Yes, our lives have drastically changed for nearly twenty months since we went on a lockdown.
Aside from the fact that we all look like extraterrestial creatures walking the streets or traipsing down the corridors of malls withour face shields and masks, the way we spend our waking hours has also been completely revised. The quarantine has yielded one of the biggest adaptations to urgently address the need for self-isolation.
It is called "Work From Home" (WFH).
Not that this mode of work has not been proposed before --- out of convenience. But, as the quarantine demanded it, now WFH has become a need, a solution to keep our jobs without farther endangering our lives.
And again, there are advantages and disadvantages to this.
It certainly saves a lot of money not only because you don't need to pay for transportation requirements ... or food outside your kitchen and dining table ... or even clothes to make yourself look presentable. You are now pegged at home, eating straight from your instant ramen cup and only dressed from waist up or as far as your camera can cover you in a zoom session.
But WFH has also brought about a helluva lot of disadvantages and setbacks.
For one thing, the division between work and life has been completely blurred.
Work and Life have merged. Whereas before, getting into your home meant leaving all the pressures, hassles and exhaustion from the office or whatever work space at the doorstep,. now your sanctuary has become your daily battleground as well. Whether it is a specific room or a corner in your living space, your home has been invaded by the vibes of what used to be your professional domain.
The demarcation between your professional and personal lives has been erased.
Whereas the me at home was meant to enjoy, chill and relax ... now that me has been surrendered to the demands of a virtual office that has crept into what was your exclusive corner on earth. Now when you open your camera for a zoom meeting, everybody in that session can see a space that was once kept private and somewhat sacred.
Oh, yes: that is a simpler way of putting it. WFH means surrendering a substantial amount of your privacy.
Which is why in an attempt to retain one's sanity as well as much remaining privacy, there should be certain guidelines --- a kind of Digital Age Miss Manners to tell us what is acceptable from what is not. Actually, it only requires a bit of common sense and a lot of regard for decency to realize what is puede pasar from what is literally crossing the line.
In these most desperate times, we all need work. But we also demand our self-respect as well as care for our mental health.
So let me jot down some points just to define my level of tolerance as far WFH is concerned. These are just some random ramblings from more than a year and half of spending hours on end in front of a computer and pretending that you are creating human interaction necessary for your profession.
But still this all boils down to one important point --- the basic premise is simple: WORK FROM HOME DOES NOT MEAN 24/7.
(1) Please understand that just because I am working from home means that I am not doing anything. Just because I am seated in front of my computer wearing shorts and slippers does not mean that I am just lounging around comfortably and pretending to work. DUH! I am just a bit more comfortable, that's all ,,, but I am still under pressure of delivering what is expected from me. I am still doing the same work in house clothes.
(2) Just because I am not registering my working hours on a bundy clock does not mean I am being lethargic. Do not assume that between zoom meetings I am in bed watching Netflix: as a matter of fact, since WFH modality has been implemented to survive the pandemic (and it looks like it will stay as an option even after the Age of COVID19), my work has increased tremendously. Why? Because people always assume that I am procrastinating or lolling around while eating a bag of Doritos in between log-ins.
(3) Zoom meetings cease to be fun after you have three or more of them in a single day. It was amusing at first ... but now they have become exasperating. The punishment Mother Nature gave all of us is that she kept all of us apart for playing around with those bats or pangolins. Diminished to talking to heads in boxes, the sessions are exhausting because you are not sure about your degree of engagement --- or why someone turned off his or her camera, unsure of whether or not there is another functioning human being on the other side. So take it easy on the zooms, OK, I max out at three meetings in a single day. Anything beyond that makes me crabby. Making me go into zooms aside from socializing in e-numans or zoom chikahans make me irritable and feel exploited.
(4) And since we are in the subject of zooms, please have the decency to fix your surroundings if you do not have a background image filter. Make yourself resemble a decent human being who believes that cleanliness is next to godliness not only in choice of environment but also grooming. The sight of unmade beds or underwear thrown around like daffodils in a war zone can be rather disturbing or even upsetting. What also follows is a sense of propriety in the way you dress whether for an online class, a business or production meeting. Being comfortable does not mean looking like a sloth that assumed human form.
I am particularly upset, for instance, when I hold online classes and find one of the students still wearing his bed clothes and wrapped in a blanket, hugging a pillow and yawning so that the entire class can see the state of his tonsils.
(5) Mute your mics when you are not talking and turn them on when you need to say something or called to participate in the discussion. Be aware that the incidental sounds in your background can be disturbing/amusing as it would provide information about what kind of life you lead. Hearing your mother's rather loud voice giving instructions or berating your siblings --- or even that cute but particularly irritating pet dog of yours yelping his lungs out have got nothing to do with the agenda of the sessions.
