Going to the Office (or The Long and Winding Road, Part II)

I just arrived home from a whirlwind trip up to my company and back. I say “whirlwind,” because our offices are located a 3 ½-hour drive from my house (often known to take five hours when the gods decide this is a perfect opportunity to see how I’m doing on the patience front, devising all kinds of assessment tools, from endless miles of road construction, to freaky snowstorms in early April, to summertime motorcycle rallies). I left last night, and came home this evening. Some of my more intrepid colleagues have been known to make basically this same trip back and forth in one day, in order to meet with those at our sister company. (Did I ever mention I’m in awe of some of my colleagues?) I don’t typically make the trip unless I can spend at least two nights there, but this was for a special event.

I have to admit that by the time I get home from a trip like this, I’m not looking too favorably upon this whole telecommuting business. On the way up, I’m wishing I lived a little closer. By the time I walk back through the door of my house, I’m eyeing it with the intent to sell. I’m ready to call my boss and say, “Okay, time to make some room for me in the office.” But then I start worrying that Bob will never be able to get a job if I do that, and we didn’t just spend three years schooling him in order for him to hang out doing nothing.

Thus my thoughts turn to wondering how quickly a good psychologist could get me over my fear of piloting a small aircraft. Meanwhile, I’m wondering who we can get to donate money to the cause, so we can afford the lessons and the plane. Years ago, I dated a guy whose children lived a three-hours’ drive from his house. He’d gotten so sick of the drive, he’d taken up flying lessons, so he could fly himself down and back. I used to think he was being a big baby. If we had parted more amicably, I’d have called him up the minute I got home tonight and apologized by saying “goo-goo” and crying into the telephone.

However, it’s now been close to two hours since I got home, and I can already tell I’m beginning to lose my baby fat. That drive wasn’t so bad. (I don’t have to get up and shower and get out of the house tomorrow morning. All I have to do is throw on some shorts and a tank top and get to work.) That drive gave me lots of time to think. (I don’t have to fight holiday traffic coming home from work tomorrow, as I’ll already be home when the office closes.) That drive allowed me to spend really good, intense, quality-time with my colleagues. (I can sit out on the deck with my work tomorrow, since it’s supposed to be a nice day.)

At this rate, maybe I’ll have reached the pre-teen years by my next trip and will just be thinking about personal chauffeurs rather than personal airplanes.