My 58 Comics That Show Silly And Absurd Things I’ve Experienced Since Working From Home

I used to think “working from home” sounded like a luxurious perklike you’d float through the day sipping artisanal coffee while your inbox politely handled itself. Then reality arrived wearing yesterday’s sweatpants, asking if I could “just hop on a quick call,” and refusing to leave.

Somewhere between my third “You’re on mute” and my fiftieth trip to the kitchen to emotionally support a granola bar, I started drawing comics. Not because I’m brave, but because laughter is cheaper than replacing the laptop I almost launched into the backyard during a video meeting.

These 58 comics capture the tiny, ridiculous, very real moments that happen when your office shares a wall with your laundry and your coworkers live inside a calendar invite. If you’ve ever changed your Zoom background to “Clean Home” while standing in front of a pile of unfolded shirts, welcome. You’re among friends.

The Remote-Work Setup: Why Your Life Became a Sitcom

Remote and hybrid work didn’t just change where we workit changed how we behave. At home, your “commute” can be a 12-step journey from bed to desk, but your brain still expects a ritual. So you invent one: coffee, a deep sigh, and the daily ceremonial opening of 37 tabs you will “definitely organize later.”

The biggest twist? Work expanded to fill every crevice. Messages arrive at odd hours. Meetings multiply like gremlins after midnight. And because we’re all trying to prove we’re being “productive,” we sometimes perform productivity the way people perform happiness in holiday photos: with aggressive smiling and a hidden eye twitch.

Video calls add their own special sparkle. They’re convenient, sureuntil your face becomes a permanent on-screen roommate. Then you start monitoring your expressions like you’re auditioning for the role of “Engaged Professional #4.” Add nonstop pings, blurred backgrounds, and the occasional “my Wi-Fi is weird today,” and you get a workplace that’s efficient in theory, but gloriously chaotic in practice.

The 58 Comics

I organized these like a real workday: optimism in the morning, confusion by lunch, existentialism by 3 p.m., and a mysterious second wind at 9:47 p.m. (which is, coincidentally, when someone asks for “one last quick tweak”).

Morning Rituals: The Commute Is a Hallway, but the Drama Is Real (Comics 1–8)

1. Comic #1: I “arrive at the office” by opening my laptop like it’s a drawbridge to a castle I don’t want to defend.
2. Comic #2: My new morning traffic is stepping over a dog that’s asleep in the doorway like a furry speed bump with opinions.
3. Comic #3: I dress business on top, chaos on the bottom, and pray no one asks me to stand up for “a quick stretch.”
4. Comic #4: I make coffee, then immediately reheat it three times because my first meeting starts in 45 seconds and fear is a solvent.
5. Comic #5: I sit down to work and realize I forgot the most essential office supply: the will to live before 9 a.m.
6. Comic #6: My “commute playlist” is just me whispering, “Be normal,” while the toaster judges me from across the room.
7. Comic #7: I light a candle to create ambiance, which is a polite way of saying I’m masking the smell of last night’s regret.
8. Comic #8: I open my calendar and it hisses at me like a haunted book: meetings… meetings… meetings…

Meeting Theater: Where Everyone Is On Mute, but Somehow It’s Still Loud (Comics 9–20)

9. Comic #9: I join a call early and stare into the void while my microphone broadcasts my breathing like a true audio thriller.
10. Comic #10: Someone says, “Let’s give people two more minutes,” and those two minutes become a full philosophical era.
11. Comic #11: “Can everyone see my screen?” is the modern “Am I alive?” We ask it constantly and never feel sure.
12. Comic #12: I nod so much on video calls that I’m basically a dashboard bobblehead with student debt.
13. Comic #13: The meeting starts with 14 people saying hello one by one, like a roll call for a tiny, polite apocalypse.
14. Comic #14: My favorite colleague is the one who forgets they’re unmuted and accidentally lets us hear their soul leave their body.
15. Comic #15: Somebody’s camera is off and we all pretend it’s normal, even though it feels like negotiating with a shadow.
16. Comic #16: I’ve mastered the “thoughtful face,” but it mostly means I’m reading a grocery list off-screen.
17. Comic #17: When my Wi-Fi freezes, I remain smiling in a single framelike a Victorian portrait of forced optimism.
18. Comic #18: I say “Great point” while the point drifts away and sinks quietly into the ocean of tabs.
19. Comic #19: “Quick sync” is remote-work folklore. It’s a myth we tell new hires to make them believe in magic.
20. Comic #20: A meeting ends early and everyone panics, as if we’ve violated a sacred law of suffering.

