I completely agree. The always on is a huge trap that I fell into myself early in the pandemic. I'm a manager of a team of software engineers. I liked the boundary that the office brought between my professional and personal life, however, it always seemed to invade during times of emergency. I'm on call 24/7 to be able to support th…
I completely agree. The always on is a huge trap that I fell into myself early in the pandemic. I'm a manager of a team of software engineers. I liked the boundary that the office brought between my professional and personal life, however, it always seemed to invade during times of emergency. I'm on call 24/7 to be able to support those folk that pay the bills. I can live with that. What I struggled with was getting up early (was an early riser) and instead of doing personal things, I would hit my laptop at 7am to get some work done. And then still being "at work" until 6-7 pm. It made for a very long and exhausting day. Even a type A workaholic personality like myself couldn't keep it up for long. 10 months in I had a moment of clarity and starting setting boundaries. I won't sit down at the laptop before 9AM. I have an hour block daily on my calendar for a lunch time break even if I don't eat as time away from work. Finally unless something is on fire, I log off at 5-5:30 and just keep my phone nearby. It did wonders for my mental health.
Are there other stresses? Sure. Like the landscapers that always seem to be on my block with their infernal leaf blowers. The housekeeper (g-d bless her) who comes once a week to do the bits I don't like to do, has a habit of chasing me from room to room. Fortunately my kids are 18 and don't require constant attention to keep them from killing themselves or setting fire to the house. My elderly parents are another story and always traipsing through my home office. Fortunately they are now trained to think before interrupting me with "is this something you would have called me at the office for?" The cats I can't do anything about and my team has become accustomed to periodic gibberish text via Slack and just greet the cat who just said hello to them.
I do miss being in the office. The organic, social aspect of the interaction. I don't miss the hour commute into NYC, nor do I ever want to step foot in that destroyed city again until saner heads prevail and put it back together again like Giuliani did years ago (I'm old enough to remember the city before him). And now my company has closed the office in the city and converted us all to remote workers so I couldn't go anywhere even if I so chose. When my little corner of crazy blue lib bergen county becomes sane again, I might pick up my laptop and go sit at Starbucks for a change of scenery and cast.
I completely agree. The always on is a huge trap that I fell into myself early in the pandemic. I'm a manager of a team of software engineers. I liked the boundary that the office brought between my professional and personal life, however, it always seemed to invade during times of emergency. I'm on call 24/7 to be able to support those folk that pay the bills. I can live with that. What I struggled with was getting up early (was an early riser) and instead of doing personal things, I would hit my laptop at 7am to get some work done. And then still being "at work" until 6-7 pm. It made for a very long and exhausting day. Even a type A workaholic personality like myself couldn't keep it up for long. 10 months in I had a moment of clarity and starting setting boundaries. I won't sit down at the laptop before 9AM. I have an hour block daily on my calendar for a lunch time break even if I don't eat as time away from work. Finally unless something is on fire, I log off at 5-5:30 and just keep my phone nearby. It did wonders for my mental health.
Are there other stresses? Sure. Like the landscapers that always seem to be on my block with their infernal leaf blowers. The housekeeper (g-d bless her) who comes once a week to do the bits I don't like to do, has a habit of chasing me from room to room. Fortunately my kids are 18 and don't require constant attention to keep them from killing themselves or setting fire to the house. My elderly parents are another story and always traipsing through my home office. Fortunately they are now trained to think before interrupting me with "is this something you would have called me at the office for?" The cats I can't do anything about and my team has become accustomed to periodic gibberish text via Slack and just greet the cat who just said hello to them.
I do miss being in the office. The organic, social aspect of the interaction. I don't miss the hour commute into NYC, nor do I ever want to step foot in that destroyed city again until saner heads prevail and put it back together again like Giuliani did years ago (I'm old enough to remember the city before him). And now my company has closed the office in the city and converted us all to remote workers so I couldn't go anywhere even if I so chose. When my little corner of crazy blue lib bergen county becomes sane again, I might pick up my laptop and go sit at Starbucks for a change of scenery and cast.