Ready, set, wait: Return to the office seemingly on permanent delay

If you had asked Jonathan Clark last summer if he would still be working from his basement in April, he would have told you absolutely not. But there he sits, bookended by a ping-pong table stacked high with folded laundry and an unridden bike he purchased on Craigslist last year.

“I don’t think there was any way I would have seen myself working from home at this point,” says Clark, 37, and a purchasing agent for a large office supply company. “But then again, I thought that we would be done with this by now because I thought people really wanted to move on. I don’t think that’s the case.”

Clark says there are inconsistent messages coming from employers, employees and all parties involved in his back-to-work future. “It’s like ‘let’s go back to work when everyone’s safe’ but then it’s like ‘well, even when we’re safe we’re just going to work from home,’” Clark says. “And then you read articles about how the workfrom-home thing is overrated and then you read about how companies are selling off their office space and probably will never return to a normal office again. So, I really don’t know what to think.”

All Clark can do, he says, is to work and wait. “I just keep putting in the hours. I just keep waiting for the green light,” he says.

But he is starting to get concerned that when that green light comes, he’ll be forced to make an abrupt shift in how he lives his life.

“I’m a little concerned about how it’s going to go,” he says. “There are a lot of intangibles. Simple things like the time I will spend commuting and complex things like who’s going to bring our daughter to daycare? There will be a lot to figure out.”

Psychologist Kate Sullivan says as difficult as it is, frustrated employees have to remain patient, both now and when they’re told to go back. “Don’t expect to jump back in and have everything be ‘normal’ instantly. It’s going to take some mental gear-shifting and you’re going to be running slower than usual for a week or two,” Sullivan says. “Build that into your workload and expectations of yourself and you’ll have a much easier time transitioning back.”