Today’s definition of working from home in a pandemic year (- with a kid)

2020 started off pretty well.

I gave birth in the middle of January, and was actually looking forward to spending my maternity leave walking around and shopping all day long. But just as I started getting out of the house, I was faced with a new reality, and I realized that everything that was changing would become our new reality for quite a long time.

I must say, knowing that it didn’t affect just us, just our country, but had become a worldwide tragedy, made it feel pretty scary on one hand, but on the other hand it made it a bit better, and I’ll explain.

When things happen only in our country, it seems like we are in the news, we are the center, and no one else really understands it. But knowing that it’s everywhere, that the whole world is being affected by it, made me feel like there will be some understanding when things get tough.

And so it happened. After being home (and literally almost just home) with a new baby for 7 months, I ended my maternity leave and went back to my old job, but with new team members that I have never seen before.

Besides my boss and one other team member, my team had expanded making it feel like I was starting a new job.

The only difference was that they never let me feel this way.

So now, here I am starting my “old-new” job. Getting to know the people via zoom, having private conversations with each one of them.

But everything changed again two weeks later. The lockdown had started again.

No kindergarten, no babysitters, just us at home working with a baby that was not even a year old.

Good luck hey? Yeah we needed that.

Let’s take a few steps back and talk about the fact that i’m a bit relieved that it’s a worldwide pandemic and doesn’t just affect us.

Like I said. There will be some understanding. But back then I had no idea how much.

Before I gave birth, and obviously before my maternity leave, I used to wake up, workout, come into the office around 9:00 and have my coffee with the early bird team members. Then we would work until around 12:00, leave the office together to get food (or order in) and get back to work by 13:00/13:30. Around 18:00 I would be home and my afternoon with my husband would start.

We barely ever brought work home. Sometimes, we had meetings in the early evenings with the US and sometimes there was something really important that needed to be done by the next day, but besides that, my evenings were free.

Let’s jump a few months later to our new reality. The Corona reality. In lockdown.

I (personally) wake up when the birds start singing their morning songs (yes, I have a baby) have my coffee together with my daughter and entertain her until work starts, and then do my work simultaneously. Thank goodness her father is working from home as well.

So we split the shifts.

Let’s face it, most of the time our team meetings are with our children screaming in the background or making silly faces to the other team members.

Things have changed.

The definition of working from home has changed completely.

Being sick and staying home has changed.

Let me explain.

When you were sick, even if it was just coughing or having a running nose you wouldn’t dare to come into the office having all your colleagues putting their sweaters over their face to prevent your germs getting too close to them and making faces at you.

So, you would stay home, call in sick and come back 1–2 days later.

Not anymore, unless you have a high fever, or can’t move your bum from the couch to the computer, you are working, working from home.

It’s not a threat anymore to be sick. No one gets affected.

Not even by your weird voice, when you explain what you are working on.

So, you are now collecting around 20 sick days in your salary, that you might one day just spend on just sitting at home doing nothing.

But that’s not all. Working from home had a meaning. It was almost the same as working from the office, just on your comfortable chair or sometimes couch at home. With your homemade food, and for a lunch break you could watch an episode of The Big Bang Theory, while eating the schnitzel you made yesterday.

Now working from home means you are available 24/7, at least.

Even when you have a baby or kids at home.

There is no clocking in at 9:00 and leaving at 18:00. The clocking in can happen anytime of the day, and the clocking out can be when you suddenly wake up from a dream having this major idea that you just have to write down or even share on Slack with your colleagues.

Now If you’re asking me what’s better, I wouldn’t have a straight answer.

Is it better to have your day spent in the office, then picking up your child spending a few moments with them, when the father (or mother) doesn’t always get to see them because they have to spend more time in the office? Or, is it better that you can actually give the child all the time they need in lockdown and just work a bit later, because everyone understands that you can’t really work with one hand feeding your child and the other one reading a book.

Let’s just say that we are doing the best we can in this weird situation, and let’s agree that when this pandemic is over there are some things we should take with us from this reality.