Back to the future?

“…Back to work…”

“…Return to normal…”

“…Productive again…”

These are all phrases I’ve been hearing lately. These phrases irritate the heck out of me.

First, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been working. I was working at home before the pandemic, during it, and will continue to afterwards. I continue to push myself and my team every day to be awesome. Sure, we have some distractions, but we’ve churned out some awesome stuff over the past few weeks. We’ve onboarded new people. We’ve been conducting business. To imply that we haven’t been working or haven’t been productive is insulting.

Second, how do you define “normal”? Science can define conformance to documented standards. But for the Average Joe, the things you define as “normal” are simply those things that you have come to accept as routine through pattern, teaching, and experiences. Your normal may be entirely different from someone else’s. The world is full of differences, and these differences make it beautiful. These differences also drive innovation and creativity by provoking alternative thought.

I understand the sentiment. Some people want to get out of their homes and see family and friends. Some people want to go to the mall or take a vacation. Some people want to return to school. While still some people want to escape abusive relationships or gain access to meal programs. Many people want to go about their day without a mask on and once again shake hands. Others want to work without the distractions their home may currently offer. I get it. What you are saying though is that you want to return to doing some of the things you did before – your normal.

The problem with these blanket statements is the implied “we”. These statements indicate everyone is unproductive, everyone isn’t working, everyone wants life a certain way. It’s wrong of us to assume that everyone feels the same way or is going through the same thing.

It would also be a mistake to go back to life exactly how it was before this pandemic. After all, there’s something about that before state that landed us here! We’ve learned so much. Companies and people that didn’t believe they could work from home have proven themselves wrong. We’ve seen the impact we have on our environment. We’ve seen compassion creep up to being a core business value again and a differentiator versus simply managing the bottom-line. We’ve seen creative solutions to connect and collaborate. If we simply return to the exact same state, what have we learned? And what will we lose?

I could continue my rant. But my point here is to watch your words. If you mean to say that you will bring team members back to physical offices, say so. If you want to note that restaurants will now be open for sit-down patrons, say so. But please stop blanketing entire populations with generic statements that imply that today is somehow less than tomorrow. 

Good day sunshine

It’s fall, and the temperature finally feels like it. Fall is my favorite season, filled with hot chocolate, sweaters, cool breezes, leaves changing, hockey season… I could go on and on! But today, in this moment, I am acutely aware of the weather and the awesomeness of working at home on such a fine day.

Looking out my window, the sky is a beautiful robin’s egg blue without a cloud to be seen. My window is open with the cool breeze filling my office with a renewing, crisp sense of freshness. My backdoor is open, allowing the faint echo of the gong-style wind chime on my porch to provide delicate background music to my day. My dog Lucy is staring out the front door keeping watch while soaking in the sun, showing off her beautiful smile.

Isn’t that a poetic picture? Doesn’t that describe a place you would love to work? It’s only possible because I’m at home. In the office, I’d be in a cube somewhere with that sunlight teasing me, if visible at all, with none of the renewing accompaniments.

There’s more to this note than to brag. There is science behind the impact of sunlight, temperature, and fresh air towards your productivity. People that are exposed to natural daylight remain more alert than their sleepy counterparts exposed to artificial lighting. Your cortisol levels drop significantly under poor or artificial lighting, which increases your stress levels. Many of you will also recognize the relationship that low cortisol levels have towards weight gain. Similarly, lack of sunlight can also lower your levels of serotonin, which regulates sleep, appetite, mood, and memory. Some researchers believe that low serotonin is also connected with clinical depression.

Are you having trouble sleeping? It could be that your body is out of its circadian rhythm due to lack of sun exposure. Sunlight helps tell your body that nighttime is over and to stop producing melatonin. If you produce melatonin all day and that pattern remains the same, then you become used to it and it isn’t helping your body fall naturally to sleep. It’s like when people say caffeine doesn’t impact them because it’s so commonplace to them it’s like water. As a result, some folks (like my poor office-bound hubby) are taking melatonin supplements. Sunlight will stop the release of melatonin and allow you to reserve the natural stuff for bedtime.

To me, open windows seem to freshen everything up. It circulates the air, bringing in raw, new air to replace the stagnant air. The air is no longer being filtered through the AC/Furnace and is pure from the source, like drinking natural spring water. I don’t know about you, but it’s a great reminder that my filter probably needs to be changed (note to self). When you consider the office, all air is always run through machines, so you are dependent on their maintenance to manage what you breathe. Not to mention all the funk brought in by those around you – how quickly does that air turnover? This results in poor air quality in the office, which is directly attributed to poor performance and more sick days.

Lack of sunshine can ruin your sleep, mood, eating habits, memory, and much more. Lack of fresh air results in fatigue and illness. All of these things translate into your productivity and quality at work. If you are not your best self, you cannot put your best effort into your activities.

There are things an office worker can do to help. But, as work at home folks, we have a true advantage. We control our environments. We control our access to Mother Nature in our work day and our breaks. Therefore, we control our potential for greatness. 

Working While Sick

You've heard it dozens of times before... Your employer and coworkers say that if you are sick, you should stay home. They don't want your funk! They don't want to be grossed out by seeing or hearing what you are dealing with, and they certainly don't want to catch it, so they want you as far away as possible.

Why do you still go to work when you're in these rough conditions? You need that paycheck! You also don't want to burn through your paid time off (PTO) being sick because you want those days for vacation. And you may have meetings and deadlines that you'd miss and set forth a chain reaction that would take days and weeks to recover from. Doesn't that make you feel important?

Despite all of your valid reasons, your office mates are still right. You shouldn't be in the office. And this is yet another reason that working from home is the cure for what ails you.

When you work from home, no one is there to catch your germs. No one has to listen to the sounds you make (coughing, sneezing, blowing your nose, or worse...) You are containing your germs to you!

There are creature comforts of working from home as well. If you need to sleep in a little longer, no one will notice if you didn't get dressed, fix your hair, put on makeup, or skip your morning workout. If you are having a fever or cold chills, you are able to adjust the thermostat appropriately and dress to match, including sporting that awesome Snuggie you try to deny you have. If you need to take medication throughout the day, you aren't raising any eyebrows. And you truly cannot articulate the value of having your own, private restroom. Even your lunch time becomes more valuable as you can catch a quick nap, run to the doctor, refill a prescription, fix a bowl of soup, or otherwise help yourself get well.

Here's the best part: You're able to do all of this AND work. BOOM!

All of this assumes that you have some cognitive ability to add value, of course. There are some illnesses that you can work through, and some you shouldn't. Sometimes 50% of you at work is better than 0%, but in other cases you should just focus on a complete mend so that you can come back to work strong sooner. Check out my prior blog about allowing yourself to actually call in sick.

In a time where HR measures corporate wellness by the number of "unhealthy days", companies are trying to maximize productivity, and employees are using their vacation time to actually take vacation, being able to NOT take a sick day has increasing value. And that drives up the already valuable nature of working at home.