English on the Move
Auch im Homeoffice braucht man seinen Arbeitsplatz, seine Pausen und seinen – virtuellen – Kontakt zu Kollegen und Vorgesetzten. Um all das geht es in diesen Dialogen.
Working from home
AUDIO PLUS Talking to a friend
Mina: Hi, John. I just thought I’d give you a call to see how you’re doing. Are you working from home now?
John: Yes, since the end of last month. I’m still getting used to it.
Mina: Do you miss going into the office?
John: I miss the social side, such as seeing and chatting to colleagues. But I don’t miss the morning commute. Now, I don’t need to go any farther than the dedicated workspace I’ve set up in the spare room.
Mina: Do you have some sort of daily routine? John: I do. I prepare the day as if I were going to the office. I set the alarm. I dress properly. I have breakfast and take my coffee to my workspace at the time I’d normally be taking the bus to work.
Mina: So, you start earlier than you did before? John: Yes. I find I do my best work at the start of the day. When I hit a wall, I take a break and go for a short walk. Also, I check my social-media accounts only in the evening so that I’m not always looking at them when I have a few moments of downtime. Mina: That sounds a bit drastic. But it is easy to get distracted from what you should be doing. John: My main distraction is Lily!
Mina: How old is she now?
John: Her fifth birthday is coming up. Luckily, Michelle is working from home, too — parttime. She looks after Lily in the mornings. I take over around three in the afternoon.
Mina: It must be hard to balance family and work priorities.
John: It’s not easy, but we’re doing all right.
Talking to the boss
Yash: Hi, John. I thought I’d touch base and see how things are going.
John: It’s all working out surprisingly well. Yash: That’s great. Do you think the Monday morning virtual stand-up meetings are valuable? Is there anything you’d like to change?
John: I think they work well. We just need to make sure they don’t go on too long. Yash: I agree. I’ll keep an eye on that.
John: My problem is that I overcommit to things in the meetings. I find later that I was too ambitious!
Yash: We have to be realistic about what we can achieve. Are you able to keep in contact with the team?
John: I find I’m using the phone to call colleagues more often than sending messages. The human contact is missing when you work from home.
Yash: I suppose that’s why I’m calling you now. It’s more personal.
Talking to a colleague
Greta: I’m ringing about an idea I have that could help keep the team together now that we’re all working remotely.
John: Shoot!
Greta: You know we all used to meet on a Friday after work for a beer.
John: Or two! I miss that.
Greta: Well, I was thinking. Couldn’t we do it virtually? We use videoconferences for our Monday morning meetings. So, on Fridays, instead of discussing business, we could all drink a beer or something and have a chat. What do you think?
John: I think that’s a great idea.
Greta: Excellent. I’ll talk to the others and set it up for this coming Friday afternoon.
John: Thanks! I’m sure it’ll be fun!