This week I am on vacation, or vacancies as my home office colleagues say, from the day job. Since I am not traveling it doesn’t look much different than when I am working with a couple of minor exceptions. I don’t get up as early, and I don’t spend the bulk of my day at my work computer trying to keep systems running.
I have been in the fortunate position over the last sixteen, seventeen months to be able to work from home for my day job. My company went into remote work mode as a test in March of last year and doesn’t plan a return to the office until September. And then, they are expecting a more hybrid approach to how people work.
Personally, I have loved working from home. For so many reasons. So much so that I have struggled to find things I don’t like about working from home. What I have come up with, and it’s not really a dislike it’s more of an unforeseen disadvantage, is that I don’t get near as much natural movement in during the day. Where in the office, I had the walk from my car to the office and back again, I don’t have that at home. Another thing I had in the office was the 300 or so steps to the nearest bathroom. At home that walk is less than 50 steps, and if I go to the nearest one to my desk it’s about 10 steps. This has contributed to the increase in girth and weight over the year. Which I’m happy to say I have managed to remove, but that’s for a different post.
All through the year, we, particularly in my office, have been regularly polled on our desire to return to the office and in what capacity. I have consistently expressed my desire to continue to work from home. Note, I live 5 miles from my office, but it can take 20 minutes to get there at 6:30 in the morning and 30 minutes to get home at 4:00 in the afternoon. With this desire to continue to work from home, I have been a bit anxious as news of the discussions of planning for the return to the office have been happening.
A few weeks ago, the official announcement was made for my office. The lease for our office space ends at the end of this year. Even without the pandemic, we were going to need to do something. As it turns out, with all of that polling less than half of our office wanted to return to the office and for those who did, most didn’t want to be in the office full time. So, my office, is going virtual. We will be the trailblazers for our organization, and we will see how it works.
I am thrilled. I’m excited to get to continue to work from home and relieved to have that all settled.
There will, I don’t doubt, be hiccups and issues. Even though we have been doing this for over a year out of need, it will be different as the restrictions that made it necessary are lifted. As the world opens back up, there will be temptations for some to maybe flex those hours in a way that isn’t really appropriate. And, as there has no doubt been, there will be the struggle to draw the line of when we are working and when we get to call off for the day. Something that I deal with due to the nature of what I do.
Even with the struggle to draw the line between work time and off time, I look forward to being able to continue some of the good habits I have finally started to develop while being able to work from home. They have made a significant difference in my well-being. And while I am looking forward to adding back some out of home activities, such as Taekwondo in the studio instead of my living room, I know there will be some relearning of how to work that schedule that has been so up-ended this last year plus, and now is a little different because of the lack of commute. You would think that would make it easier. I sure hope it does.