THE ONLY BLACK GUY IN THE OFFICE

Some Nonnegotiable Rules for Reopening the Office

Demands? Nah. But if you want me back at a desk, call them ‘action items.’

The Only Black Guy In the Office
LEVEL
Published in
4 min readNov 3, 2020

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Illustration: Michael Kennedy

Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.

Like many of us, I initially expected the shift to mass remote work to be a short-lived adjustment — four to six weeks of working from home, just enough time to make an office return feel refreshing. Now, almost eight months later, it’s hard to imagine ever going back.

The thought of commuting to work again hadn’t even crossed my mind until my company’s leadership sent an email to the staff announcing that they were working on the decision of when to reopen the office in 2021. The planning seems premature, if you ask me, especially with Covid-19 cases spiking all over again (and this time pretty much everywhere). The suits are thinking two or three quarters ahead, which I get; I just hope they’re thinking realistically about the future of office life because some serious shit gotta change if they hope to see me IRL.

I used to love a catered lunch — one of the great perks of modern corporate culture. Now, the last…

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The Only Black Guy In the Office
The Only Black Guy In the Office

Written by The Only Black Guy In the Office

Do you know him? Is it you? The trials and tribulations of a Black man navigating corporate life.