A Year in Reading: J. Howard Rosier

Sometime back in February, I was lobbying one of my managers about transitioning to full-time remote. When I’m not gracing you with my meandering opinions, I copywrite for a small business-to-business firm in Evanston, which, coming from where I live on the South Side of Chicago, is something like going from Long Island to Manhattan every day. I’m sure people do it, but it’s excruciating. Considering that I write my home office off on my taxes, I’ve never considered working from home a hindrance, but the firm harbored a patrician conceit of employees “just working better at the office,” and held firm.

Then someone in our office building caught the novel coronavirus, which I had just read about in Bloomberg for work, and the CEO sent out a company-wide memo alerting staff that he was shutting down the office for 30 days. The end-of-March return date turned into the end of April, then May, then whenever there is a widespread vaccine available. And here I am: stumbled upon what I’d asked for in the first place through the bittersweet parameters of a pandemic.

My bar is stocked more than it would be under normal circumstances, and I get packages delivered for things that I’d rather pick up in person, but for the most part I’ve avoided all the crazes—sourdough baking, puzzles, gardening, and now Chess, apparently. (Shouts to ) On paper, I was primarily grateful for the time. Three hours round trip on the El every day was wearing on me more than I thought. Being at home would give me the opportunity to make some improvements on my apartment, or catch up on projects that I’d