Chat Apps and “Quick Questions”: Tiny Messages With the Force of a Meteor (Comics 21–28)

21. Comic #21: A teammate messages “Hi” and nothing else, then disappears like a suspenseful ghost in a hallway.
22. Comic #22: The phrase “quick question” always arrives attached to a question that requires three documents and a therapist.
23. Comic #23: I respond instantly to look responsive, then lose 20 minutes trying to remember what I was doing before the ping.
24. Comic #24: I mute notifications and immediately feel free, powerful, and absolutely certain I’m missing something catastrophic.
25. Comic #25: Someone reacts with a thumbs-up emoji and I spend the next hour wondering if it was supportive or passive-aggressive.
26. Comic #26: I write “Happy to help!” which is professional code for “I will help, but my spirit has filed a complaint.”
27. Comic #27: I post a question in a channel and watch it sink under 47 GIFs like a ship made of pure sincerity.
28. Comic #28: I mark myself “Away” to focus, and that’s when everyone discovers I exist.

The Home Office Zoo: Pets, Kids, Doorbells, and Other Surprise Co-Workers (Comics 29–38)

29. Comic #29: My cat schedules meetings by walking across my keyboard with the confidence of a senior executive.
30. Comic #30: My dog hears “deadline” and assumes I said “treat time,” proving at least one of us has healthy boundaries.
31. Comic #31: The doorbell rings exactly when I’m presenting, because the universe loves physical comedy.
32. Comic #32: My neighbor chooses lawn care during my call, so my audio sounds like I’m reporting live from a helicopter.
33. Comic #33: A delivery arrives and I whisper “thank you” to the porch like I’m in a heist movie.
34. Comic #34: I tell my family “I’m in a meeting,” and they hear, “Now is the perfect time to practice drums.”
35. Comic #35: My child appears on camera to ask a profound question: “Where are the snacks?”
36. Comic #36: I close a door for privacy, and suddenly every creature in the house needs to be on my side of it.
37. Comic #37: I say “Sorry about the background,” as if everyone can’t clearly see my laundry pile staging a coup.
38. Comic #38: I buy a better chair for “ergonomics” and my pet claims it immediately, like a hostile takeover with whiskers.

Food, Fitness, and Other Beautiful Lies (Comics 39–46)

39. Comic #39: I open the fridge for lunch and stare inside like it’s going to pitch me a well-funded startup idea.
40. Comic #40: My “healthy snack” is almonds. My “real snack” is standing in the kitchen eating shredded cheese like a raccoon.
41. Comic #41: I promise myself I’ll meal prep, then I prep a single cucumber and feel spiritually accomplished.
42. Comic #42: I take a “quick break” and somehow end up deep-cleaning one drawer like it’s my new career path.
43. Comic #43: I track my steps and realize most of them are just pacing while my email loads like it’s on a treadmill too.
44. Comic #44: My workout plan is “stand up once an hour,” but my meeting schedule says, “Absolutely not, athlete.”
45. Comic #45: I buy a standing desk and discover my legs are decorative, not functional.
46. Comic #46: I drink water responsibly all day and then forget to use the bathroom until I’m basically a water balloon with anxiety.

Boundaries, Burnout, and the Infinite Workday (Comics 47–54)

47. Comic #47: I “log off” and immediately remember one more tasklike a horror movie where the villain is unfinished formatting.
48. Comic #48: My laptop closes, but my brain keeps refreshing the inbox in the background like an unpaid app.
49. Comic #49: I take PTO and still check messages “just in case,” which is not rest; it’s freelance stress.
50. Comic #50: I schedule focus time, then accept a meeting over it, because apparently I’m my own workplace bully.
51. Comic #51: Every evening, I wonder why I’m tiredthen I remember I lived inside a screen for nine hours like a digital hamster.
52. Comic #52: I miss “leaving the office,” so I do a dramatic lap around the living room to simulate closure.
53. Comic #53: Someone sends a message at 8:57 p.m. and adds “no rush,” which my nervous system interprets as “run.”
54. Comic #54: I set boundaries and immediately feel guilty, because remote work turns “self-care” into a rebellious act.

