The best water cooler banter

James Clements
Published: June 22, 2008

I’m extremely fortunate to work for an organization that both allows me to telecommute a few days a week, and provides me with an office environment in Washington, D.C., on the days I make the trek.

As much as it might sound appealing to never have to get in the car, or even get dressed if you don’t feel like it, I appreciate the in-person comradery you can’t get from an Instant Message or a conference call. And it’s a great chance to discover how different circumstances can affect lives both — inside and outside the office — so differently.

On one of those days in the office, as co-workers are sometimes bound to do, the time-wasting water cooler banter turned a little more personal. This time I was the target, as my officemates laid out a litany that was supposed to convince me of how terrible my life must be:

Did I realize what a mistake I’d made in moving to Culpeper? How $4, and climbing, gas prices were going to bankrupt me? How the VRE takes longer than it should to get me from Washington to Manassas and any delays or cancellations must make it that much worse?

And, of course, there were the usual questions — the ones I’m sure many of you are also tired of answering:

“What time do you have to get up in the morning?”

“You drive how long just to get to a train?”

“You add five hours to your day just getting in and out of the office?”

But then the big one came. The uppercut. The unspoken elephant that’s been standing in the corner of my brain for months now until finally a co-worker shined the light on it:

“Don’t you know you’re stuck there now? You couldn’t sell your house and move back up here if you wanted to. Who’s buying that far away?”

I couldn’t say anything. He was half right. It’s true that a slowing economy and the increasing costs of everything make it seem unlikely that anyone looking to sell their home in Culpeper and move closer to D.C. will have much luck. (Of course, for some of us, it was inability to find an affordable house close to D.C. that made Culpeper appeal to us in the first place.)

But he was also half wrong. I may not be going anywhere any time soon, but I’m not “stuck” in Culpeper. What he mistakenly sees as inertia are in reality roots.
Last week I commented on how easy it is to give up something you can’t get anyway. Well, a similar logic applies in this case: Does it matter how quickly you can move if you’re happy right where you are?

One of the guys giving me such a hard time lives in Washington with his wife and two children. He comes into the office every day and sometimes works late at a dinner or reception. I wondered which of us was really better off.

Sure, I may live in the “boonies” and I may spend more time in trains and my car than I’d like, but I get to eat lunch with my wife and son more days than not each week.
And I get to live in the kind of place that Washingtonians can’t wait to get out of town on the weekends to visit.

Am I luckier than most of those who make the commute every day? I would think so. But many who live where they work find themselves in the same boat of early-to-the-office and late-to-get-home.

I consider myself lucky because I can work from home and share in an office. But I consider myself blessed because I have something many fathers don’t get: the chance to steal time in the middle of the day chatting at the water cooler with my son.

Note: I’d like to wish a belated Happy Father’s Day to all of you. And also to mourn the death of Tim Russert, who may have achieved fame through his work covering Washington politics, but who touched many more lives through his writing on what it means to be a son and a father.

James Clements is a Culpeper resident and independent columnist who appears each Monday. E-mail