The Advocates

According to my wonderful calculations, it has taken me 22 months to go back to my pre-lockdown fitness regime, 18 months to go back to my traveling schedule and approximately 12 months to go back full-time to my office. All these milestones have been reached with pain. Seriously. Lockdown for me was an emotional journey that started from the nurturing, transformed into the surreal and ended in the dramatic.

Why pain ? why dramatic? Well mostly because the transformation of our home - our safe space, into two offices, a gym, two classrooms, self-contained music studio, even a cinema and a restaurant was never planned, it was forced and our home was supposed to be the place where we brought our images and experiences from the world and transformed them into ... family -- it was never supposed to be the limits of our world.

The workplace, my work and other people's work was one of the defining impact zones and one that affects me to this day. I was not ready for, nor expecting to adopt phrases like hybrid-working, full-remote, I was not ready for the negotiation that ensued and I am still not ready for the very-real divide between them and us; us and them, The Advocates and The Dinosaurs. I was also not ready for the investment I would have to make to simply communicate - I now have to accept and work through this digital exchange that can take anything from 5 to 25 minutes in TEAMS:

(colleague) -- Are you around?

(myself) -- Yes

(colleague) -- Do you have a minute?

(myself) -- Yes

(colleague) -- Can I call ?

(myself) -- Yes

long pause

(myself)-- Are you going to call?

long pause

(colleague) -- Sorry just in another call; I will ping you in a bit.

This is life you see. This is every day. This would have taken approx. 30 sec in 2019. And of course I understand about cost of petrol and commuting but I realized I also have a voice and an opinion and I need to express it the same way others express theirs. I am not disputing productivity, effort or commitment - but home-working is not for me, I do not like or encourage it, it has cost companies and teams big and small so very much in unity, communication, and effectiveness. And yet I accept it.

Working in communication this kind of impact is deeply felt - have you tried debriefing an art director over the phone? or over teams? have you tried running a brainstorming meeting online? in presentation mode? We do all these things - and we do them effectively. We get the job done. But every so often I remember the investment we have made to support this - this new reality.

Often it is said that the work-life balance achieved through remote working is unsurpassed and I do not understand. I do not understand about flexibility. I do not understand that someone is super productive at 6am but at 13:30 he needs to pick up his kid from school. So log off for 2 hours. But it is cool. Is it? because his team might need his input. No, no it is cool. I do not understand that emailing at 22:30 on ongoing issues is now ok - not an exception. Because the kids go to sleep at 21:30 you see - so glass of wine, and off to emails. Then time for Netflix. I do not understand that working from home is a must but if and when one decides to come into the office, there should be his or her office right there waiting, like a rent-free shrine to his/her productivity and omnipresence, forever and ever. I don't understand. I don't understand that hybrid is the new normal and we should make our own schedule and rules and pace. And then we will be happy...

But why don't I understand? What is wrong with me? Why is my life less balanced? I was even accused of hating my home-life which leads me to seek solace in the office. It is of course an interesting notion / the happy remote-workers reveling in the joy that is their home life. And the unhappy office workers, escaping the horror that is their family. This is the level of discourse this topic has reached. And it does trouble me. I find myself experiencing strong feelings about this and sometimes difficulties in hiding them. But of course it is not as simple as that. There are genuine considerations and after all if options are given why should people not take them. After all productivity and geography are not necessarily linked.

Maybe they are not.

Maybe they are.

I know for a fact that no great team in history was forged and bound through correspondence. I know for a fact that asking someone to turn on their camera in order to see them, and they say no, I look awful is not the beginning of a great meeting. I know for a fact that putting a baby to sleep in the middle of writing a sales proposal is likely to negatively affect both tasks - the sleep induction and the proposal. And I know for a fact working in your underwear is not dressing for success - unless you strive to be a lingerie model, in which case remote working was never an option anyway.

As I grow older, and not really wiser, it is easier to understand that different opinions are to be taken on their own merit and the differences within a team are the underlying reasons behind its long-term resilience. Colleagues and team-mates are working from home. Week in and week out. We do not really see eye eye; I do not feel out of touch with the workforce. I do feel that this too shall pass. This is how I feel -- I know it is horrifying to a lot of people, but I need to share my truth. Numerous companies are no longer considering hybrid-working models for existing employees and definitely not for new recruits.

But on that last point we will have to come back -- during another episode ..