Working from Home Doesn’t Mean Being Alone (But It Does for Me)

When I began working at Northwestern University during the summer of 2023, I was told I could work from home. I didn’t want to. I knew most of my coworkers worked from home at least part of the time and I worried that I was less mature because I didn’t want that much isolation. I didn’t know how wrong my understanding was.

I’m a natural introvert who recharges in solitude. For the vast majority of the past 30 years (I’m 58 years old), I’ve been on my own and this has mostly felt ideal.

The pandemic changed that. I had too much isolation, too much solitude. When we were told to celebrate the 2020 holidays just with those in our household, I cried a lot. Now I don’t like being alone so much. I’m not a pet person and only recently made the commitment to try to keep a rosemary plant alive (it’s not going very well).

After freelancing for 10 years, I took the Northwestern job in part, to stop being alone all day in my apartment. But for the past year at my new job, I’ve been surrounded by empty cubicles a lot of the time because many people can do their work at home. Coming to the office seems like a chore to them, a sacrifice. So, for most of the past year I’ve imagined them all at home, focusing on their work with no distractions, content in their solitude. I thought they were more mature…