Along with millions of Americans, I am officially five months into working remotely.
How's it going?
A few weeks ago while I was in a coffee shop waiting for my barista to make my mocha, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal by Chip Cutter Companies Start to Think Remote Work Isn’t So Great After All.
Now, as the work-from-home experiment stretches on, some cracks are starting to emerge. Projects take longer. Training is tougher. Hiring and integrating new employees, more complicated. Some employers say their workers appear less connected and bosses fear that younger professionals aren’t developing at the same rate as they would in offices, sitting next to colleagues and absorbing how they do their jobs.
Months into a pandemic that rapidly reshaped how companies operate, an increasing number of executives now say that remote work, while necessary for safety much of this year, is not their preferred long-term solution once the coronavirus crisis passes.
“There’s sort of an emerging sense behind the scenes of executives saying, ‘This is not going to be sustainable,’” said Laszlo Bock, chief executive of human-resources startup Humu and the former HR chief at Google. No CEO should be surprised that the early productivity gains companies witnessed as remote work took hold have peaked and leveled off, he adds, because workers left offices in March armed with laptops and a sense of doom.
There are lots of other reasons why working remotely has its challenges for some types of work. There aren't spontaneous conversations. Young people don't get the mentoring they need. Teamwork diminishes. Some people feel more productive, but ask their bosses. Do they feel the same? Sometimes not.
I read another article from the Wall Street Journal that said people become lonely after working remotely for nine months. When I read that, I thought that is so true. I thought about myself working remotely when I moved from Chicago to St. Louis from for Jack's job years ago. We moved to St. Louis in June and I kept the job I had in Chicago. Everyday, I went to my cube in the St. Louis office where I had no peers. For nine months, I had no one to eat lunch with (except when I was on the road). I quit my job the following February. I had another friend/co-worker who moved to another state a few years ago in July to follow a girlfriend. The next spring, he was showing signs of anxiety. By the summer, he checked himself into a hospital for mental health treatment.
When I told my friend Ellen that after nine months of isolation people become lonely, she said, "So in around the holidays we all are going to collapse?"
Yes and no. Not everyone will collapse, but some of us will. Social connection is a very important part of living a healthy life. It is like diet and exercise: some people eat crap, smoke, drink never exercise, and then live to be 86 with very few health issues (see: Auntie Chris). Other people who do the same die of a heart attack when they are forty-three. Likewise, some people can live an isolated life and are fine. Others not so much.
How can we stay connected to society, to our friends, our peers?
I don't have an answer or plan, but at least I have a goal of staying connected.
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