On March 13, 2020, I switched to working from home. Not voluntarily. That day, I found out that I had traveled by train the day before with a colleague who developed strong COVID-19 symptoms the next day (her test was later negative). She had come into contact with several team members. It was Friday the 13th, the day I had to send the entire team home, which caused quite a bit of fear and panic. After all, how do you get a test when the emergency hotline (116117) is constantly busy? That day, everything revolved around who the colleague had been in contact with, which routes she had taken in the office, and which rooms she had stayed in longer. A pre-defined process immediately kicked in. But for what came next, there was no process yet.
I had always been a fan of working from home and had already worked from home at least one day a week, if not two, before. Commuting was the least of my problems—I can walk to the office. But at home, I have a gigabit connection, more quiet, better concentration, and the flexibility to spend my breaks by the Elbe. Many of my interactions are video conferences with colleagues in other countries. For the first week, therefore, it wasn’t an issue at all to spend the whole time working from home. It felt like being able to eat your favorite dish for an entire week.
One week turned into a second, which was also fine. Maybe, I thought to myself, it could stay like this for a while just to be safe. Even though it became annoying that shelves were emptied and the food options became more limited. Then came the third week. Not only my team was working from home; other teams followed. And with them came the need to digitalize some processes or even build something completely new. The home office gave me enough peace to program a lot. I probably wrote some of my best lines of code during this time. At the same time, we built a kind of virtual office for our team, with a coffee corner for chatting, etc. Some highlights, like sharing our favorite music on Fridays, we didn’t have before in the office. In the summer, I met colleagues in parks (keeping a safe distance, of course), just so we could see each other in person. Meanwhile, my home office became more professional—first a monitor, then a height-adjustable desk, and several attempts to stabilize the Wi-Fi at the other end of the apartment. Fortunately, I had already pushed for converting a room into a more dedicated office space before the pandemic. Not everyone has that luxury, and I’m definitely privileged, especially when friends around me were losing income and had very different worries.
But, as with favorite dishes, if you eat them every day, you eventually get tired of them. Don’t get me wrong—I’m still a big fan of working from home. But every time I did go to the office and could meet colleagues, I came back home in a good mood. And I’m not necessarily someone who needs people around all the time. Quite the opposite. But it’s the balance that matters. The days spent working from home start to feel monotonous over time. Even though I go outside during the day, usually once at lunch and then after work, just to give the day some structure. Some colleagues struggle with separating work from personal life. And while many people think it’s cute when children burst into a video conference, it’s often embarrassing for the parent, and how are kids supposed to understand that “Dad is home but not available”?
And then there’s something else that Ronnie Grob describes well. Companies have realized that their employees can be productive even when not physically present in the office. Office space and business trips could be permanently reduced. But if remote work works so well, why not go even more remote in the future? Do we really need expensive experts on-site, or can a much more affordable expert from another continent do just as well? This is already the business model for some consulting firms—expensive consultants on-site, cheap experts elsewhere—and not only large companies have experience with offshoring or nearshoring. It’s likely this trend will continue to grow.
When the pandemic is over (hopefully soon), we will try to return to the world we had before. But that won’t be possible, at least not beneath the surface. Restaurants, unless they’ve already closed down, will reopen, and concerts will take place, but that’s just one side of the coin. Because thought processes have been set in motion that can’t be easily reversed. We’ve also learned how vulnerable our system is. This won’t be easily compensated by simply dining out more after the pandemic.
Meanwhile, I hope that the monotony of my home office will soon end and that I can once again spend well-planned workdays in the office. My fundamental hope, however, is that we will use the newfound freedom in a more meaningful way than before.