I do have to say that overall, I love working from home. But the only downside is that since our Command Center is technically open 24/7, if you are lucky enough to get a shift on/around a holiday, it is suuuuuuuuper boring and dead. While I'm not in the call queue today since I was also lucky enough to get assigned several "house keeping" tasks, I'm essentially just sitting here sipping coffee and watching random stuff online. I don't have Telegram or Discord open in the off chance I have to call a co-worker on Teams for something, I don't need my PC binging all over the place while I'm trying to help them with something, nor do I, if I have to share my screen, want to have furry messages popping up on my screen. While I have a feeling several of my co-workers are furries, I tend to keep my work life and private life apart as I don't feel like explaining the who's and why's of being in the fandom to people, as it often brings unwanted stress and anxiety, and to be honest, its just none of their damn business. I'm at work to do my job and pay my bills, not really looking for friends to be quite honest. Especially since most of the people in my department are about 10 years younger then me, or 10 years older then me. Honestly, I'm just looking forward to my lunch break, since its an hour, I can go take a little power nap if I want, or lay on my couch and watch TV. I have to admit, the whole working from home culture is really the thing I am most thankful for this year. When I was running the liquor store, I pretty much lived there, constantly working 6 days a week, and since I was the manager I was never really off work. I always had the chance of someone calling me to ask where something was or how to do something, or how to fix a mistake they made, and to be honest, while my boss was the best I ever had, it was just not worth what I was being paid, plus the stress was destroying my health, both physically and mentally. Towards the end of my time there, I would wake up and absolutely dread going to work because I knew the stress was going to be constant the entire time and wouldn't stop until I was back home again at the end of my shift. Not only that, working during COVID got really old really quick. People are stupid, and every day it was fighting with customers about wearing masks or social distancing, or breaking up fights between customers because they would squabble over stupid shit, I called the cops multiple times because of that crap and to be honest, I DO NOT MISS IT!

Now the only people I see are my mate, and my 2 cats and after spending over a decade in the retail/food service industry, that is perfectly fine with me. If I go out, its because I choose to and I am going to do what I want, not because I HAVE too. It makes me feel like I'm a lot more in control of my life and that has done wonders for my stress level and mental health.