I went into the office for the first time since March 16, 2020.  I know this to be true, because the desk calendar of daily dad jokes that I have, that’s the last date that was shown, and my my morning routine typically consisted of setting my coffee down, tearing away the prior day’s dad joke, turning it into a paper ninja star, and putting it into the spindle lid, as shown above.

The thing is, I left on the 16th with no intention of returning to the office for a while, because it was not long after the birth of #1, and I was going to flex some work from home in order to best be available as brand new parents.  Sure, I had an inkling of the news rapidly spreading around the world about how coronavirus was ravaging China, and initially finding their way stateside, but little did myself or anyone else really know or understand that the office was on the verge of indefinite closure on this particular day.

By the end of the week, the building was vastly shut down on account of the rapid spread of coronavirus throughout the country, and businesses and offices all across the world were doing the same thing.  In between learning how to be a dad for the first time, and trying to keep up with the new rhythm of the work day, I had to sign off and fill in numerous requisition forms for my reports to be taking their physical iMacs home with them, so that they could embark on the new world of working from home.

Frankly, this is no new story for just about anyone with an office job, and I’m stopping myself from reminiscing too much, because I’m trying to remind myself that I’ve got many other retroactive topics I want to brog about and a very finite amount of time in which I can do such.

Regardless, the plant pictured to the right, now that was one of the few things that actually worried about, at the office, when the world shut down.  It was but just a small succulent that was given to all employees at the door in promotion to spread awareness of the arrival of spring, and seeing as how I have a window cube, it was quite easy for me to put it on the sill, and see how long it would take before I would invariably end up neglecting it and it dying.

But succulents are some tough motherfuckers, and it persisted all through occasional watering droughts, time off, my wedding and honeymoon, and not only survived, but thrived.  What started out as a little nugget of a plant branched out into these lengthy, snakey vines, and to where I eventually put a little bit of effort into its general growth and development, like the tape-rubberband combo to help it stretch out and sun.

However, as pandemics do, 500+ days is too much to ask of any plant, and when I popped into the office for the first time in 556 days, the anticipation of what I’d see from my little succulent was answered, in a reddish, dead husk of a succulent, almost frozen in time, by virtue of never being molested at all during that stretch.

And with my biggest curiosity answered, I finished up doing what I came to the office for in the first place: removing all of my personal effects in an attempt to low-key clean out my desk, because I have no intention of ever coming back to this office again in my life, if things go my way.

But as many of my peers and co-workers have said to me, it was as they described – it was almost as if the entire floor were frozen in time, as if the calendar never moved on from March 16, 2020.  Calendars all around the floor were still in March, name plates of numerous people who have moved out or moved on are still in place, and lord only knows what’s living in the break room fridge at this point, but it was an interesting field trip all the same, and I’m glad that all my personal shit is out of there, but sad all the same, to see the fate of my determined little succulent friend.