Is Zoom Fatigue a Thing?
How remote work drained me of energy and how I fixed it
I’m an introvert, and verily so. A test puts me at three standard deviations above the average person in introversion. If accurate, that would mean that I am more introverted than 99.7% of all the people who took that test. So, it was with great relief that I received the news of COVID-induced, social-distancing rules coming into effect at work. I was already working from home one day a week. You know, to do all the serious work that required deep thinking that I could not get around to doing whilst subjected to the constant din of the office. That one day used to be awesome. It was my best day of the week.
With enforced social-distancing, I settled into a new routine that mirrored my old one. Instead of working four days at the office and one from home, I worked from home four days a week, and went to the office or visited clients one day a week. Then, a curious thing happened: That one day became my new, awesome, best day of the week. The introvert yearned for in-person interaction.
Zoom fatigue sets in
Days, weeks, and months’ worth of staring at the unresponsive faces of colleagues on a computer screen were starting to take their toll. Calling into video conference calls felt like jumping into a pressure cooker…
