Of working from home
children have faced some unique challenges.
‘The people I do feel sorry for are those with small kids, ours are 12, 14, 17, and are mostly able to look after themselves. The two boys go to St Peter’s, my daughter is in the Gaelscoil. They’re all getting loads done,’ Ronan says.
‘But I know a lot of my colleagues have younger kids, and they’ve been trying to implement rota systems, taking turns to look after the children while still trying to work. And that’s tough for people, it’s mentally draining.’
While no-one knows how long this situation will last, how long it will be before those eerily silent offices are brought back to life, Ronan believes the lockdown has given many employers food for thought.
‘Because this working from home situation has gone so well a lot of employers will be rethinking things, wondering if, for example, they need all that office space.
‘And I’d be surprised if my own bosses don’t decide to encourage people to work from home more often. I’d like to keep doing it, for maybe one day a week anyway.’
Annette Soraine
WHEREAS some people are finding working from home more difficult with each passing day for Annette Soraine it’s been the other way around.
‘I found that the first few weeks were harder and that it’s got easier as I’ve gone along. I’ve somehow acclimatised to it, or maybe it’s like Stockholm Syndrome,’ she laughs.
Chief Commercial Officer at Innovate, Annette’s work involves spreadsheets, having multiple documents on the go at any given time. And because of this she needed to transport a lot of equipment to her home when the lockdown begun.
Now stationed at the kitchen table she makes sure that come Friday evenings a semblance of normality returns to the house she shares with son, Finn (12).
‘I’m working from the kitchen table, it was the easiest place to set up because of all the screens. But at the weekend I take everything off the table, clear it away, I think it’s important to do that, to switch off. Otherwise it’s always there,’ she says.
And although Finn, who Annette describes as ‘fairly self-guided’, is keeping engaged with his teachers, using Google classroom, working on a project about the Triassic Period, there is time for play during his day.
‘He’s missing his sports, he’s big into soccer and rugby,’ says Annette. ‘He’s part of the Rotherham development squad, and he’s getting soccer skills classes from Derby County online.
‘So that’s keeping him active and he’s learning something. He is on the PlayStation sometimes but he’s able to talk to his friends there and that’s important, it’s good he can stay connected with them.’
Annette is staying active too, a homemade gym providing an outlet when she needs a break from those screens.
‘We have a treadmill in the garage, some boxing gloves, weights, so we’d have a session out there some evenings. We go for walks too, the river is nearby and there’s a nice loop inside our 2km. Sometimes at lunch you need to step away for a while and get out of the house.’
But she too is missing the office, and not just the banter and laughs side of things.
‘I love meeting people being out and about, we are communicating, but I really miss the people interaction, the office chat and the coffee. Also I miss making decisions as a team, being able to come together and share ideas.’
Aoife Connick:
WITH three children under the age of five, Aoife Connick’s home life is usually a busy one. But when she was forced to bring her work home, and into a living space which is cramped at the best of times, everything became that little bit more chaotic.
‘I’m working at the kitchen table, and we’re in a mobile home at the moment because we’re saving for a mortgage,’ Aoife explains. ‘Space is tight. I start at 9 a.m. and work through the day, but that includes going up and down to the kids a hundred times to get them stuff or help with something.’
As Acting Manager at Skillnet, Aoife is responsible for the organisation and running of training courses, work which must all now be done online. And with her husband still required to travel to his workplace, only working from home for part of the day, Aoife has her hands full in her new office.
‘My children are fighting for my attention all the time, all they see is that I’m at home, they don’t understand why we can’t go out and do the things we’d usually do when I’m at home,’ she says.
‘Ater we get them to bed at 7 p.m. I go back online and answer emails. It’s tough going but I’m getting my work done.’
Somewhere in between all of that the family do take the time to get out and enjoy some fresh air and avail of some wide-open spaces within their 2km radius.
