I put the iron away the other day. I’d pulled it out a few weeks ago to iron my summer work clothes but it seems I’ll be doing work meetings in casual gear for the foreseeable future. By the time we get out of self-isolation, it will be winter or maybe even spring.
Working from home is not as much fun as they said it would be on the packet. It’s a strangely dehumanising experience, where your colleagues are now just a small square on a computer screen and the nuances of your interactions are blunted by technology. Getting technology to work, and consistently, adds to the stress and emotional labour.
The nature of the work I do means my team talk a lot during our work day. Those conversations are now much harder and strangely formal, channeled into a few meetings or on a chat stream. They are okay but cannot replace the knowledge sharing, learning and rapport building which comes from a face-to-face interaction. And without these, work feels like it has been stripped of what makes it pleasurable and distilled down to a series of tasks: we may as well be robots.
It’s a real privilege to have the opportunity to see into my colleagues private spaces and seeing a part of their lives that you would rarely get to see. And the guest appearances by children and pets, is a little light relief. But I find I’m struggling with this, even as a person who is reasonably generous in sharing aspects of my life.
Right now, I want to burrow and protect myself and sharing images of myself in my house feels like I’m way too exposed. Don’t get me wrong, I like my team, but I’m deeply uncomfortable with the smudging of the lines between personal and professional. My home is a reflection of the raw and no barriers version of myself, and work feels like an intruder forcing itself into the sacred spaces where you are your most vulnerable.
Everyone I’ve spoken to is finding concentrating hard and productivity low. I feel like I’m doing less than ever and are more exhausted by that small effort. I really want to be the person I was at work three weeks ago but honestly right now my heart just isn’t it it. I feel as if I need to focus my energy on surviving a global pandemic, not work.
I spoke to a friend on the phone, and she said everyone needs a bit of time to come to terms with what’s happening. She’s right, we are in shock and need time to process. Things have changed so rapidly that it is dizzying, just keeping up with the changes is a challenge, let alone having the time to process them emotionally.
I’m grateful that I have a supervisor who understands this, who has said we need to be kind to ourselves right now and just get through these next few months. My team is pretty indefatigable; we will do our best, rise to the challenge and all that but these first few days are hard. I’m looking forward to the Easter break.
Quite a few of my friends live alone, and we are all feeling the isolation. Even though many of us like our own company, a week or two of that will be enough to have us climbing the walls. We have organised regular catch-ups over Zoom or text. It’s been great in helping me feel less alone, and seems so so necessary to check in and make a safe space for people to say how they are feeling.
But I feel a deep sense of loss that I can’t just run up stairs and say hi to them, or eat lunch together in the tea room. Through government regulations and our choice to abide by them, we just can’t have the freedom to move about or go anywhere right now. We know it’s for the good of all but that doesn’t make it easier.
At MPOW, there are some good souls who are organising the work drinks, and the morning teas, who are posting fun stuff in the group chat area, and honestly we just so need them right now. Staying connected and supporting each other isn’t just nice, it’s necessary, for everyone’s physical and mental health. Because despite our thoughts that this will be weeks, it’s likely to be months and we need to make sure we have a workplace worth being at to come back to.