Working from home, at least for those who are fortunate enough to do so, isn’t all bad. Trading workwear for loungewear, ditching the commute, and making home lunches are a few immediate perks, though they’re tempered by many setbacks: Zoom fatigue, Wi-Fi troubles, interrupting pets and kids, and a lack of creative energy from working in isolation. The jury is still out on the “effectiveness” of full-time remote labor, and while there have been more “think pieces” about the future of work than we care to debate, consider the water-cooler effect. Those offhand moments, breaks, and on-the-fly conversations that casually take place away from the desk now seem nearly impossible to foster over a scheduled video chat.

The Kids, a creative agency based in Zurich, are not all right with this. The firm’s interactive online project I Miss the Office serves as a cheeky reminder of pre-Covid-19 life that simulates the mundane soundscape of an everyday workplace—the smack of an obnoxious gum chewer, the occasional sneeze, an unidentifiable hum, the click-clack of hands tapping away at a keyboard—which you can “multiply” by adding more virtual co-workers into the mix. In retrospect, the small annoyances that would’ve rattled us in pre-pandemic times now seem quaint and petty, even comforting. The website is no office-hallway chit-chat, but serves as an amusing reminder of collegiality that comes from IRL interaction.