A Hermit No More

I've been working from home for about five years now. The job I'm doing now will no longer be needed within the foreseeable future, so I'm transferring to another department. This also means I'll be physically going into the office on a daily basis.

This is still about a month off, and could fall through at any moment, but I'm trying to prepare mentally and physically. For example, this job will be more hands on, so I'm brushing up on a few programming languages that I've neglected over the past year.

There's a few other items on my To Do List:

Daily showers will now be a must, unless I don't want to make friends. You see, working from home means shuffling downstairs, stopping by the kitchen for a cuppa joe, then flopping down in front of the laptop in jammies and bunny slippers. Showers were optional.

New clothing will be need to be purchased, because most of my old wardrobe doesn't fit anymore. This is mainly due to the fact that my home office is right next to the kitchen, and my work uniform is usually a sweat suit. Unfortunately, elasticated pants don't warn you when you've put on a few pounds.

On a positive note, going back into the office may result in weight loss, since I won't have the convenience of working next to where the hot pockets live.

When you live like a hermit for five years, sometimes you forget how to behave around people. For instance, at home, there's no one to share your bodily noises with. At the office, there's a sort of Murphy's Law where this is concerned: Even if no one has visited you all day, or even if it's the day after a holiday and no one's in the building, the moment you silently fart, someone will walk into your cube. See also: rumbling intestines during a meeting in a quiet conference room.

I should probably stock up on the zinc and echinacea, and get a flu shot. I figure by now I've no resistance whatsoever, and germs will feast on my brains.