I Have Love and Hate Relationship With Working From Home
Personal Pain point of Working From Home
I used to love working from home (WFH).
In 2020, the working environment and situation were totally changed. I used to go to the office every day, facing a long traffic jam, standing in the midst of the crown in the public bus. After long painful minutes, I got myself to the office, ate breakfast and lunch, worked, and had fun with my friends during working and after working hours.
But thanks to my former leader, she gave me the flexibility to work from home in case I have no meeting in the office. So before working from home become my current working daily habits, I already taste it several times and actually feel enjoy about it.
To be exact, on 3 March 2020. Everything has changed. I never step my foot until today to the office.
Do I feel happy with this? Of course, I feel happy. I don’t need to wake up early to catch the bus to the office. I just simply wake up, eat breakfast for 20–30 minutes, and just go directly to my work desk. In the first 6 months, I feel working from home gives multiple benefits especially saving my time from unnecessary transport time.
But I also got a negative impact from the COVID-19 pandemic as I got laid off in June 2020. But luckily, 2 months afterward, I got a new job.
However, since that time my love for Working From Home start to plummeting. At some point, this love turns into hate and a mental breakdown.
Social Engagement
This is my major issue.
As a person who used to work in the office, the face-to-face connection still matters. You can build connection easier with face-to-face connection, understand messages from people better, clearly know their emotion so it will not mislead to false perception.
When I started my first day in the new company, I realize that I will work with people who I never met in the real life for the next several months. At first, I thought it was temporary but again we can’t predict when this pandemic will come to the end. But up until this time, I already did this for 8 months. If it includes my past company, it would be more than a year.
Also, initially, I was thinking it won’t be a matter to work with someone who will interact with you online through Slack, Google Hangout, and other online communication platforms. I have no problem working with my main working team, but when it comes to communicating with other stakeholders, I feel quite a burden.
I’m a typical person who faces a hard time adapting to a new professional working environment in terms of the social side. Unfortunately, this also impacts my work performance. I have hesitation to speak up, throw up an opinion, and ask questions in a group discussion with people who I never know before. This got worse since I never meet them physically. So, my struggle is becoming more real than ever.
Usually, I able to adapt to a new company environment within 2 months. It’s quite a long time right for social adaptation in the new office, right? But in my recent company, I think I get more comfortable with the people like around 5–6 months. Few, what a long painful time.
What my colleagues also complain, we have hard time building connections because we only talk about work-related matters. In-office, we can just have a couple of minutes in the afternoon, grab a coffee or snack, and have a light conversation about life. Or to tighten the bond, we can also have social time after work in a cafe. But, with this work-from-home arrangement, it’s quite impossible to have this kind of casual interaction.
Work, Work and Work
Most people, at least in my social circle, say that the biggest pain point of working from home is diminishing working hours. Our standard working hour in my country is working 8–9 hours each day, typically starts from 8 or 9 AM to 5 or 6 PM.
But, without any exact reason, this separation of working and personal time is getting blurred, almost vanish. In the past 1–2 years, when we still worked in the office, getting out of the office was a mark to indicate that we already finish with our work. With that people will not contact us for working matters unless it’s really urgent. There is a clear separation between working time and personal or family time.
Things are going differently with the WFH arrangement. As people will use their home as their working place, people assume that everybody will standby with their own working laptop, even after working hour. The other reason is people have their own different working hour. Each personnel may not notice the other colleague’s working hour. That makes people will try to keep contacting co-workers even it is already outside their working hour.
Conclusion
In summary, with my involvement in new company environment and this WFH extensive period, it introduces me to some downsides that I never expect before. With longer working hour, I feel easily burn out. At the point when I had hard time to connect with my colleagues, I feel like I was working alone, have no clear objective, and have no pair to discuss if I encounter some struggles in my work.
That was really emotionally and mentally roller coaster for me.
But again, as I already go through this for more than 8 months, I gradually overcome this condition.
Am I ready for working from office again?
I would like to see my colleagues and try to engage with them. But I would like to love if this working from home or office is flexible like what my former lead used to apply in my former company.
