It’s been eight weeks since I set foot in my beige, corporate jail cell. On Friday, August 25, my colleagues and I left our building as usual, laptops in tow with perhaps a few extra office items that would allow us to work remotely from home for a couple of days the following week: Hurricane Harvey was expected to make landfall the following day, making its way north toward Houston by Saturday night, reducing to a slow moving tropical storm.
You likely saw consequences of the storm on TV. My own house, which is maybe 150 yards from one of the bayous that floods my neighborhood regularly, was spared. My wife and I walked over to the bayou during the height of the storm and watched a Coast Guard helicopter plucking people from an apartment complex a couple hundred yards away. By some stroke of luck, I bought a very reasonably priced house on the highest street in the neighborhood about 20 years ago. My only consequence has been survivor guilt as I watch neighbors repeatedly pile their ruined belongings on the curb.
As for my 14-story office building, it too is next to a different bayou, and the normally placid stream turned into a swollen river that day – and stayed that way for a couple of weeks. Water poured into the basements in multiple buildings across the corporate campus. Everything on the first floors was scrapped. Elevator equipment, generators, computer storage rooms and more trashed. The buildings have not had power in weeks and are sealed off to everyone but the army of contractors hired to rip out the ruined and start replacing. The current prediction is we will return to our building sometime next month (booo), but I have my doubts.
I have to hand it to my company for assigning virtually everyone a laptop with the requirement that we haul them home nightly. It’s part of our business continuity plan (BCP). And it’s working … so well that we are being held up as a BCP model for other parts of our global company.
Now I’m not one to revel in destruction, but I do admit to enjoying one side effect: working from home. It’s like a mini-sabbatical. No commute. No annoying co-workers. No dress code. I view it as a preview of my retirement (now officially less than 2 years away!!). I’m not usually that busy, so I’ve had ample time to channel my downtime into nonproductive pursuits. Like binge-watching Breaking Bad. Or prepping my sailboat for a weekend cruise. Or building my wife’s Halloween costume. And I’m loving it!!
At any rate, the past 8 weeks have really flown by. As an additional bonus, the humid Houston weather has finally given way to fall. It’s dry and cool out, so I open the windows and let the breeze blow through. I rarely drive my car. Except for my sailing trip, I’ve only filled my car’s 13-gallon tank once since the hurricane. My wife is pleased with her stay-at-home hubby because I empty the dishwasher, am home to deal with the plumber, keep the trash and compost managed, etc. Yes, it will soon come to an end, but it’s a wonderful carrot to dangle in front of me and keep me motivated for the next 23 months.