There is another downside you don’t realize until you transition back into the working world. It was so subtle, I didn’t fully grasp it for a year.

Working at home makes you weirdly disconnected from other’s reality.

Because you have a lot more freedom, you get used to structuring your day to avoid annoyances. You don’t sit in traffic. You don’t go to the grocery store at dinner time. If you are sick, you don’t force yourself to go out in public. Other people accept these things as inevitable. You question why they do.

Because don’t commute, don’t have to pack a lunch, don’t have to “dress for success", you realize those employed outside the home spend about two hours a day uncompensated in support of their job. You know that no one would have to work more than 6 hours a day. And the financial cost of supporting a job is staggering. Your wardrobe dwindles to comfortable clothes and one outfit for meetings. Your diet is much healthier. Don’t even get me started about using the bathroom whenever the need strikes.

When you return to corporate America, you find yourself pointing out the absurdity of what workers endure. You begin to see that most jobs are just modern slavery. But your coworkers don’t recognize their prison.

And they certainly don’t want you pointing it out.