You refresh your email for the fourth time in ten minutes. Nothing new. The Slack channel sits quiet. Your video call doesn't start for another hour. You stand up without deciding to stand up, walk to the kitchen without really planning to go there, and open the cupboard before you even register feeling hungry.
This is the third time today.
Nobody saw you do it. Not your manager on the other side of the country. Not your coworkers scattered across time zones. Just you and the laptop screen still glowing in the other room, cursor blinking on a half-finished report you'll get back to in a minute.
Remote work was supposed to give you freedom. What it actually gave you was constant proximity to food with absolutely nobody watching except the part of yourself that quietly counts.