Need to return to the Office?

 

Property of Stormberry

In an opinion article in the Washington Post, I read today how a CEO was explaining why returning to the office - when possible, I guess - was better than remaining working from home. The author explained how younger people prefer working from the office instead of doing it from home, since they usually live with parents and so it's not ideal (or something on that line), while, older workers perfer to work from home because they hae their own homes and are more cozy there. Those were not the exact words, but kind of the idea of it.

There are also, other positives added to working at the office that you can't replicate when you work from home, such as talking in person, forming a relationship with you coworkers by daily working around them, mentoring, new workers learning from the old ones, celebrating birthdays and so on.

I've been working from home for a year now - actually more than a year - and in my opinion, those are not things I necessarily miss. For me, office birthdays have always been a struggle because  it's uncomfortable to stand around, with a hand full of greasy cake on a thin napkin, sing and pretend to get along with everybody like we are all such a great team, when that's not so with all of them. I have been lucky to have great coworkers, but still, in the greater groups - those that meet for birthdays, there are always cliques.

At the office, for a while now, we had been celebrating birthdays separated from the rest, because my team likes to do things "our own way". That means, more expensive. So yes, a year with no $50 to $100 birthday bills every two months is something I can live without.

We still do mentoring, so I don't think that's something that needs you to be there, and with the different platforms that allow you to share your screen, I think mentoring has become much easier than before, when the mentoree had to peer over your shoulder.

Interruptions are also far less frequent, and it's easier to find people at their desks, unlike in the office-days, when someone could have gone for coffee and stayed talking with others while you really needed to talk to them for an urgent matter and nobody knows where they are. This also means - in my experience - that people shirk from work less.

A major plus for me about the work-from-home is the drop in office gossip, or at least in the effect it has on your mental health. People is no longer dropping by, or listening behind the boss' door, and there are no more mean comments about how you look or how you are repeating your wardrobe every two weeks.

Then, the biggest plus, from my perspective, is the significant drop in certain types of harrassment. Though mobbing manages to survive, and it can get really pervasive (though the electronical media allows you to record it better, and it's not just something said in the air that nobody can prove), the sexual harrassment has dropped (at least where I work), because people can't sit too close to you, touch you, push their way into your cubicle and not leave, wait for you around the elevators or the bathrooms, and so on. Other types of harrassment - for which I don't have the words - like those people pushing to be friends with you, or those who push and push for you to listen to their whatever sad stories because they want you to give them money or so... those have dropped as well.

Now, I say "dropped" not as in based in statistical studies, but from what I have experienced and what some of my colleagues tell me.

Yes, I understand there are things that can only happen when you work in an office, just as there are things that can be achieved or obtained only if you work from home. It's an exchange.

In the opinion article, the author brings as example the case of a young worker they know personally, who choose a work were they went to the office instead of a work-from-home option. Then, this is a personal choice matter, assuming there were no other matters that weighted into this decision. However, I believe that this global pandemic has also brought a wave of change about how we live. Will we go back to our office towers or not, or whether we will find a new ways to work is yet to be determined. Lamenting for the missed office birthdays is weird, when you think about the social distancing, face masks might not be a reason to work back to the office.

Change is comming, and it's better to start preparing so we can do the best of it.