The writing is on the wall—in the inbox really—about returning to the office. July is when we'll start getting herded back. One day that will feel normal again—being in the cubicle jungle, that is. Packing myself into a car and commuting twice a day was never a thing I missed and I expect to not-miss it even more after returning to it.

Some time ago—who actually knows when, time is so slushy the past year or so—someone disagreed with me about the flexibility of returning to the office. I didn't and don't think that most companies will be flexible about it. First it will start with enticing employees back, and then it will move to threats. If you work in a place with a hierarchy, that's how it works. If you're not your own boss, you get told.

The upshot is that I'm on board with a return to eight hour days and no filling in free time here and there on nights and weekends. This infernal work computer sits in the home office as an uncasual reminder that work is never done.

I wonder what the long term memory of this strange interstitial work period will be like. Looking back now it's easily forgettable. Peaks and valleys. Long stretches of busyness and boredom. But then again: how many "normal" work days do I remember? Not that many. It's just some kind of averages feelings over time, with occasional memorable days—memorable moments, really, a day is a long time, a moment is all you can hope to capture in a memory.