The difficulties of remote work
Somewhere along the way in 2018, the company decided to go 100% remote. That means that I started to work from home every single day of the week.
It has been quite a journey. All the perks people talks about being remote were there. Also all the difficulties rarely someone talk about.
This is the top 3 of difficulties I have encountered. Things people rarely talk about when going remote. Also, how I faced this difficulties to keep them under control.
1. Isolation
The first thing I started noticing when going remote was that I did not see other face but my husband’s in a week. Sure, I was talking to my team daily in our stand up calls and slacking some of them during the day, but still it is not the same. No body language to read, I guess.
For a few weeks, almost a month, I was ok with it. Until I wasn’t. I noticed that I didn’t want to talk to my husband anymore. Not healthy for a marriage.
Then the company decided that we needed to see each other twice a month. It is good to see someone else’s face, but still not good enough. We were all there, but we are not really there because it is unusual that people in the same city work in the same project. So we were physically there, but really everyone in their own business. We tend not to interrupt each other, so we don’t really talk. Not really the fix I needed.
2. Working overtime
In my head, working at home would give me extra time to do stuff that I wanted to do, like practicing lettering, cooking, running. Name it.
What really happened, I started to work more. As soon as I opened my eye in the morning I was reading and answering some emails. I was not even out of bed yet but I was replying emails! But it did not stopped there. I would make breakfast, eat breakfast, make lunch, eat lunch (if I succeeded remembering to have lunch) with the computer on the counter.
Yes, that is work. Invisible work. Half work. Not nicely done work. I did not notice I was doing that until my husband complained that I was not saying goodbye when he went off to work, because I was already working.
3. Not moving at all
Before going remote, I had a routine where I would go to the office, by car because the city I live in has no reliable public transportation, then on the way home I would go the gym that was on the way and do some time in the treadmill and hit my steps goal. Then we went remote and the gym was no longer in the way so I made an effort to keep going. Eventually it stopped being convenient.
I did not realize how much time I was spending in front of the desk without moving, until my fitness watch alerted me with a message: “Are you ok? We noticed you are not moving”.
Looking at the numbers the fitness app was giving me I had to realize that it is not the same to walk inside a house than going to an office and conveniently go to the gym. It is hard to walk 10,000 steps when the area of movement is significantly reduced.
What have I done to overcome the difficulties
I had two things to do to face the difficulties I was encountering. The first fix was really simple: look for a closer gym and modify my home routine to mimic my office routine. That helped me to be sure I would be out of home by 6 and hit my step goal.
The second thing was mostly an agreement with myself that I will not check my email before 9, the work computer stays in the room designated as office and is not allowed somewhere else in the house during work hours.
For now, it seems like I have this things difficulties under control. To be determined if going to a gym almost daily is sustainable in long term.
