– Opinion –
We have been hostages for 33 whole days now and there are things I am really starting to miss about the office. Like my office chair for instance, with its cute little wheels that roll around and the sexy adjustable armrests. My home office chair is not quite the same. In fact I have a sneaky suspicion that Jan van Riebeeck brought it with him when he landed at the Cape back in 1652. It’s bulky and by the time lockdown is over I am going to require the services of both a chiropractor and a physio to return my back to its former self!
I also miss being able to make an effort and dress up and wear make up and stuff to go see clients. Back in January in BC (Before Corona) days, I found four cute little frocks on a local online shopping site – all for around R100 each. Now I don’t know about you, but I am the queen of bargain hunting. Whenever I look at really pretty but really expensive dresses, my bank account laughs out loud at me and tells me to go redo my homework! My problem now is that I have barely worn these cute little poppets and now I have to pack them away until spring because Frosty the Snowman and a few of his sidekicks all arrived in Gauteng yesterday at a serious speed. So now it’s time to dig out the winter woolies.
I miss my colleagues too, and the banter that goes on in our open-plan office. On average, it takes a conversation among us about 3.4 seconds to end up in the gutter. We are really good like that. We once made a concerted effort to clean up our language in the office and started a swear jar. Took us about three hours and thirty seven minutes to fill it!
I also miss our bar days – you know those ones where you discover that the quiet person from IT is actually a singer in a local band and that the shy little intern from marketing is actually a closet belly dancer. I don’t, however, miss the rap music that often gets played on bar days. I am all for freedom of choice and stuff, but four back-to-back rap songs and I am ready to give myself an appendectomy without an anesthetic! Heck – I would even condone a man bun first!
So I don’t really miss all the meetings – especially those ones that could have been an email. But they are still less painful than Skype meetings, which require at least three Valiums and a shot of neat vodka to survive! I would even be happy to sing karaoke at our next bar day just for the opportunity to have a real face-to-face meeting with my colleagues again! Heck I would be so excited that I might even bake one of my famous lemon meringue pies to take in!
The struggle is real I tell you!
Missed some of the other Corona Chronicles? Check them out here:
Corona Chronicles: Witty Joburg resident documents past five days of social distancing
Corona Chronicles: Lockdown makes Joburger confront gridlocked passage and a lipstick dilemma
Corona Chonicles: Are mops considered an ‘essential’ item?
Corona Chronicles: Chicken or beef?
Corona Chronicles: Worry over wine stock after husband accidentally breaks three bottles
Corona Chronicles: All dressed up and off to the shops she goes
Corona Chronicles: Does reading a book and drinking a gin while lying in the sun count as housework?
Corona Chronicles: Lockdown’s become a puzzle
Corona Chronicles: New dress sense during lockdown
Corona Chronicles: How to manage household chores during lockdown
Corona Chronicles: Attempt to re-create Mozambican holiday doesn’t go to plan
Corona Chronicles: Lockdown eating habits
Corona Chronicles: Thank goodness of homemade pizzas and braais that work
Corona Chronicles: A plan to overcome ‘cleaning envy’
Corona Chronicles: A recipe for every occasion
Corona Chronicles: Time to nail it
Corona Chronicles: Ready to throw an ‘end-of-Skype-meetings’ party at the end of lockdown
Corona Chronicles: Raise the bar
Corona Chronicles: Banana bread: The apparent law of lockdown and other baking stories
Corona Chronicles: Chained to the washing machine
Corona Chronicles: A whole lot of sole in Tracy Schloesser’s wardrobe
Corona Chronicles: Completing the Comrades Marathon … in the garden
Corona Chronicles: Broken nails and dreaming of trips the the salon
Corona Chronicles: Raise the flag(s)
Corona Chronicles: Lockdown baking, exercising and a supply of too many Vienna sausages



