There are some indisputable facts; women belong in all places where decisions are being made; Outlook needs to stop moving the search bar and my generation should not be working fulltime in isolated environments. When I first started my fulltime job, I was ecstatic with the idea that occasionally I could crawl out of bed and spend my day working in pajamas. Because I spent much of my first year crammed in a small windowless room, I looked forward to my remote days. When I started travelling fulltime, Fridays at home were an even more welcome treat after many hours flying across country (but that’s a blog for another time). With the onset of the pandemic and the permanent grounding of my travel for 15 months, I realized just how harmful working from home could be on a permanent basis.
When I ventured to the office prior to March 2020, I almost always met someone new or ran into a college friend I didn’t even know worked for my company. I had natural breaks in my day to grab lunch or find a new room because I had inevitably been squatting in one I hadn’t actually reserved. I presented in meetings where I could make physical eye contact with the people in the room instead of their photos on a computer screen. I had a better idea of where my team was stuck on a task or when they had completed something early and could better manage how much I put on their plate. But most importantly, I was constantly learning from the people I worked with; they pointed out missed shortcuts I could be using in Excel, or I overheard conversations on how another team member was approaching a problem that changed my perspective. I asked the questions I didn’t want to bother sending in a chat because I could easily walk across the room to have a face-to-face conversation. I usually left the office at a reasonable time, and after the journey home, I was no longer thinking about work and rarely logged back on until the next day.
Fast forward to pandemic life (or I guess just the new normal), my calendar has been filled with meetings in a block that usually spans 5 hours. Most of these video calls require some level of beauty prep and leave little time to eat something resembling a lunch. Because my living, eating and office space are shared, there’s no need for breaks unless I sprint to Starbucks in between meetings. Most of my day is spent multi-tasking and I catch myself making sloppy mistakes. According to journalist Johann Hari, the average office worker spends just three minutes on each task. Makes me wonder how efficient I can really be when I’m constantly interrupted from the task at hand responding to messages from Skype, Teams, Zoom, and of course email. You know the phrase – ‘this meeting could have been an email’? Well, that email could have been a 1-minute conversation if we were in the same room. My working schedule is a continuous loop and despite the many meetings, I often feel like I’m working in a silo. I only know some of my new team members from the waist-up and constantly miss the conference room banter. While Zoom Happy Hours help camaraderie, it doesn’t replace the meals we shared that humanize the people behind the squares.
My generation has been sold on the idea of collaborative workspaces and team bonding which came to an abrupt halt at the start of the pandemic and has yet to return. As an extrovert, 5 days straight without human interaction can feel like solitary confinement. I often go to bed feeling I have failed to have a real interaction with a human being. My daily conversations with Cindy are sometimes my only outlet for human connection that’s not centered on work. While the intermittent return to my travel life has made a significant difference, the weeks not on the road still harken back to our time in lockdown. I know that the business world is forever changed but I worry that remote working will lose sight of the opportunities to connect with fellow peers (and dare I say maybe meet somebody new) in the office.
My advice for those who may just be starting out in your career is simple – don’t get too comfortable working from home. Take the initiative to find ways to connect with your coworkers in-person by swapping yoga pants for slacks and your kitchen table for the office. Meet up in colocation spaces with other locals and have a real happy hour at an actual bar. Your day will go by quicker; you won’t eat lunch alone and I guarantee you’ll make a new personal connection. I’ve found that even spending just one day a week with another person on my team disrupts the monotony of the days at home. It’s my equivalent of hitting the refresh button.