(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr. Find out more at my newsletter.)
I’ve been writing about Work From Home (WFH) a lot lately. You see a post here a week as I discuss my thoughts and findings. But it’s not just here I’m talking about it.
It’s a subject at work because, you know, pandemic.
It’s a subject among friends, as we’re almost all working from home.
It’s a subject at home as my girlfriend is dealing with it too.
And I realized I, the geek job guru, the WFH advocate, am tired of talking about working from home. It’s all over, it’s everywhere, it’s exhausting. So why am I not thrilled we’re discussing it?
We first of all, there’s the entire damn pandemic. It’s a pretty awful time to discuss it, as well as all the other awful stuff in the world.
But I realized it’s because it’s like a damn bursting, it’s an overload. Suddenly, because of the pandemic, we’re having to cope with WFH fast.
So now suddenly all our years of theories and ideas and experience are compressed into less than a year.
So now all of our repressed desires to discuss it erupt out.
So now we’ve got to adapt so fast and so quickly it’s hard.
The dam has burst. Years of tweaking WFH, or maybe talking about it, of doing a little bit weren’t enough. So here we are in a disaster we could be ready for, adapting fast, applying lessons from decades in a year, and going “I told you so” a lot.
There’s a lesson in this.
Look, by my best estimates we’re stuck doing this until March 2021, probably July. We’re then going to deal with a world post-pandemic, with vaccines and new protocols and the like. We’re going to be worn and tired.
In this time, its important we apply these lessons, but also to go easy on ourselves. Because this is not just a hard time, we’re overwhelmed with all the stuff we have to do for WFH, and we’re tired.
So apply the lessons, but apply the vital ones first.
Use the techniques we have, but don’t beat yourself up over doing them perfectly.
Move to WFH, but understand people can’t do everything and times are tough, and it’s not perfect.
Finally, accept that during a freaking pandemic none of us are at 100%. Hell, some of us are operating at 120% and we’d like to slow down.
The dam burst. All our ideas and maybes about WFH exploded into life fast because we had to use them, during a disaster. Go easy on yourself and on everyone.
It’s not like we’re going anywhere, sadly.
Steven Savage