About a week ago, I posted a brilliant and hilarious narrative day-in-the-life style description of my typical day since returning to working in an office on a full-time basis. While there were many truthful elements to it, overall it was highly exaggerated with a strong emphasis on the negative, worst-possible interpretation of daily life as an office drone.
So it may shock you to hear me say it, but on net, I’m glad we’re back in the office, and I hope most other companies quickly follow suit. It’s not that I like working in the office as such. The commute still sucks. The open office is still loud and noisy. The various COVID restrictions still in place make an unpleasant environment even worse than it already was.
But in spite of all of that – it offers one key advantage. It feels normal. Even though there’s only one microwave and I have to wear a mask to go to the bathroom and we’re seated a little farther apart than we used to be. We’re all still here. Together. Like how it was in the before times. We’re adapting to it, we’re getting used to it. Nobody is dropping dead or hacking up a lung all over the place. And every day, the pandemic seems a little more distant. Life seems more as it should.
I’m sure a professional could give you a more scientific explanation for this – but I’m becoming increasingly convinced that from a psychological basis – re-establishing old routines, and returning to normal is a HUGE deal. People relate the severity of an event to how much it disrupts their lives. If you asked people when they realized that COVID was going to be a big deal, I suspect you’d get two main answers: When our office told us to start working from home, or when large/major events were cancelled.
In a certain sense, this becomes something of a self-reinforcing feedback loop. The office sent you home because the threat is serious, and you know the threat is serious because your office sent you home. Had everything else stayed the same, except you didn’t start working from home and major events didn’t get cancelled – you wouldn’t have thought it was as serious.
This is why I think right-wing fears of the “great reset” or the “new normal” or “building back better” were entirely justified. So long as most people’s lives were majorly disrupted – everything was on the table. So long as the “old normal” was nothing but a memory, becoming increasingly vague every day, the propensity to reject it for something entirely new was growing. But once you return to work, that changes. Once you go to a baseball game or a concert without a mask, that changes. Once lots of people start doing this and nobody you know dies from it, that changes.
I’d love to see a chart tracking people’s fear/concern about COVID over time, divided up into groups based on employment implications. Something like “Those who never stopped working from an office/location,” “those who worked from home for some significant period of time, but have since returned to working from an office/location,” and “those who remain working from home.” I imagine that Group A (never worked from home) had perhaps the most fear at first, but lost it fairly quickly and now have virtually none. Group B (worked from home but is now back) probably spiked around the early/medium term and is only recovering just now, as they return to the office. Group C (still working from home) likely spiked at the same time as B, but are probably the ones still the most afraid.
So how do we get out of this? Make Group C unafraid again. Send them back to the world. Force them back into their routines. Yes, they’ll complain about it. I complained about it. Oh well. Rip the band-aid off. It needs to be done, for their own good, and for all of society’s.
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For Returning To The Office
I think working from home makes people unable to focus and socially isolated. People prefer the more convenient option that lets them slack off and look at twitter. However, slacking off all day isn't conducive to thriving as a person. You have to accomplish something to feel good. Getting out of the house, going somewhere and talking with your boss or whatever is socially good. Although it sucks, going out and doing something is probably pretty good for mental health. All the days blending together in an unending stream of tweets and youtube videos in your room just isn't healthy living mentally as fun as it seems.
People are irrationally afraid. I think things are getting a lot better now. I can go into places without a mask. I visited a restaurant and didn't wear a mask. I can visit the grocery store and not wear a mask. I was concerned about how long this would go on. I think people are rightfully sick of it. The intolerant neurotics won't win forever.(not everyone who wears a mask is one, but this group has a lot of influence in creating social norms)