Buhay Pandemya: Back to the Office!

Tomorrow I report back to the office!  After more than 6 months, we have been required to return to work, with the usual medical clearances. 

Mixed feelings. I will have to change my routine again. I am thinking of waking up 5am to do my home workout. I should be in the office by 9am. I hope to be out of the office by 5pm thereabouts.

Well, I do miss working in an office. The whole day A/C. The quiet surroundings. (No tricycles, ambulant vendors, dogs barking) I’m eager to check on my office plants, assuming these are still alive. I am able to focus on work at hand. And yeah, I miss dressing up to go to work. 

I will miss my big monitor. I have gotten used to this 42” 2nd monitor at home. I only have a 21” 2nd monitor in the office. 

I will miss multitasking - fixing home stuff, cleaning up even as I listen in on meetings.

I will miss the flexibility to do work while on the bed, couch, roofdeck.

I will miss hot, newly cooked lunch as I willl go back to eating my baon, usually served cold as I am lazy when it comes to reheating at the pantry.

I am not without apprehensions. I don’t know if I could be ‘safe’ enough when out there. I actually am still figuring out my own protocols - mask+shield all throughout? Not entertaining people within my office? Disinfecting before and after? Etc etc I don’t want to overwhelm myself. Let’s just see how it goes tomorrow.

It was good while it lasted. Working from home experience finally answered a lot of previous what-ifs. I remember my previous boss not wanting to consider the idea AT ALL, even for a day in a week. 

I remained productive.  I was still motivated to work the whole 8 hours, sometimes even more. 

But it was also very stressful. Meetings one after the other. Or sometimes double booking meetings. That is on top of emails, SMS, Viber, that everyone seems to assume that you would answer immediately. Now na. As in.

For me, well, work belongs in the office (at least my kind of work) and relaxing and chilling belongs outside the office. The geographic delineation allows for easy mental and emotional separation. And we need that moreso now.

If I had a choice, it would be a 4-day workweek. A 3-day weekend would be divine.