The INQUIRER.net office, on Mola Street in Makati, is so near to where I live — a quick walk of two blocks — that I’ve never taken the option allowed by management, under certain conditions, to work from home.
Rain or shine, holiday or regular working day, I preferred the ritual of walking to the office and on the way grabbing some take-out food to eat at my work station as I started my 4 p.m.-to-1 a.m. shift.
From nearby stores, I would usually pick up any of the following — a dozen pork-shrimp siomai from Hen Lin or a Cheesy Beef Pinatubo from Jamaican Pattie or a spicy beef doner with cheese from Turks or a Baecon Ko burger from Frappe Connection or a two-piece fried chicken with Yangchao fried rice or panic canton from MarJim’s Chicken Corner — or in a rush, even some random items from 7-Eleven.
And after work, I would usually pop in at Z Bar, just a few blocks from the office, for few beers — that is, if I get off work before the 4 a.m. closing time. Otherwise, I would walk a few more blocks down Kamagong Street to Tapadera, a 24-hour watering hole (except on Saturdays and Sundays when it’s closed).
Anyway. I wasn’t trying to impress the bosses with my insistence on being at the office. I was merely avoiding the obvious domestic distractions, which for me were mainly a bed beckoning for me to take a nap, which could easily stretch out to two hours, and a guitar teasing me into trying out a song I had just learned from a YouTube tutorial as if the other internet click-bait distractions weren’t enough.
On the other hand, the office had some attractive amenities for keyboard-thumpers like me — free air-conditioning and a steady internet connection.
Then came this coronavirus pandemic, followed shortly by a lockdown on the entire island of Luzon — and a memo from HR directing the entire editorial department to work from home.
That certainly put to good use the MacBooks and iPhones that the office issued to everyone, especially for the reporters who still had to venture out into the field whenever necessary. Only this time, they would have to wear protective masks and carry special IDs issued by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Excuse me while I catch my breath. Saying the name of that government agency, even just in your head, feels like breathing through an N95 respirator, and it would probably cause an asthmatic to have a fit of apnea.
But back to working from home. I didn’t. At least not for the first week of the lockdown — or to use the official, breath-taking term, “enhanced community quarantine.”
I got permission from HR to keep working at the office simply because I didn’t have a laptop, simply because I didn’t think it would be necessary for me to ask for one.
So I went on the usual routine, sitting alone at my work station on the second floor, with just two guards downstairs, though occasionally someone from Radyo Inquirer would flit by.
When it became obvious to me that the lockdown would last longer than I hoped it would, and that there was really no sense in my going to the office, I requested the office for a laptop — which I got a day after I made the request.
So here I am 156 days later since the lockdown in Metro Manila started, holed up at home with the MacBook Air that the office issued, which has become my work, financial, and entertainment center — and it looks like it will remain that way for a few more months.
