My unusual way of working from home and what I learned from it
The pandemic set in… and with it came the practice of working from home
I really hated it when the company I work in announced a WFH (working from home) drill for a week. But sadly due to the rapid progress of the pandemic had to be extended indefinitely.
Hi, I am a software engineer and remote working is nothing new in our line of work. But the idea of working from home has never really excited me. Yes, you get to stay home in your trousers with no one monitoring you but I could never move past that awful back pains. The humdrum life of going to the office and interacting with my team and colleagues has always been how I prefer to work.
The new policy was set into motion and with it, my daily motion came to a halt. The new policy was to protect all of us from COVID-19 and I knew that, but it would still not please me. The first week began and it was just as I anticipated it to be, a hateful experience.
I felt lonely, unmotivated, and the back pains almost made me cry. We had slack and zoom for communication but the interactions that we had on a daily basis were missing. Sync up in the morning and chat messages for any queries that we had were fairly common and that had to do for now in terms of interaction. We were in the middle of a freaking pandemic what choice did we have.
Being productive does not always require us to follow the standard practices, sometimes trying something new might be for you.
But then things started to change and I can relate this change to the one line from Jurassic Park “Life finds a way”. As time passed, I and my team started using calls for communication replacing chats. For every little discussion that arose, we called each other rather than text. The interaction that I missed due to WFH was finally coming back with such frequent calls.
How can 2-minute calls change things?
Well, our calls lasted for more than a few minutes. To be a bit more precise, one of my longest calls lasted for 7 straight hours. Believe me, we were not goofing but working. Yes, we did joke around but it felt exactly like working side by side with my team member in the office. We were on the call but we were still busy with our own tasks.
So, what did I learn from the experience?
1. Remote working is not a barrier to communication
I would not recommend my methods to everyone but it proves that we can bypass the communication gap created from working remotely.
Remote working does not have to be the end of effective communication. At this day and age Zoom, Slack, WhatsApp, and many more can easily be used for work without being physically present.
It is true that remote working is not applicable for all professions but knowing the fact that it works without communication being a major problem should open up many more opportunities to a lot of people in different parts of the world.
2. Establishing rapport through games while working remotely
Many people fail to realize how playing games can actually help build a bond. This is especially important while working remotely as we cannot go out for a cup of coffee and have a nice conversation with our colleagues.
Games like Scribble and Ludo are fun to play with your team and can not only freshen you up but also helps you connect with your team members.
Wrapping it up
This is my and my colleague's unusual way of working from home, being on the call regardless of whether we were working on the same problem or not. It is the little things that make life actually worth living and even though this might not be the best or the most effective way of working remotely, for me this is what I loved most about it.
