The background noise of your work

One interesting conclusion of the COVID pandemic is the clear definition that it has provided for what it means to work from home. In the past I only had glimpses of it when I had to stay at home for some hours waiting for a technician to come make some repairs, but it had some characteristic features: because it was mostly planned, I took good care to empty my agenda for the occasion to make sure that nothing urgent came in that period; folded into the plan was also the selection of certain tasks which were particularly suited to be addressed from home; finally, because I was ultimately waiting for someone, I counted on being interrupted by the door bell at some point. However, working from home on a semi-permanent basis is significantly different.

The first big difference is that you cannot clear your meeting schedule for ever: even if you are working from home it will be necessary to hold at least a few meetings per week. And having digital meetings requires sufficient privacy and reliable technical means.

Photo: Jazz Fest Wien

In most homes the internet connection is powerful enough to allow having a video conference or streaming a movie, but the moment you start to have parallel video conferences it is not unusual that the connection becomes unstable and the communication gets irreparably damaged.

The second main difference is that, unless you are able to lock yourself in a room, working from home you are never 100% at work. It is true that you could still get an inconvenient call from your partner in the office, but there it is much easier to understand that non-urgent matters should typically wait until the evening. However, when you are working from home it is much easier for your partner to show discretely at the door suggesting you to make a short break and make a quick visit to the supermarket to get some eggs while they are cooking lunch. Or the kids asking if you can give them a hand with their math homework if you are not currently on a conference call. Surprisingly (or maybe not) it is very similar,but in reverse, to the getting a call from your boss during dinner time. When we went digital we implicitly allow work to invade all our time and all our spaces making it difficult to have family time; now that we work from home, the home strikes back and invades the work space and time, to the point that it is sometimes difficult to focus on work.

One of the things that I miss the most from working in the office is the possibility to have music in the background. Admittedly, not every task allows for that as, at least for me, certain types of work require such a deep concentration that even background music can disturb it. But, for the reset, a soft background was quite relaxing. However, music is hard to reconcile with the expectation that I shall be able reply if Karen calls me out from downstairs.

The pandemic is, and it will continue to be, a trying time and all we can hope is to find working solutions even if they are comparatively worse than what we are used to. Hopefully, we will soon be able to get the virus under control and retain some of the gains in standard of living, while recouping the loses. Have a nice evening.