The Home Office Battle

Themes: Comedy, Contemporary, Power, Reality, Rejection
Length: 2 Minutes
Gender: Male

The character, a man in his late 50s to 60s, stands frustrated in a makeshift home office setup at the dining table, using exaggerated gestures to emphasize his irritation and disbelief.

You know, I never thought I’d be fighting for territory in my own house. Thirty-five years of climbing the corporate ladder, and here I am, playing musical chairs with my wife over who gets the ‘good’ office. Her idea of a home office? A little nook by the window with her knitting and that blasted bird feeder she put up. Oh, but now? Now she’s running a ‘business,’ so she’s gotta have the room with the door that shuts. And I’m relegated to the dining table. She’s got her plants, her Zoom background all set up, and me? I’m sitting between last night’s leftovers and a half-finished jigsaw puzzle of the Grand Canyon. I swear, I’m on a conference call with the board, trying to present quarterly numbers, and in the background you hear, ‘Honey, can you reach the salt?’ Like I’m the waiter! You think they asked Steve Jobs for the salt when he was working from his garage? No, they didn’t. But here I am, trying to maintain my dignity while navigating around pot roasts and Wi-Fi dead zones. She says, ‘It’s fair because you get the dining room.’ Dining room? It’s not even a room, it’s an open-plan mess with echoes and bad acoustics! I’m running a department here, for crying out loud. But every day I get pushed out a little more. First it was the office, then the garage, and now I’m one misplaced printer away from the garden shed. And it’s not just the space. It’s the principle! I’m the one who’s been working for decades, and suddenly, just because her book club went virtual and she’s selling essential oils on Etsy, I’m the outsider in my own house.