkeys). I do know this is a privilege I’ve been given, and I don’t abuse it. When I work from home, I am both available and visible – more so than when I’m in the office, actually – and today in particular, I’ve been making noise in at least half dozen work related tools.

If my bosses are okay with where I am, why is it anyone else’s business to inquire as to why they can’t see me in meatspace? I don’t like feeling obligated to share every single medical issue that keeps me at home, but if I have to, I will:

The smoke from the fires happening all around Vancouver is making breathing really difficult for me. In fact, I’ve been coughing non-stop since Friday. The coughing makes me throw up. In addition, I am presently virally compromised with some sort of throat grossness that is not an infection. I am potentially contagious, and have been at home to protect people from me, and me from people. I took a vacation day on Friday to go away for the weekend, but instead stayed in town being sick, so there’s that. Also, the air is really dry. For the last two nights in a row, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night with catastrophic nosebleeds that go on for 30 minutes or so. Gross, bloody things are coming out of my face. One of the chunks had tentacles. I named him Martin! He’s really disgusting, but I’ve almost come to terms with the fact that my periods have been replaced by geysers of blood erupting from my nose. I say “almost”, because I generally try to take care of all my fun party tricks at the same time, and so will often throw up while dealing with my nose. Funny story: last week I threw up the baked potato I ate for dinner, in the sink. Some of the potato didn’t go down the sink as much as I had hoped, and was actually stuck in the fancy drain stopper thing. Not only did it stop other things from going down the drain, it was collecting matter like nose blood and pieces of Martin. All that lovely stuff was starting to rot in the sink, which made things smell really bad .. which then made me throw up even more, when I discovered what the smell was! Haha! Anyway, due to my sore throat virus, my difficulty breathing, the overall lack of sleep I’m getting, the sore muscles from throwing up, and startling amount of blood loss, I’ve been working from home. If you really wanted to know why I wasn’t in the office, you could have just asked – I’m always very forthcoming with the disgusting details of my life. I probably would have made it a little less gross for you, but since you didn’t ask me directly and instead went to my boss and made me feel as though people perceive me as someone who doesn’t do any work because I can’t always be seen in three dimensions, you can have the whole story.

Today is my one year anniversary, too. Me and Martin are there in spirit.