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I feel like it take a year to get into a new position, no matter where you are. Take yourself out to lunch, even if taking yourself out means taking your meal to a park and eating on a bench. If you scrounge in the fridge each time it is lunch time, you will get depressed and probably start making not great food choices. If you can, plan to meet with someone IRL for a lunch date occasionally. Make a schedule and take advantage of your best times of day. To 2 p.m., so I schedule my most challenging work for then.
I recently got the opportunity to come back into the office on a part-time basis and I feel so much more productive and happy. Of course, working from home in the midst of a highly stressful global crisis is different from doing it in normal times—especially if you add in the stress of child care. But a surprising number of people have told me they’re shocked by how eager they are to return to their offices once it’s safe to do so. Now, it’s important to remember that Coronacommuting is not the same as normal telecommuting. When you work from home in regular times, your kids are at school, the cafés are open, and you’re not concerned about you or your loved ones dying.
Ask a Manager
I also think working from home is easier when your company sets up an infrastructure to make it easy to communicate with your co-workers and build relationships with them. That may be an instant messenger app that everyone has, or weekly team calls via skype/video conferencing so that you do get some “face time” with your coworkers. My company does both of these things and it really helps to feel a part of the team even when you’re not in the same office.
Regular work-from-home could be in a coffee shop. It could involve talking the occasional walk to the store. We may be getting there in certain parts of the world now, but for the past year, nope. Although I regularly work in my PJs, wakeup at 750 and walk downstairs at 800, switch laundry during my breaks, and take meetings with cats on my lap/desk–I desperately want to go back to work. A lot of this would look like “cares less about career development” and “cares less about productivity” from the perspective of my current employer. That’s not necessarily unfair, because in their perspective what matters about me is my functionality as a part of their system and I don’t necessarily fault them for prioritizing that and acting accordingly.
Excessive Zoom Meetings
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look to make changes. When the going gets tough, sometimes it’s easier to take risks and respond to challenges, simply because there is less to lose. Whatever the issues with your current career, it needs a reboot, if not a total transformation. The best way of achieving that is to first address your present siege mentality. When you’re feeling low is not the time to make big decisions.
On the rare occasions where I don’t have any work, I power through my personal to-do list, trying to get as much done as possible before more work comes in. 2.) Having a work laptop that was purely for work. Between the hours of 9 to 5, my personal PC (and all its’ attendant distractions like computer games, bookmarked sports websites, Netflix account, etc) does not get turned on. Again, this sounds irrelevant , but it somehow made a big difference. 1.) Every single day, I would get dressed as though I was going to the office.
Lack of Separation from Work and Life
I’m sure you weren’t the only person that was happening to and those people don’t deserve any human contact. I don’t rely on work for human interaction, but, f2f frequently is a lot better for me and my tasks when I need input. I need quiet time to concentrate and I need interaction without the sludge of tech interfering. I have long been accoustomed to having group meetings with some call-ins. T where someone is “sharing” a desktop with a 24×36 pdf not zoomed in because they have 3 big screens and I can’t zoom in on the Skype or Teams or GoToMeeting or GoogleMeet? And sometimes we even shut down chat if we’re really busy.
And she is not alone, and it’s really sad that some here are making her out to be a terrible, insensitive human. I have a job where people of all levels can be out of the office on a site, meeting with a client, at an archive doing research or in, but, in the lab, in the library, in a meeting, or whatever. If you’re one of those or at your desk and on the phone or looking like you’re concentrating, I’ll walk off and either have thought of the answer while I walked or I’ll email it or ask someone else. I sympathize with you, I truly do, because I know exactly how you feel because I felt that way for six years, all day every day, crying through my commute because I wanted to be at home.
Flexible Schedule
Take up a hobby, plan parties, arrange to get dinner and drinks with people, maybe even lunch if you have friends who don’t work traditional office jobs. And, DEFINITELY schedule time to meet in person and by phone with people. As far as advice, don’t forget to stretch your legs. My ‘office’ was in my master bedroom and I would make a point of using the downstairs bathroom just to get up and move. And make a point of running errands once a while in the evenings. When I first started I was doing my usual night grocery shopping and I realized that I had not been out of the house since a week ago, the last time I went grocery shopping.
A snowstorm has virtually no impact on my work schedule, except that I need to find some time to clear off the sidewalk and driveway. I’m able to take longer breaks/vacations than I could if I worked a more traditional job. In the case of a longer vacation, I’ll typically take advantage of the flexibility to be able to work while traveling, and I’ll work a few hours per day, which makes the longer vacation possible. Awards for the 2022 NASCAR season have been delivered. Now eyes turn to 2023 and driver/team lineups, some with dramatic changes. Take a break and enjoy a game of Fruit Pops at Easy Mini Games.
Make sure you’re actually checking in with your boss/supervisor! It also becomes harder to leave the house to do anything except take my kiddo to daycare, but that’s also part of a mental health disorder that I am dealing with, so YMMV. The one closest to my house comes out cheaper than a half-day at a coffee shop if I buy a few drinks and a meal. When push comes to shove I literally make a list of the perks of working from home.
Then I can do that sort of problem-solving. The problem seems to be that for her, this note would get crickets. I also recommend looking into virtual co-working sites.
This doesn’t have to be someone who works at your same workplace. I try to make sure I leave the house at least once a day , and I make a point to see friends on a regular basis. I love the idea someone else had about “walking to work” by going for a walk around the block before settling in to work. Something about the voices from the tv occupies the “distracted” part of my brain so I can focus on my work.
I don’t think the LW made the case that the business lost much with WFH because “all the work is getting done” and the bosses don’t care. I also have zero interest in using a co-working space if I could actually be with my real coworkers. I want my f2f interaction at work to actually be about work or relationship building around work. All of this “people like you are the worst” is really disheartening. She doesn’t deserve to be told she and people like her are blanketly irritating. For the meetings, you can ask that everyone briefly turn on their camera before the meeting starts.
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