I got thinking about the office last night as I was mindlessly scrolling my city's subreddit. "What's your favourite burger in this city?" Spectral reader, people in this town love their burgers. And they have Opinions.
The answers varied from the gourmet ($15 for a fancy burger from one of the microbreweries) to the sloppy. We've got a thing here called fatboys - thinner patties, covered in chili, lettuce, tomato, raw onion, the buns heavily mayo'd. This style's my favourite, though without the tomato. There's a little burger shack downtown by the train station, was (or is?) cash only, and if you loudly tip the tip jar, you'll get more fries scooped into your bag than you could possibly eat. I haven't been there in years. And last night, I got to missing it, especially that hint of curry in the chili. My heart's fighting my arteries just thinking about it.
And this started me thinking about all the years I'd worked downtown, which, prior to the pandemic and remote work, was 14, across two jobs, and by my rough count, five different offices. The city's downtown itself is nothing special, though the city would tell you otherwise, always trying to revitalize it in various ways and fight the migration to the suburbs that has been going on for many decades. But I've been blessed to work with so many good people, something I've been thinking about this morning as I make coffee for me and my partner. All the coffee-talk in office kitchens. Projects. Bullshitting. And people's own customs and idiosyncracies, like those of N., my Belarussian former co-worker, who made herself Russian coffee while others wasted K-cup after K-cup. Start with grinds in a glass. Boiling water. Stir it. Let it sit a few minutes.
I've never tried this directly. The closest I get is with my moka pot, filling the bottom with water, then the coffee chamber (I use medium grind, rather than the fine Lavazza stuff you get at the grocery store), letting it boil on the stove, then taking it off. The filtration doesn't catch the finest grounds. Pour it; let it sit a minute. When you drink, the last little bit of coffee is for the cup, not you.
So what do I miss about working from home? The truth is, both a lot, and little. The small things matter, and always will; but, it turns out, getting 1.5 to 2 hours of your day back overrides any pull of nostalgia for those same small things. As nice as they were. As nice as they are.