‘We get out in the afternoons, the school is nearby so we go in there and they run around the pitch. We’re also lucky enough to have three beaches within the 2km,’ Aoife says.
Ultimately though, she says she’s looking forward to the day when she can return to the office, the real one.
I’m looking forward to getting back in the office, to having a cup of tea in peace,’ she says laughing. ‘I miss the social side big time, although we’re only a small team we’re very close, there’s one girl who works there who I was friends with for ten years before we even started working together.’
Tanya Harris and Nicole Kotras are Chartered Clinical Psychologists and co-owners of Think Psychology. They discuss how working from home is impacting on us and how those living alone, and those with children, can improve their wellbeing during the lockdown.
Balancing work and home lives:
Working alone will suit some and not others. We all need a mix of human interaction and solitude. For many, work provides much-needed daily social interaction, which they might lack now. For others, being stuck in a full house means they are not getting enough solitude.
And it can become very easy for work to spill into private time, especially when work time may be being interrupted by parenting responsibilities.
There can be a constant feeling of being busy but not productive, and a consequent frustration and guilt that ‘I’m not doing anything properly’. Because of this, we encourage people to notice their need to ‘escape’ and deliberately set personal limits.
If it is not possible to ‘hide’ your work station, we suggest you stick to a planned routine and ‘put work away’ at a certain time.
What is important to recognise is that all of us are going to experience periods of shut-down, or overload. We don’t have to judge ourselves harshly for that. In fact, we need to kindly and compassionately help ourselves by doing something that is nourishing and calming for us. Take a time out and go back to it when we are restored. We suggest doing this little and often with short, but multiple, time outs.
It’s important to remember that the current situation is not the norm, so our expectations of ourselves and others need to be recalibrated too. The ideal is to kindly do what we can do, and accept that we cannot perform at maximum capacity in vastly altered circumstances.
Parents:
Some have the added stress of trying to parent and work from the same space, while their children have the added stress of trying to do school work from home (while being deprived of the play time with friends they would usually have).
It’s the perfect storm for relationships to be under significant strain. So again, relax the expectations a bit.
It’s about doing what works, including having some routine; allowing children to have a say in what new routine would work for them. Create breaks to recharge. Communicate clearly with all in the home about your own limits and expectations, while hearing their expectations. And finally, expect interruptions.
Guilt is rife amongst parents. It is important for parents to be self-compassionate and kind towards themselves for the position they find themselves in. Parents are under huge strain to ‘do it all’ and to ‘get it right’. In fairness, we need to compromise.
We need to let go of some things and decide what’s really important to us. It’s okay to relax some rules a bit - including being a bit more flexible about screen time - but it is more important than ever to offer children guidance.
Children are subject to the same pre-conditions for developing a trauma response that adults are.
So we can as easily help them by: remaining calm and reassuring; being open and honest with them - age-appropriately sharing facts and not fuelling fears; keeping a flexible routine; getting them physically active for part of the day; being close to them when they need us; managing screen time; finding ways to connect with friends; and spending time doing an activity together at some point in the day.
Discussing the future:
Fortunately, we are a very adaptable species. Just as we are adapting now, we will adapt when things change again. Children of different ages are likely to respond differently, but most will take their cue from how we as adults respond. It is really important to talk things through with children and other family members, to listen to their worries, and also to be able to be calm and positive about the future.
We all cope better when we are prepared for a change. So talking calmly about the pros and cons of how things have changed, as well as the pros and cons of future changes, can help children see that there is always something to look forward to, and something to appreciate in the now. If people are feeling too overwhelmed to talk through things calmly, it may be time to seek assistance.
We are aware that people are inundated with advice about how to cope and what to do during this time.
All the advice can be overwhelming too. Sometimes it leaves people feeling bad that they aren’t ‘doing more to cope’ or aren’t ‘coping better’.
We are all better off doing a few little things that are helpful for us in the day. Mostly, we need to be kind to ourselves about our struggles. We are all more the same than we are different.