Returning to the office after 6.5 weeks of social isolation

[#1]

Yesterday I had my first day back at the office after 6.5 weeks at home. I went from one week of vacation —> directly to home office —> back to the office in this time.

I wanted to share some thoughts and situations that happened to me.

1. Challenge accepted: packing things for your day at the office - from work equipment to personal stuff to food, beverages, dishes and cutlery. Some important questions before I entered the office:

• Am I still wearing sweatpants or home office attire?! No, perfect... let’s go.
• Will I still know how the coffee machine works?
• Do I still know where my desk is?
• How do I drive my car? (just kiddin’)
• ...

2. It felt like my first day of work again, but with way less people there. Excitement is spreading…

• Positive point: everybody is really happy to see each other again in person. There were a lot of honest “How are you? How are you dealing with the situation?” questions AND a huge need to chit chat and exchange at least a bit of gossip with people other than your family and friends.
• Direct jump to the negative point: I was one of those “birthday-in-lockdown” people… so still no hugs, no office birthday cake or cards or anything else due to the “social distancing regulations” - only smiles and waving from afar :-(
• What I realized: some colleagues - like myself - took the chance to rethink priorities and what they want to achieve in life.

3. What is different?

• Community masks and sanitizer, … everywhere —> it’s hard to recognise some colleagues
• In addition to the point above —> hairdressers and barbers really need to reopen asap ;-)
• There are not many people on site, and those who are, are located at different desks with a lot of space between them
• We are still adjusting to meetings, especially in those that are mixed: remote and on site due to our “no meetings in one room with more than 5 participants” rule
• It feels a little bit like dancing when you meet somebody in the aisle or at the coffee machine to keep distance. :-)
• Everybody is more polite and friendly - although we already had a pretty high standard here.

Summary - status as of now:

It’s never gonna be like 2 months ago... but how and what’s this new normal gonna be on site?! And is this change in behaviour really a completely bad thing?

• I really appreciate this new politeness and this taking care of each other (at least most people do that).
• The excessive hugging (except on birthdays) is really not necessary. ;-)
• Hygiene standards are nothing new to me so no change here.
• But what about our breakfast sessions / lunch breaks / coffee chit chats? Only via Zoom will not be satisfying for long.

What did you experience or expect back at the office? I would love to hear that. :-) 

#embrace-remote

[Kat Warner]

We still have at least another 2.5 weeks before we return to the office. Things should be kind of normal then as New Zealand is on track to have single digit active cases by this coming Tuesday.

Working from home really highlighted some existing cracks in our processes. It will be interesting to see how time is split in the first few weeks back between catching up with each other, business-as-usual work, process improvement initiatives (we don't have the capacity to work on these remotely - I need my whiteboard and Post-it walls :P ), and work plans to maintain and grow revenue in the interesting economic times to come.

[Tamanna Godara]

Great post Nina, seems like a fairytale cos in India, it is still a distant possibility given the current scenario. But happy to read that things are progressing. 

[nina_schmidt]

@Kat Warner 

We also have some issue to solve after this regarding remote work and usage of our tools globally the same way

—> challenge accepted

 And you could check out Miro as a virtual whiteboard and post-it has an app too :-) 

[nina_schmidt]

@Tamanna Godara slowly but they do :-) 

let‘s cross fingers we restarted on site office hours not too early, but I felt safe and sound 

[Darline Auguste]

Awesome write up, Nina! Chances are it'll still be some time until we're back in the office in Amsterdam and I'm curious if I'll have the same feelings :) 

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Thank you for sharing @nina_schmidt !

We are still fully remote (6+ weeks now), and it will be an interesting experience to get back to "normal. Whatever the new normal will be :)

Keeping an eye on this topic!

[Esme Crutchley]

Amazing article @nina_schmidt, thank you for sharing!

In the UK we're still on lockdown, no idea when I'll be back in the office yet! 

I have a feeling we have a couple of months left of working from home!

[nina_schmidt]

I would like to hear how you all felt, when it happened sometime in the (distant) future. 

I'll keep you updated on how things are progressing here.

[Kat Warner]

@nina_schmidt - for me I am taking the pragmatic approach of challenge NOT accepted. Working form home means I have limited capacity both with time and mentally so I am only working on things that cannot wait. 

If it has been broken more than 8 weeks, it can stay broken for at least another 8. Better to have broken processes than broken people.

[nina_schmidt]

An update after a few more days back at the office:

- Politeness is still on a very high level, but smiling with your eyes only (due to the mask) is not as easy as I thought
- Our „office candy bar“ is still closed 😢 —> don‘t forget snacks to avoid hypoglycaemia and the associated bad mood 😂
- You get used to (almost) everything (at least for a while), but fortunately the hairdressers opened again yesterday 😉
- Never underestimate the joke I made about forgetting how to drive a car... not I did forget it, but some others obviously did 😂🙈
- I still have no idea about this „new normal“ and how it will look like, but things are progressing slowly 👍

- short conversations about silly and in-your-face humorous things provide some desperately needed distraction, since there are only very few people present and the office breaks should be spent separately 🙈

--> I‘ll keep you posted 😊

[John Funk]

Hi @nina_schmidt  - That was almost exactly like my first week back in the office last week. Thanks for sharing!! I love your sense of humor as well.  ;-)

[nina_schmidt]

Thank you @John Funk 😊 

[Ólöf Kristjánsdóttir {Tempo}]

Great insights Nina! We've been back in the office for a few weeks now and we actually did a retro for what things we would want to continue doing that we started doing during lockdown. One thing I've seen is that we actually met more often as a full team during lock down than after we returned to the office (our team is partly remote and one location has returned to the office while the other one is still on lockdown). I'd like to continue some of the online happy hour traditions as well! If only for our team members still cooped up in their homes.

Stay safe!