A Day of Working from Home (A True Story)

The stark white walls that will never change unless someone throws paint at them every day.
The gray futon that sees frequent use of a towel blanket due to the recent temperature fluctuations.
And, right in front of me, a black screen and two PCs.

I spend almost every day in this chair. For over a year now.

Underneath the main monitor, which takes up the largest portion of my desk, there is a small calendar.
If you look closely, you'll see that the Google calendar doesn't list holidays, so I forget when I have time off. Holidays are in red. One of the few splashes of color on my desk.

And next to it, the only cute items among the sparse belongings: a small coffee-colored cat figure that came out of a gachapon machine in Akihabara, and a golden IT information safety amulet I received at Kanda Myojin Shrine.

In my daily life of facing data, the thing I pray for every day is, "Please, let me not make any input errors," a request on the level of "you should be able to handle that yourself."

Since I'll handle it myself, I offer a prayer to this amulet every day, asking God to protect me in the end.

Yes. When humans have struggled to the very end, they turn to God.
Working as a systems engineer, I've come to realize the truth that you can trust computers, you can trust systems, but the least trustworthy thing of all is a human.

Long live the computer. The human brain is the one thing you should never trust.

Computers cover for most mistakes.
Even so, humans still make all kinds of mistakes, from the very low-level to the quite high-level.
Even God would give up on this, wouldn't He?

Now, it's time I gave you an explanation.
I am someone who has been working from home for over a year.

So, I want you to imagine.

The only time I see and talk to people from work is for one hour on Monday morning.

The rest of the time, you might think I'm silently and diligently working at my keyboard, but I'm actually slacking off here and there, scrolling through social media at high speed.

When necessary, I hit the keyboard; otherwise, I stare blankly at my smartphone, and if something comes up, I'm glued to the screen again.

I take my one-hour lunch break starting exactly at 12:00.
I munch on leftovers from dinner, and as a final act of resistance, I don't look at my phone. If I don't do that, my eyes get tired and are completely dead by the evening.

And then I sit in my chair until 5:30.
When necessary, I hit the keyboard, stare down the screen, and in my free time, my social media browsing session begins.

Yes. Could you imagine it?

During this time, I don't speak to anyone even once. I don't move from my chair either.

Reading about this situation, what did you, the reader, think?

"I couldn't stand that"?
"That's impossible. It's bad for your body if you don't move more"?

Well, you see. You get used to it.

On social media, videos about chiropractic care and body alignment often scroll by at high speed.
Seeing them, I think, "Oh, I have to move!"
The birth of a suspicious person wiggling, squirming, and stretching on a chair.
"Phew, I moved."

My back stretches out. Because I had been slouching until now.
My shoulders feel lighter. Because I had been ignoring my stiff shoulders until now.

Ten minutes later, it's as if I pressed Ctrl+Z, and my body has returned to exactly how it was before.

I continue this for five days, take a two-day break, and then start it all over again.

I wonder if my outline is melting away.

The loneliness of being cut off from the world, the act of basking in sunlight which is necessary for a living being, and eight hours without conversation.

I can endure this. I don't feel lonely, nor do I feel it's painful. I don't feel anything at all.

As such, I wonder if I truly possess a proper outline as a human being.
When I ask myself that, it sounds philosophical, but I think it's because I can only ever be "me".

Someone else might not be able to endure it. But "I" can endure it.

Someday, I might break my body. If so, I should just act more "proactively".

Yes, living like this, for the first time in my life, I have become able to spend time for the sake of my body.

I won't push myself. I won't do anything reckless.

If my body raises its voice to say something is wrong, that is something to be treated and something to be cared for.

If it were back in those days when I commuted by train, I would have ignored my body's abnormalities.

Every day, being swayed in a crowded train, having my body and mind crushed, getting to work was the priority.
Diving headfirst into work and becoming a workaholic who worships the computer was the most important thing.

The time I gained in exchange for that is what I have now.

If I had to say what has had the biggest impact, it would be that I stopped talking to people.
I don't know my boss's hobbies. I don't even really remember my colleagues' faces because I've never actually met them.

However, I do know the personality of my boss's cat.

It is a cat to be worshipped—a spoiled, self-centered creature that commits 'cat harassment'.

Nevertheless, I don't find not talking to people to be painful.

Please don't misunderstand; it's not that I dislike conversation, but rather, I am the type of person who likes to talk.

I like it when conversations get lively, and I like to liven them up.

Perhaps what makes me different from others is that no matter how much I'm enjoying myself, I'm always conscious of the brain memory and energy required to "have a conversation".

For someone who has always been conscious of that, this remote work without conversation really suits my nature.

Even if my outline has melted away, this is the place where I realized I can only ever be me.
Here, I have an environment where I can be myself and manage myself better than ever before.

This is the true record of my work-from-home life.