We are all familiar with the 5 stages of grief- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.\u00a0 We also know that everyone grieves differently and some people skip entire stages.\u00a0 Everyone is different.<\/p>\n
Keeping that in mind, I’m rapidly approaching the 6 month mark of working from home.\u00a0 I am so blessed and grateful that this was available to me.\u00a0 However, it’s not something I ever wished for.\u00a0 \u00a0And, to be completely honest, when I was first asked if I thought I could be productive working from home I wasn’t 100% sure I could be.\u00a0 But I knew the right answer was yes, so that’s what I said.\u00a0 And thankfully it turns out that I was right!\u00a0 But that doesn’t mean it’s been all rainbows and unicorns.\u00a0 So, here is my take on the 5 stages of working from home:<\/p>\n
#1 Denial.\u00a0 If you would have asked me 9 months ago if it was even possible for me to do my job from home I would have said no.\u00a0 \u00a0I need to access my file room and other departments.\u00a0 I need to have my PC and my 2 monitors and the rest of my cube set up.<\/p>\n
#2 Shock.\u00a0 One Friday afternoon I loaded up my PC, some binders and a few other things and took them home.\u00a0 I felt numb walking out of the building.\u00a0 I felt fear setting up my new work station in my back room.\u00a0 I felt fear logging into the remote access software for the first 2 weeks.\u00a0 I just couldn’t believe this was really happening.<\/p>\n
#3 Anger.\u00a0 Things that I could do in 5 minutes now take me 2 hours.\u00a0 I’m playing phone tag with people who used to sit 10 feet from me.\u00a0 I’m left out of meetings and announcements (not intentionally, but it happens).\u00a0 I miss out on the frequent parade of treats being brought in.\u00a0 I don’t know the answers to questions on new products because I’ve not had a chance to see them being produced.\u00a0 Things are misconstrued in emails and require twice as long to resolve because of misunderstandings.\u00a0 There are times I want to chuck my phone against a wall, but then I realize it’s MY phone and that wouldn’t hurt anyone but me.<\/p>\n
#4 Acceptance.\u00a0 I can sleep in 45 later now!\u00a0 I don’t have to do my hair or put on makeup!\u00a0 I can work in my PJs (for the record I don’t)!\u00a0 I don’t have to deal with office gossip or drama.\u00a0 I can have lunch with my husband more often.\u00a0 \u00a0 No commute! Maybe this isn’t so bad after all!<\/p>\n
#5 Depression.\u00a0 This, unfortunately, is where I am now.\u00a0 I’m losing language skills and forgetting words I’ve known for decades.\u00a0 I’m getting more and more paranoid when I DO leave the house.\u00a0 My concentration levels are falling and I’m getting more easily irritated with really small things that wouldn’t have bothered me even 2 months ago.\u00a0 My sleep patterns are all messed up.\u00a0 My diet is looking more and more like that of a 3 year old.\u00a0 I’m addicted to YouTube videos of a cockatoo!\u00a0 I don’t floss (I usually did that in my car). I’m getting through with the help of my doctor, but some days I really just hate everything and everyone (pity my poor husband) and just want to sleep for 20 hours a day. \u00a0It’s a lot different than I ever expected, and while again, I know I am very fortunate that I’ve been able to keep working, some days it’s hard to remember that.<\/p>\n
Now, this is of course just my experience- yours may vary.\u00a0 But before you say “Oh wow, I wish I could work from home” really think about what that means in terms of human interaction, ease of access to information, and your family\/ housemates.\u00a0 There is a lot more upside to going to the office than I ever could have imagined 6 months ago!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We are all familiar with the 5 stages of grief- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.\u00a0 We also know that everyone grieves differently and some people skip entire stages.\u00a0 Everyone is different. Keeping that in mind, I’m rapidly approaching the 6 month mark of working from home.\u00a0 I am so blessed and grateful that this was available to me.\u00a0 However,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","category-myself"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/work-from-home-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}