The WFHpocalpyse Part 3: Remote Work One Year Later

The day and moment will be forever with me. Nine of my friends (all gay men) from New York City in a bookstore in Rhinebeck, NY, a small enclave about 90 minutes north of the city.

Each of us is an intellectual and iconoclast in our own way. Upon arriving at Oblong Books, we went off separately down the isles to find where our inquisitive minds would take us. It was, perhaps, telling and oddly foreboding in a way.

We were all there together as a matter of a group trip: Our friend Seth had planned this trip for us to celebrate his birthday weekend.

This day is one I remember not only because I happened to have immortalized the occasion on Instagram, but because it was the afternoon of March 14, 2020 in the Empire State. News alerts came through to everyone’s phone at once: Coronavirus was discovered in New York. Governor Cuomo had issued a state of emergency ordering everyone to stay-at-home.

The cognitive dissonance of the freedom we were experiencing on our trip jarred with the change our lives would face upon returning home.

Suddenly everyone was at home. All. The. Time.

I wrote in March 2020 about how the WeWork offices I was renting were paradoxically empty and yet “open.”