Hybrid Plot Twists: When You Go Back In and Forget How Doors Work (Comics 55–58)

55. Comic #55: I return to the office and accidentally wave at strangers, because I’m used to greeting everyone in tiny squares.
56. Comic #56: I pack lunch like a responsible adult, then buy snacks anyway, because the office vending machine calls to my inner goblin.
57. Comic #57: I hear real footsteps behind me and almost mute myself out of instinct.
58. Comic #58: I sit in a conference room and miss the one remote perk I swore I hated: the ability to cry off-camera.

What These Comics Reveal (Besides My Need for a Vacation)

Under the jokes is a real pattern: remote work can be wildly efficient, but it can also quietly stretch the day until work becomes the atmosphere. That’s why so many teams are learning to treat attention like a scarce resource, not an unlimited subscription.

If your workplace is meeting-heavy, the fix usually isn’t “more hustle”it’s fewer interruptions and clearer expectations. In practice, that looks like cutting status meetings in half, making agendas mandatory, and using asynchronous updates when a live call isn’t truly necessary. The goal is simple: stop rewarding “always available” and start rewarding “actually finished.”

Then there’s the human side. Video calls can be emotionally draining, especially when you’re constantly monitoring your own face, reading reduced body language, and feeling the pressure of nonstop eye contact. Add in the physical realityawkward chairs, makeshift desks, and repetitive postureand your “home office” can turn into a low-grade endurance sport. A few small upgrades (screen height, chair support, micro-breaks, and lighting) can make a surprisingly big difference.

Finally, connection matters. Remote work can be lonely in sneaky ways: you’re “with” people all day and still feel like you haven’t actually talked to anyone. The cure isn’t forced fun. It’s intentional, low-pressure contactquick check-ins, real mentorship, and team norms that make it safe to be offline sometimes.

Extra Sketchbook Pages: 500 More Words of Work-From-Home Absurdity

By year three of working from home, I developed a new superpower: the ability to look busy while doing something that is not, technically, work. For example, I once spent an entire “quick break” researching the perfect desk lamp. Not because I needed lightbecause I needed control. If I couldn’t control the project timeline, I could at least control whether my keyboard looked like it belonged in a Scandinavian catalog.

I also discovered that my home has “conference room acoustics” in the weirdest places. The bathroom? Echo chamber. The closet? Professional podcast studio. The kitchen? A stadium, apparently, where every spoon drop sounds like a cymbal crash. So when a surprise call hits, I roam my own house like a sound engineer with anxiety, searching for the one corner where I won’t sound like I’m speaking from inside a washing machine.

My relationship with time changed, too. In an office, lunch is an event. At home, lunch is a rumor. Sometimes it’s 2:40 p.m. and I realize I’ve been running on coffee, momentum, and the last three jellybeans from a holiday jar I refuse to throw away. Other days I “take a real lunch” and accidentally watch cooking videos until I’m emotionally attached to a sourdough starter I don’t own.

Then there’s the wardrobe spiral. Working from home taught me that clothing is partly for the people around you and partly for your own brain. If I wear pajamas, my brain writes poetry about naps. If I wear shoes, my brain sits up straighter, like it’s trying to impress HR. I once wore a blazer to answer emails just to see what would happen. What happened was: I felt powerful for 11 minutes, then I got hot and remembered I’m a mammal.

And let’s talk about the new etiquette. On video calls, you can’t do normal human overlap. You either interrupt like a villain or stay silent like a statue. So everyone does that little “No, you gosorrygo aheadoh wait” dance until the conversation collapses into polite chaos. Somewhere in there, someone’s child asks for a snack, someone’s dog barks at capitalism, and someone’s Wi-Fi turns them into a glitchy Impressionist painting. It’s absurd, yesbut it’s also oddly comforting. Because even when we’re separated by screens, we’re still unmistakably, hilariously human.

Conclusion

Working from home is a strange mashup of freedom and friction: fewer commutes, more flexibility, and a daily battle against distractions that have names, paws, doorbells, and opinions. These 58 comics are my way of admitting that remote work isn’t perfectbut it’s endlessly relatable. If you laughed, it’s probably because you’ve lived it too.