Welcome to the new world of working from home. Sure, there’s no commute, but there’s also no barista, no going out for lunch, no reason to get dressed up. What we’re discovering is that it can be awkward, but also full of heart and, sometimes, even funny.
Lesson 1: Juggling kids and work has never been trickier
Consider what “shelter in place” looks like for 35-year-old Erin Butler and her family in Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ. Butler has climbed the rungs of Citrix’s corporate ladder for the past 14 years, so handling her responsibilities shouldn’t be a problem, even if it’s really busy. (Citrix provides remote digital workspaces, among other things.)
But add a 2- and a 5-year-old, minus the grandparents, who usually help out but are isolating, and you find Butler and her husband waking up to discuss coordinating conference- call schedules as well as creating timetables for feeding, nurturing and entertaining their kids.
When neither is available, they pull out the Little Tikes bounce house. “It can keep them busy for quite a while,” Butler says. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
With both of them home 24/7, Butler also decided now was a good time to potty train their almost 3-year-old son. His desire to make a big-boy poop came while Dad was on an important call and Mom was in a virtual conference. “What could I do? I hit mute and took him to the bathroom. Thank God I didn’t have the video on,” she says.
Lesson 2: The video conference call is a minefield
One enterprising software salesman would tell us his work-from-home story only if we agreed not to use his real name. The 41-year-old was on a Zoom video call when his partner ran buck naked from the shower to the bedroom. “I was the one speaking. All eyes were on me. There’s no way that my boss and team didn’t notice the nudity,” he says.
But “Jones” went on with the call as if nothing had happened, which is exactly the right thing to do, says etiquette coach Maggie Adams.
“There’s no need to put others in an awkward situation,” she says.
Life coach Marie Singer, from Florham Park, NJ, says there’s no need to get too upset about something like this. “Everyone is working from home and staying in place; it is an unnatural situation,” she says. “All kinds of unusual and unpredictable things are going to happen.”
Suzy Shugg, CEO of Teleplus Healthcare and clinical lipid specialist at NJ Cardiology Associates, discovered this to be true while working from home and caring for her husband, who had COVID-19.
Shugg had taken one of the few gaps in her schedule to jump into the shower before a conference call that she believed was audio-only. When she joined it half-dressed and looked at her computer screen, she was shocked — the camera was on and pointed at her crotch.
“There was the lower half of my body covered only by bright pink underwear,” she says. She grabbed a blanket, adjusted the camera and rejoined the conversation as if nothing had happened. Although at first she was alarmed, “I now think it’s funny,” says Shugg. “There’s other stuff going on if you want to get upset.”
And no, the answer isn’t to turn off the camera for group calls — it implies that you’re doing something else and don’t think the others on the call are worth your undivided attention, says Adams.
Lesson 3: Finding your own space is key
Lynn Smith, anchor of the HLN (CNN Headline News) 10 a.m. program “On the Story,” always thought that working from home in her profession was impossible. The pandemic has proven her wrong. Now she is doing her show from her home’s “basement bureau” via her phone and some bright lights.
On weekday mornings, just before 8:50 a.m., Smith tells her 4-year-old son that it’s time to go outside for recess (or to the garage if it’s inclement weather) before she starts work. Her husband or their au pair watches him and their other 1-year-old son while they play.
“Sometimes they send me texts while I’m doing the show, asking if they can come in the house yet,” says Smith.
She spends time with the boys after the show, but before retreating to her closet to make phone calls, interview and write scripts for the next day. “It’s the only place in the house that is quiet,” she says.
There is an upside, though. “Usually, I leave the house around 4 a.m.,” she says. “Now I’m here when everyone wakes up. It’s nice.”
Charly Rok, a vice president at Edelman, takes it all in stride. She’s been answering phone calls while sitting on the bathroom floor or in her building’s stairwell. “My husband and I both have loud voices, and we live in a loft,” she says.
Lesson 4: You need to have a bit of give and take
Some space-sharers have created an imaginary co-worker to blame things on. Why fight with your roommate or significant other about empty coffee pots, dirty mugs left in the sink or the printer being out of ink when you can blame Jim, that lazy old slug?
And sometimes, the rest of the household needs some downtime regardless of your schedule. Jennifer Barish, an office manager at Woodbury, NY-based small business loan provider Lendio, now works from her aunt and uncle’s kitchen table in Lindenhurst, NY.
On March 26, her uncle and cousin spent the afternoon in the living room celebrating baseball’s opening day — taped from a previous year, that is — complete with Mets jerseys, hot dogs and general ballpark revelry.
“I love baseball,” she says, reckoning her employer would understand even if her full attention wasn’t on her work.
Says Singer: “For now, we all have to be flexible.”