Ghost of one’s self: A return to the workplace may be an eerie experience

Are you still working from home? Good for you — if that’s what you want — but for many work-from-home employees, the gig is just about up. More companies are asking — OK, telling — their employees to get back to the office and unless you can reach a compromise on your schedule and location, you may find yourself back at your desk — and not the one next to the Peloton in your basement.

“I have to tell you, it was like coming back from vacation, only 10 times worse,” says Susan, an account rep for a large marketing firm in Chicago, who didn’t want her last name used. “As soon as I was in that elevator, my heart sank. I thought I was going to cry. Wait, actually, I did cry. It was awful.”

Six months later, Susan says she still feels a sense of doom showing up to the office on Monday mornings but for the most part, she says she’s “back in her groove.” Kind of. “I’m still trying to negotiate to work from home two or three days a week but it’s not going well,” Susan says. “I have a review coming up in November and that’s going to be a sticking point for me. I am already looking for a new job and I think I can find one fairly easily. I do like where I work, but this whole notion of showing up five days a week in the office seems

pretty archaic.”

Step by step

Returning to the office is a process, says Sharon Rodriguez, a career coach in Portland, Oregon. “You shouldn’t expect to come back being 100 percent enthusiastic,” Rodriguez says. “It’s pretty daunting, actually, so you’re going to be apprehensive and a little scared of what’s to come.”

Heather Younger, the author of “The 7 Intuitive Laws of Employee Loyalty” and CEO of Customer Fanatix, LLC, a leadership training firm in Denver, Colorado, says that it’s important for employees to ease back into a routine. “Go slowly into the normal routine and give yourself and others grace as you transition back into a new normal,” says Younger. “Take time to get to know your

coworkers again, since the distance may have created some disconnection.”

Although you may be back on familiar ground, Younger also says it’s important to be flexible in your thinking. “There may be new ways to do things. You might be able to be a resource to help in the transition, which could help in your

career progression,” she says. “Be the solution and not the problem to what the new workplace can look like. Minimize

negative thinking and interactions.”

Lessons learned

Career coach Carlota Zimmerman suggests finding a coworker who can support you when you do return to work. “Remember how on elementary school field trips we were all assigned a buddy who would watch over us and keep us safe, and we did the same for them? Get an office buddy — someone you can go to in moments of stress, someone who won’t dismiss your anxiety and concerns but will hear and help you,” Zimmerman says.

When heading back to work, remember some of the methods you used while working from home to focus. “Think about what rituals have helped you remain calm and productive and take some time to consider how you can continue implementing them back in the office,” says Zimmerman.

Susan says she’s taken some solace in the fact that many of her coworkers are going through the same emotions and has offered to help those who have just begun the transition. “We’ve been coming back in waves and this month, we had maybe five or six people come back,” she says. “And I want to be supportive. I guess I feel I have to be. You should see the look on some people’s faces when they walk back in for the first time — it’s like all the blood leaves their face and they stand there sinking in this newfound depression.”

Susan says she knows that feeling well. “For sure. I was pretty unhappy for the first couple of months,” she says.

And now? “Not happy. Not sad. Not angry or upset,” Susan says. “Just sort

of blah about the whole thing, which I guess is actually worse.”

– Marco Buscaglia