Back to the office
A/k/a Bring on the feels.
What camp are you in?
Are you pressing your ‘nice’ pants as you read this?
Or are you marching down the plank of getting back to coffee breaks and commutes as you, watery-eyed, look down at the sofa or daybed that has held all the feelings and meetings for the last too long time since the sky cracked, sprinkling down masks and take out?
We often learn where we and others are by way of complaining. I love complaining, my own and that of others, for discontent is a much better tell of passion than vigor is. I mean, Hell, it is just more noticeable and instantaneous the reactions of ‘no’ vs ‘yes’. When we are bit we yelp, a louder noise than a sweet and soft ‘yum’ when a treat touches our slobbery tongues. Also, danger kills and good is just good. And so, we react and remember ill over well. Add to that: people bond over bad news. That is a lot of how our identities are and have been defined. A/k/a the shit one went through makes them.
Were you an addict? Me, too. We ‘get it’ (Are you a committed recover-er with the soul of a self-harm athlete? Now we are more so kin.)
Parents divorced?
Death of a pet? Pal? Family member?
Did you have a hard day?
Break up with a beloved? A/k/a kicked to the curb and chest still scuffed? Or blocked a contact you can’t stop smelling in the sheets and shirt you have not washed for weeks since you did the ‘right thing’ that feels, at present, on par with the darkest days by their side?
Oh, hate your hair? GOD I would kill to something other than ‘this’ up top of my noggin, too!
And yes, that band is great, and no way can we hang because that flick is the pits.
Those and more are the ties that bind, what we survive, because living is, many times, a learning in the things that sell as required and often oscillate towards the traumatic; how we measure and maintain and are supported by those walking the ways we are and serve, in that, as useful companions. Walking is the thing, though. Collecting, putting down and not waylaying too long, and too, trusting ourselves with the means and abilities to resume when we do slow and choose to tarry.
So, come on, bond up – tell me:
1) Were you a work-at-homer this recent Dark Age?
2) Do you now have a date, or have recently met one, where you are too or have ‘returned’?
3) Perhaps you were a desk jockey Monday – Friday looking forward to a partial home and office schedule?
4) Or there is no longer an IRL space to return to as you and your colleagues are scattered across the great expanse to see each other evermore as headshot icons on Slack?
5) What of those who never went to an office at all and are like, ‘so what’? Or perhaps are presently curious as to what that might be like? (Working from home used to be a ‘choice’ of sorts, not a mandate.)
6) And too, perhaps there is no ‘it’ to go back to at all. Job? Industry? Ambition nor interest.
7) Not as so imagined in the heady days of early summer is the feeling many have of getting back to it, which is more a want than a wisdom.
In a lot of discussions, quite generally, folx tend to a fall into a lot less nuanced grouping than even those. They are for or against going in. However, unless it is them who owns the organization – that many well not matter very much at all, and so – what are you to do when what is sitting well in your consciousness is not what is being asked by your employer?
Well, you could get in line. And, yeah, that can likely be the more responsible route, though not the only….
See, we harp often about things like how a job works, rather than what we do or what we are paid. We put great weight upon ‘who’ we work for than what the day looks like there. And, hey, this is not a dissection of what matters more. That is all such a heavy ‘it depends’ situation for each person. What I am bringing forth is an encouragement to give more than the conventional credence to the confines of our careers.
HR departments do a lot and too, don’t do crap. I mean, so many gigs rest upon policy and paperwork, there can be a distance between the humanity of the humans they are resourcing and, within this very context, ignore that serving the employees can serve the bottom line of the pillars of industry. [Insert scoff]
Think of it this way: how people like to work will make them work better and if that is not trusted than perhaps it could be proposed that having teammates and staff you don’t trust to do so is a what … YOU GOT IT!
An HR problem bigger yet!
The point in all this is more to staffers and staff. Ask, OK? There may be responsibilities to real-estate to consider, but too, there has been a lot of time hence to get to know how to be nimble and roll with it. Your employees have had a lot of that, too, and everyone is here so something OK happened. In this recent WTF era, what did you learn about those bodies behind those boxes and screens, resting on coffee tables, upon pillows, or on just-over-a-year-old WFH desks? How might the two of you come together to make space of way by fostering the desires of all can either continue or result in viability for all?
Now, to those of you who have little choice but to do something that does not serve you else you lose your income. You may ‘have to’ but don’t make that the end of the conversation. It is perfectly OK to look for a job the actual day-to-day confines of which, beyond commute, are good for how you dig on doing the day.
Jobs like relationships and real estate are made up by the minutes spent there. And if the way a partner chews their food or the fact that that door jamb is just slightly off irks you – plug into the intelligence of the bother and know it will only increase the more moments you clock in there.
It may seem subtle – or subtle-ish – but I promise it matters as so do all aspects of your experience.
I am sorry if you are having do a thing against your ideal. Cover your ass as needed, but may your ass contain too your conscious, even in the smallest measure. And, yeah, perhaps you might be well to seek another gig entirely or ask for some leverage at your current. Wanna talk it out? No sweat, I got you – hit me up.
