3 months into lockdown and
working from home. It’s had its ups and downs, if I’m honest. I’ve worked from
home for 7 years but never been consistently “home-bound” for than a few days,
really.
It would be easy to structure the
post with good bits and bad bits – but the parameters of what is good, bad,
indifferent, changes all the time. I should imagine my pros and cons are very
much the same as everyone else’s
.
It was a bittersweet that I
celebrated my 40th in the week leading up to the company’s home-working
instruction. I was in London 4 days out of 5, busy with work, and partying with
friends and colleagues in the evenings. I finished the celebrations on the
Saturday night in Wagas where my friends and I were all toying with the notion
that this “bad dose of flu” might just disrupt our social lives and jaunts for
the summer – and wouldn’t that be a right *PITA*!
What we didn’t know was that, 2
weeks later, we would be up to our eyeballs in extension leads, felt tip pens,
equal fractions and online grocery shopping. Our backs would ache with our
inappropriate desk ergonomics, our WIFI drained with the excessive Roblox streaming
and waistbands straining against the freshly-baked bread which we insist on
making 3 times a week. We’ve spent all our money online on home-things because
we’ve never spent so much time at home. Actually, that’s something that we must
rethink when we leave lockdown – in yesteryear we spent *far* too much time,
and money, in the pub.
Socially, my girlfriends’ soiree
to Alicante got cancelled, our August camping in France looks to follow suit
and all my mates celebrated big birthdays with their infants – can you imagine!
We all took advantage of House Party/Zoom, and had a wonderful time on my
husband’s birthday where we all got tipsy and chewed the fat (took the mick out
of each other) for an hour on a Tuesday night.
The working lockdown has
certainly adjusted my expectations. Working from home in the old days meant I
was at my desk 2, sometimes 3 days a week. It fitted in around the family, of
course, but actually replaced any commuting time to being productive instead.
Regular home workers will tell you – working hours are longer but more flexible
– and a key measurable being that one can churn out an awful lot of work when
there is nothing to distract you or you don’t feel the pull of the canteen or
Costa next door.
Ah. Distraction. Luckily my kids
have reached an age where gaming is the most important thing in the world. They
could happily play Roblox, Fortnite and YouTube all day long. More than a few
times, they have. I don’t tend to tell many people this so please keep it to
yourself. In short, they don’t distract me at all – they can help themselves to
nutritious, well balanced food stuffs (Corner Yoghurts, Ice Lollies and
Babybel) at will, therefore rendering any evening meal I make for them utterly
fruitless when they have stuffed their faces all day. They can fix the WIFI. They can transition
from Sky to Prime to Netflix easier than I can. They can buy gaming currency
using the Apple ID, *by accident* naturally. They are extremely competent at
keeping busy whilst I am banging away at the keyboard and only really seek any
interaction from me when fisticuffs go too far and one of them wants to grass
up the other one. Regular home workers know – this happens at inopportune
times. Also, they know how to unlock the front door and tend to go off every
other day in pursuit of the cat – for no reason whatsoever. This can be a
little unnerving when you are 10mins into the intro of a conference call and
you hear the front door open. It’s very hard, and quite unseemly, to scream at
your own children when you have a virtual audience. It’s also hard to venture
outside to look for the buggers when your Zoom is reliant on your internal
WIFI.
Conf calls. That’s the worst bit.
Even if your connection is solid, the disjointed spell of constant
interruptions and forced politeness is truly knackering. You have to stay alert
throughout the entire call – even if the area is not particularly pertinent to
you. Someone could ask you your POV on their statement, or ask you to capture a
note. You need your wits about you. And for goodness sake, never let your guard
down when you are screen sharing. Your boss doesn’t want to see your eBay watch
list.
3 months into lockdown and
working from home and I hope readers don’t mind if I have a(nother) little
whinge. Regular home workers will understand the perils of multi-tasking. It
sounds competent and skilled bit it’s actually really stressful. And a bit
unnecessary. When all the balls are flying around in the air, some will come
crashing down. They haven’t yet, but I’m expecting it. I have to say that the
biggest strain is the kid’s education
-the guilt of not doing the school work, the fear of doing it badly or
not the way they are used to, the radical goal of getting your child back to
school at a higher academic level than they were before (especially if, like
me, one of the kids was a bit behind anyway), the hard fact that there is
usually only one adult in the house that can, or will, take this on. The
constant nagging of Facebook that other people are doing more than you. I’ve
really enjoyed sitting with them doing the work – I just cannot fit it in very
well.
Social Media has been interesting
– and I’ll admit, LinkedIn has been *exceptionally* brilliant during these last
few weeks. The news feed is largely positive and empathetic. Of late, it’s been
really honest too; people have shared their professional fears and opened up
about uncertainty. We saw this lovely lady who was let go of her high-flying sales
job and got shelf stacking work in Morrisons (shout out to Stacy). She posts
often about her new pastures – and she is damn funny too. Facebook has been
complete crap in this regard – and after you’ve ploughed through the endless
streams of self-indulgent memes, disCUSTed friends and U ok
hun?– you are faced with a movie of someone knocking the living hell out of
someone else. Or a picture of a half-eaten McDonalds.
Some good bits. I don’t feel like
I need to hide my kids (as much). I take conference calls with customers and industry
contacts and I can hear *their* kids (and dogs, budgies, home phone) in the
background. It makes be feel a little more relaxed; having the sprogs at home is
less of a taboo (she has no childcare!) and more of a sign of the times. This
is how I’ve been working since 2013 and I feel relieved that others are
experiencing this too.
I work for a cracking company. We
are under different sorts of strains now between us – but the team ethic fits
and are ploughing through.
We’ve been lucky with the
weather, eh? We have lovely tans between us. Just a shame we can’t fit into our
holiday clothes.
I cannot wait to see my
colleagues again. I miss them dreadfully. I miss going into the City. I miss
talking to people face to face.
That’s it for now. I’m going to
put the tent up in the garden for no reason whatsoever.
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