(6) Be aware of what people can see when your camera is on. This requires no elaboration as there have been great and small tragedies of sorts because people are careless or even clueless in leaving their cameras on while revealing things which should not be generally shared to a viewing public. Not unless there is an inner exhibitionist in you, be most cautious about allowing the world to see what should only be shared with intimate friends and family.
Another word of warning: when using a laptop, never ever bring the broadcast in the bathroom regardless of degree of urgency. If ever you need to do so, make sure that your camera is off as there is this most famous anecdote about an important meeting of national scale taking place and one the participants actually broadcasted to an entire august body how he answers the call of nature, complete with sound effects and stunning visuals. Believe me, it did not leave a good impression. Just a lot of toilet humor.
(7) Regardless of urgency or need, it is but humane not to schedule zoom meetings past 5:00 PM. Yes, you are all just at home wearing your pambahays but there must be a cut-off time when work ends. Just because there is no scaled overtime pay in WFH does not mean you have to be zooming until the dead of night, right? OK, let's take into consideration meetings with participants in different time zones, Fine. You must agree at a common time regardless of location on the planet when the zoom does not inconvenience anyone or demands bottles of Cobra or Red Bull to keep participants up and awake.
(8) Here is another clincher. Believe in the importance of weekends even if it is WFH. I, for one, have made it clear that I will not accept nor participate in zoom meetings that will go beyond 5:00 - 6:00 PM on Fridays. Why? Because I have a life aside from my work. I demand to have my me time and weekends are precious considering how stressful it is to work in a near-claustrophobic atmosphere of WFH.
There goes that argument, "What if it is important? What if it is an emergency?" OK, fine. I will concede to that (as various productions of movies and televisions do have last minute emergencies that require immediate attention). But do not make me go to a meeting only to find out that we could have discussed this over an email or worse, it could have waited until Monday morning.
If there are people in your work who do not have lives worth living without the anesthesia of work and schedules, then let that be their problem and not yours.
Now this opens another can of worms which include emails.
(8) Do not email me about work past 5:00 PM and expect me to respond immediately. If you needed an urgent response, then learn the proper channel for doing it but always respect my working vis a vis my personal time.
Am I being maaete/mayabang/maangas? No, I am being professional. If there is an urgent matter that needs immediate addressing, then you would not have emailed me. You would have called and maybe ... just maybe I could have answered.
What is the big deal about this? Because the moment I allow you to do this to me, the moment I start responding to your post 5:00PM emails, I just know for a fact that you are going to it again and again and again because I permitted you to gain total access of all my time for work-related communication.
One thing I love about Google Emails is that there is a feature called SCHEDULED SEND. When I send messages over the weekend, I make sure they are emailed to the recepients first thing Monday morning. Or when I have to send a message after 5:00 PM, I make it a point that the addressee receives it the following day ... at 8:00 in the morning. That is called respecting your co-worker.
Rest assured, I am going to answer your email at the most appropriate time and not twenty seconds after I received your message because you want me to do so if you send it past my cut-off hour.
Oh, and this leads to another important issue that really pisses me off.
(9) You do not send important messages regarding work through Facebook DMs or PMs. If you do not have access to my email, you can message me through Facebook and ask for my email, then provide me the reason why you need my email ... then send me the complete message there. But do not think that important communication is done through social media chat. Oh, and another thing ...
(10) You do not invite people to important events via Facebook DMs or PMs. You send an email with an attached letter of invitation. That is simple etiquette. You don't send a message like, "Hey, Dude, I'm inviting you to ..." not unless you are asking me out to a walwalan 'til Kingdom Come and not a formal get together or forum. The proper (and decent electronic way) is to send an email with an attachment in MSWord or PDF format (hayan na!) complete with logo of organization (if any) with an adequate explanation of the event and the nature of invitation.
(11) If you can explain everything via emails, then do not host a zoom. If you need human company, Skype your friends. Use your video chat platforms but please do not host a meeting and take so much of somebody else's precious time when it can be addressed with correspondence. Another important reminder: do not demand for zooms during lunch breaks (and you are not providing the lunch). Even if people are at home, devouring food and dealing with a meeting are best done on a face to face situation rather than a virtual potluck party,
Simplify your life in these most complicated times by respecting the right of people to eat properly at their own pace and demands of body clock.
And finally ...
(12) Have a cut-off when you will be online working. No, have a cut-off when you will log off from the virtual world and go back to the pleasures of real life. I realized that one of my greatest mistakes this past year and a half is that I spend seventy per cent of my waking hours in front of the computer. I have given up so much of what was my life before in a desperate attempt to anesthetisize myself from the pangs of depression brought about by isolation. And I realized that this is not the solution.
WFH does not mean keeping a living at the cost of losing your life.
The importance of still having yourself despite surrendering your territory to the demands of your profession will always be the priority. We do our work not only for purposes of survival but to be fulfilled and be happy.
Drowning yourself with work and pretending to have a life is like treading on quicksand. So stand up for your right to have a life despite these extraordinary times.
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