WFH - In my entire life, this is the most I have been exposed to family while doing office work.

Past five weeks working from home have been a life-changing time for me and my family. We have been following #Socialdistancing and #lockdown ( and #lockdown2.0 ) very diligently which is the need of the hour. My entire family have not come out of our apartment this long except a couple of times when I had to pick up eCommerce deliveries which were hardly a couple of times and that’s too with professional protective gears. It’s a different kind of life for sure. Let me share a few things from my personal POV how things have changed.

a.     MY Schedule:

Earlier I had very defined time boundaries for my #WorkWeek.

1. <Get Ready for office>
2. <Commute>
3. <In Office>
4. <Commute Back>
5. <Few meetings>
6. <Family/Personal time>

Items in bold above were dedicated #officework times. Now with #WFH, these boundaries have totally melted. It is 24/7 office time now, I have not been able to maintain a fixed office schedule. And slowly it is impacting my lifestyle. For most of us, since the start of our career, we are not used to working this way. Most of us are used to [Work][Break][Work][Break] kind of pattern whereas now it is difficult to figure out when you are working and when not, you are working all the time. Getting irritated more often than before which is not good. Let’s see how we cope up with it going forward, I am sure we will find ways to deal with it, as human by nature is very adaptable. If you have any innovative thoughts and ideas, request you to please share.

b.    How things have changed with my Mother

When you mix home and office together for an elongated period, it a different world not just for you but for your family as well. Example: My mother has never seen me like this and now I am a different “me” for her after she sees me WFH for so long. I am not sure whether it is good or bad, but it is different.

Sometimes she just starts a topic to talk about when she finds me free (She thinks I am free when I am not on a call or not in my laptop, which is not true as the mind is preoccupied with office threads). Most of the topic of discussion are some memories from the distant past when we were kids and how things were back then and how everything has changed. Sometimes I get irritated, but I try to control myself. She is the backbone of our family; these few weeks have made that clearer. These days we are busy with so-called bigger things in life, but what I have learned is finally you get solace in smaller things and her topics of discussion are small and solace-giving. Memories have the strength and her old stories are the memories which give me strength.

My WFH has changed my mother’s daily routine as well. She has stopped switching on the TV thinking it might disturb me while I am on meetings despite me asking her not to change her usual daily routine. She is not listening and sometimes missing the re-telecast of Ramayana & Mahabharata ☹

Most of the time she is busy in the kitchen and makes sure pressure cooker whistle or grinder noise does not disturb me or my wife during office meeting calls. She times her cooking accordingly. She gives her heart & soul to make the recipe delicious to hear a few words of appreciation from me which she asks immediately even before I take the first gulp “How is the preparation”. I get a bit irritated (which I know I should not) because she still treats me as a 10-year-old kid. But I immediately reply “It’s yummy mummy .. very delicious”.

c.     How things have changed with my Kids:

 Staying in a 2 BHK apartment, I can’t really avoid the kids for the entire day while WFH. In my entire life, this is the most I have been exposed to family while doing office work. The other day my son was asking, “Papa, why were you arguing on the phone?” I had no answer as I advise them not to argue. Also, they had a different perception on the way I work at the office and now I hear, “Ohh, this is how you work in the office? ” – I did not understand what did they mean? I am not sure whether their perception has changed in a good way or a bad way.  

On top of all this, the problem is bigger when you have a working spouse. Kids asking “[Papa meeting] [Mamma Meeting] [Papa meeting] [Pappa & Mamma Meeting] [Mamma Meeting]. What is this? We can’t even talk louder. Life is boring, etc etc.” Then they have demands of Junk food (Chips, Coke, Chocolate etc) and now you can’t order junk food as there are no delivery slots available either in Bigbasket, Amazon Fresh, Dunzo, Grofers or any other online grocery delivery. But the positive side of it is, after so long without Junk food, what I realize is kids can survive without it.

Kids are used to going somewhere in summer vacation, and now they feel like they are missing something big this year. But finally settled down with FFH (Fun from Home) concept. The iPad & laptop has become their best friends, playing some social games with school friends which I don’t have any idea. I have made a routine for them where they had to do 30 – 45 minutes exercise everyday morning and immediately take bath. After the bath, they must go through BYJU’s one chapter for the upcoming class and they have been doing that very religiously as a Task. After the task is done, it’s their own time until late evening/night when we all get some common time together. So, they have adjusted to this kind of summer vacation somehow.

Also, they have been experimenting with few cool AR features in Google. Sharing one picture here where my son has made a pet Tiger 😊 You should try with your kids, am sure they will love it.

d.    How things have changed with my wife:

She has become busier than ever - Office work, Kids work, household work. I feel like she is doing more office work from home than when she was working from the office. COVID-19 has not slowed down e-commerce for sure, I realize that (she works for Target Corp). Though I help with household chores, she owns that and assigns tasks to me. She delegates tasks like vegetable cutting, kneading dough etc to me. She had been a cleanliness freak even before COVID-19, but now it has become so much that the rest of family members finding it hard to cope up with her obsession with cleanliness. But the good part is, as they say, it becomes a habit if you do something for continuous 21 days, now it has become a habit for all of us.  We all have learned that living an Ultra-hygienic life is not that difficult. The reason I say "Ultra-hygienic" is because she even cleans each and every vegetable individually after we get it from outside in soap water (Onion, Garlic etc included) and then we dry all of them, either in the balcony or on the floor inside.

Vegetable natural drying

Anyway, in this process, we have cultivated a few good habits. Thanks to her. Hopefully, she will not be this strict in the Post-COVID era 😊

I am sure we will see through this situation soon and back to our normal life. Eager to go out in the open and have a tea on the roadside stall :-)

Be healthy, be safe.

(Request you to share your experience).