FRemember the shrieks and hugs in the arrivals hall, or the farewell to the ambulance with its lights and sirens blaring. To me, there's nothing more wholesome than watching two people who demographically don't need to know each other nail each other over lunch in the CBD. They don't recognize traffic and don't break eye contact. The bond is strong.
They are work wives.
Someone who gets it, someone who has seen you at your best and your worst, who knows your coffee order, notices every hairstyle, and knows your relationship with your parents more accurately than any therapist. Find someone who understands. Someone who will support you in your frustrations, someone who will make you bigger in front of others, someone who will have your back when you are not around, someone who will know everything that is bothering you.
By the end of one job, my wife and I had bonded over our trauma and were able to communicate non-verbally.
If your wife is sick at work, there will definitely be a garbage day. In fact, they are often the main factor in determining how a day, a meeting, or a professional challenge will go.
The value of the gender-neutral term “working wife” obviously cannot be overstated. Working wives see how we act when we're stressed, from the time we spend at work, the people we meet, and the way our frustrations accumulate. They are part of everything. They are office drama soldiers, they know what co-workers' voices sound like and have experienced the difficult co-workers that walk among us. Work wife is ready for battle.
What's the point of heated gossip when you have to explain each character's long-standing backstory and annoying snacking habits? The regular cast of your friends and family are not involved in Karen's downfall. It's a disadvantage for them.
Our colleagues witness our lives unfold every day. I remember seeing myself, a respectable civilian, dizzy and sweaty, constantly out of breath and drinking blue Powerade. The observant people found out I was pregnant before my friends and family did. My wife, who was working at the time, shielded me from any awkward questions and asked me all about my weaning journey when I returned to work. Looking back, I think it was very beneficial for my man's work wife.
But that's part of the bond between working wives, an intimacy that can't be replicated anywhere else.
Having a working wife is a thrill and a privilege. Not every workplace will give you that. One time I had to campaign for a colleague who I had decided would become my colleague. Unfortunately, I had a mutual friend come to our Christmas party and vouch for my character. It wasn't dignified, but it was worth it.
Modern corporate culture is patently ridiculous.
I try to imagine what “work” meant to me a few generations ago. I would have had to make my own food, slaughter my own chickens, and do it on a dirt floor with seven kids.
Our ancestors, who worked in the fields until they died of typhus, must have looked on in amazement at the prospect of working in an office with air conditioning, hot drinks, and swivel chairs.
Now we exchange gifs, write documents, do “deep research” and “meet spaces”. Send emails and reply to emails. Attempting to force Outlook to do our will fails. Sometimes it may seem like being a working wife is the most important accomplishment in a long-standing role. Connections in a world of alienation, emailing, and “coming back” are tangible and long-lasting.
If you're an office worker who can face the idea of work right now, chances are your working wife has everything to do with it.
