Returning To The Office

Before our son arrived I had sat down with some of the people at work and we put a plan together as to how many days I would be taking off and how long I would be out of the office. Well, that plan didn’t fit neatly into the schedule that we all had in mind. However, the basic timeline that we had come up with worked out pretty well when the early arrival happened.

For the past week and a half I have been getting up I the morning, sitting at the kitchen table, and doing my best to get all the work done that I would normally take care of at the office. Occasionally I would step away from the computer to change the baby or go to CVS and pick up some essentials absent from our home. It may not have been the most efficient means to get work done but it was completely manageable and I was able to both spend some time with my wife and son and catch up on a few things that needed to get taken care of. The commute was pretty good too.

After two weeks away from the office, I got in my car in the early morning and drove the 40 minutes down the highway. It was both difficult to leave my family and a welcomed return to my routine. However, it didn’t take long before I noticed just how different things were from the time I walked out the door in the middle of the last month. In addition to the many conversations with colleagues and requests for more pictures, I noticed the photo above when I walked into the kitchen to make my first cup of coffee.

I had completed the trifecta of children posted on the fridge over the past year with two of my colleagues posting pictures of their sons when they were born last year. Three men from the office had three sons… the women have a lot of catching up to do. It has almost become a tradition now to post the photos of the new additions to the work family.

Thankfully, I was able to enjoy the moments of coming back to the office after such a long time away and soon found myself getting back into my routine. It was also nice to be around people, around friends, rather than being limited to conversations over the phone. But while it was great to be back it didn’t take long before I was looking forward to going home and holding my son. Yes, things have changed quite a bit.