Real life: “I pretend to have complaints so I don't have to go to the office”

Desiree (26) has a full-time job and lives in Utrecht. She mainly works from home, although she is about the only one who does that in the office.

“We don't have a gigantic team at the office, just twelve people. Before corona, I always enjoyed going to the office. Of course, I had my off days too, but it was always very pleasant there and the Friday afternoon drinks were the highlight of the week for everyone. A few colleagues have really become friends of mine, which makes going to work even more enjoyable.”.

But then corona came... And my boss is already a bit of an odd character, during this pandemic she has shown her strangest side, in my opinion. She thinks corona is all exaggerated and all the measures are over the top. So when everyone was working from home, we had to come to the office. We didn't work from home for a single day. She simply wouldn't allow it. In fact: on May 5th — a national holiday — we still had to work. The parties weren't going to happen anyway, she said, so we didn't really need a day off.

No one dared to oppose her, not even me, so we all sat in the office while the whole of the Netherlands had a day off. We're all used to these kinds of strange actions from her and we accept it: I have a very nice job, a good salary, and I'm really lucky with my colleagues. They all see it that way too. Okay, we had a bit of bad luck with the boss, but we just accept that.

But the last two months, I've actually had quite enough. Everyone around me is working from home, I'm literally the only one who has to report to the office every morning. I just don't feel like it anymore. My friends can easily meet up and have drinks during the week — working hungover doesn't matter. They don't even have to get out of their pajamas if they don't want to.

Eventually, I brought it up with my boss that I didn't feel comfortable working in the office anymore. In a way, that's really true: I believe we should adhere to the measures, and they are clear. Working from home when possible, and that is easily done in my job. But she didn't want to hear anything about it. All staff had to come to the office.

So the week after, I told her I had complaints. Fever, cold, the standard symptoms. I felt perfectly fine, but she didn't need to know that. I worked from home for a week and I enjoyed it so much. So much more relaxed and in terms of productivity, it didn't make any difference.

But after a week, she wanted me to get tested. Then I said it was so busy with all the tests that I could only get an appointment in three days... And that I would only get the result two days after that. Saying I had corona seemed a bit too far, so I said the result was negative. The Monday after, I said I had to quarantine for ten days because my roommate had contracted the virus.

It sounds really sad, but by now I'm a bit out of excuses. That my mother is in the risk group (which is really true), they don't consider a good excuse at work. And it's starting to stand out that a lot of people in my surroundings have corona, and that I keep coming into contact with them.

I really just don't want to work in the office anymore. But do I have to quit my job, which I really enjoy? To be honest, I think my boss is being completely unreasonable, but unfortunately, I don't see that changing anytime soon. I don't feel guilty at all. I just need to figure out how to handle it so I don't have to go to the office anymore.”

In this unusual time, we asked people to share their honest story. To avoid hurting others, the name of Desiree has been changed.