It has been nearly 10 months since I was grounded in my own house due to COVID-19, chances are lots of people around the world have been the same in varying degrees depending on where you live and how your country is dealing with restrictions.
I am used to traveling overseas every few months between our offices for work, which was always a great thing as I get to deal in person with other colleagues and team members rather than just online meetings and Facetime calls.
Our office in Southern California is located in one of those executive offices, in a nice business building where there is maybe around 50 other companies and hundreds of employees that you get to see daily, have the occasional chit chat with during lunch breaks, network with others and sometimes enjoy some fun activities and games around holidays and events.
This was the norm for most of the working folks like myself or at least part of it, now it has all come to a stand still. Over the course of weeks and months we are faced with a new reality that all of this is no longer ok! (still depends on where you live). Most of us had to rush into scrambling mode where we try to relocate our lives into new corners in our homes, or brush off the dust of that room we called “home office” and try to set up shop to ensure we continue to do our jobs.
The ones who were used to doing most of the work in person, meetings, discussions, planning started to find their way around a plethora of online meeting tools and messaging platforms that either pre-existed in their workplace but barely used or even worse, started to get to know them during a global pandemic.
For those who were lucky enough like myself and the team, it was mostly business as usual minus the daily breakfast or lunch groups and the occasional office fun or meeting in/meeting out from room to room. We had to go on full virtual mode as opposed to semi-virtual mode.
As we were trying to settle in and deal with the infodemic of COVID-19 news, numbers, graphs and conspiracy theories, we started to embrace new ideas trying to maintain part of that humane portion of work, virtual fun meetups, multi online games, casual calls and talks. I came to understand that this has been the case with lots of other teams and companies across the world to maintain a sense of normalcy during such challenging times.
It was the last few months of the school year in the US and in lots of other countries around the world when lockdown measures were put in place. As working parents trying to get their jobs in order, we were hit by new challenges! Online schooling, having to work in the same place with complete “day time strangers”, our spouses and kids who have different routines, responsibilities and requirements to get through their school or work day! Bonus points if you have a pet in the house too who are not used to having you making noise and calls during day time.
Chances are for most people including myself, Work and personal life start to cross paths in ways we were not trained for, attending internal online meeting with PJs, kids or family members walking into an online call with your boss or client for an urgent or rather not urgent question, having to mute or turn off cams to attend to one of your kids or simply to hide your home office or bedroom mess.
Bit by bit, all of the social habits and norms that we are accustomed to for both work and home start to change and with such change we start to feel different about things. The online work gatherings started to miss some faces who had to be called in for meetings or would use that time to handle something at home or simply they became not fun. Our day becomes a huge extended online meeting or conference call, so some of us would start dreading just another one even if it was for fun.
Domestically things start to change as well, you would start noticing things you might have been missing before, though you have been living in that same house for years with the same people. This might be those house projects you have been abandoning for years or a new personal change such as changing diets or a lifestyle. I started picking up some house projects that I have been putting off for a long time. You start to have different lunch breaks and chit chats than the one you were used to, mine with my 10 year old during his online school recess and my lunch break.
As we go through summer time, a season previously known to be all about fun, family vacations and enjoying simple pleasures such as going to the beach or spending the evening with friends and family, we are introduced to a new set of guidelines and measures on what to do and how to deal with one another. We get taught new terms and mandates that are meant to keep us and our loved ones safe.
Social distancing, mask mandates , gathering limitations, outdoor vs. indoor dining, changes that were required to keep us safe but it came at a price! All of the intimacy we took for granted and as a birthright was immediately either restricted or banned, even worse they are required to keep us safe!
As my and your routines start changing , “New Norms” for both family and work lives start to become today’s reality, one cant help experiencing new episodes of fatigue or loneliness even though you might be surrounded with family 24/7. We are social creatures by design. Intimacy, physical interaction and freedom of choosing what to do and when to do it is imprinted in our DNA and drives most of our behaviors and reactions towards others and situations.
In this limited mostly virtual experience, we lose fragments of experiences every time and our response towards things change accordingly causing a possible chain reaction we are unaware of.
Slack work chat streams lack the feeling aspect of a discussion, while online calls might miss other parts either because they are time boxed while the rest of the day is being affected by a different home setup or the inability to get the full experience of a physical interaction through meetings or a work day. Same goes for family where you get to be around day and night without the ability to break physically into a different environment.
Outings and gatherings feel differently as they get overshadowed by restricting the number of people or whom you have to choose to interact with to limit the possibility of getting sick. Even the casual morning talks with a complete stranger in Starbucks or standing in a long line of early workers buying coffee is different.
Bottom line, COVID-19 isn’t just a respiratory virus that the world is trying to beat with a vaccine but its mental and psychological damage might be as worse over time as the world we knew it has already changed.
It’s our responsibility collectively to find ways to fight the mental effect curve the same way we are all coming together as a race to bring the infection curve down for the sake of ourselves and our children.
As I struggle myself some days with the new reality and changes, I came to realize that while things may not be changing anytime soon, one must think of the current state as an opportunity and not a curse. Opportunities always have possible rewards, thus positive feelings and better mental state.
I started exploring new activities that i didn’t have time for before such as early morning walks which i used to catch up on audiobooks and podcasts that i have missed in the past while taking on a healthier lifestyle in the process which i never did in the past.
I started syncing some activities with my son’s schedule such as setting up common reading times where i get to catch up on my books and he gets to do the same for his school reading material, creating newer pleasures which we couldn’t have before.
Accepting the fact that in working and living at the same place we are not supposed to completely split both worlds and some things are acceptable takes part of the toll away. It’s ok if you attend a team stand up in PJs or if your child decides it’s super important to come in during a call to ask about a math problem! Embrace those worlds crossing as opposed to distancing or, worse, colliding.
Bottom line, one must rethink his belief of what “normal” is and recalibrate accordingly and always explore new ways of how we can regain some of the experiences we lost but in new ways.
“We Are Observing Social Distance" by byronv2 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
