Chapter 1
Chris Sherwin relaxed into an unusually low stress afternoon. The pace of his job can be outside of human capabilities for short sprints; at the beck and call of his laptop and his company cellphone shattering peace at 5am, or making dentist appointments awkward with the “Sorry, I have to take this” mentality that has become pervasive. Everyone nods, but everyone is still annoyed.
There are also the benefits of working remotely with no commute though; post pandemic has moved Software as a Service (Saas for the industry and those who hate techie, work from home jerks) mid management to a place where they basically work from home.
Chris has tried to explain to his friends who don’t work remotely, who have to get up at 6am as a nuclear operator on a 12 hr shift, or climb 40 stories to glaze windows, that it’s tough to be able to work from home with a laptop and a cell phone is challenging.
But had to face facts; he has it pretty good even when it doesn’t feel that way.
The pendulum has swung into a place of peace and satisfaction of a job well done today though. Client fires have been put out through hard work and diligence, waiting to be stoked on a Monday. Strained colleague relationships have been mended with MS Teams GIFs and friendly banter. They don’t replace the after-work beers or Monday morning donuts that “in house” relationships were built on before 2020.
But it will do.
Now Chris focuses on the things that he knows are important on a Wednesday. His kids, his wife, his fractured post pandemic friendships, his inability to call his parents more…and his abject failure to keep his house in a state of order that used to make him proud.
As he puts his to-do list in play in his head, sipping a cold beer, listening to 90’s hip-hop on Alexa and pretending that a workout should be his first priority before his son comes home from school…he’s blissfully unaware.
Unaware that his life is going to change in ways he can’t imagine. That people from his past will uproot his “could be better but not so bad” situation and unhinge his reality.
They’ve been watching. They have a plan. And his life will never be the same.
